Department of Educational Leadership
and Cultural Foundations
Statement of Commitments
The Department of Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations is committed to the development of a just and caring democratic society in which schools serve as centers of inquiry and forces for social transformation. We believe that:
- education is an ongoing process of knowledge creation and acquisition, lived experience, interaction with others, and conscious reflection;
- good schooling and a good society create occasions for people to build human, intellectual, and spiritual connections;
- schools must foster social, economic, and educational equity;
- honoring differences in race, class, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and ability are critical to human understanding;
- every human being is worthy of respect and deserving of dignity.
Our purpose is to create educational leaders who work with parents, staff, students, and communities to develop critical understandings of the assumptions, beliefs, and regularities that support schooling and who identify and create practices that allow schools to function more fully as democracies while preparing students for democracy. We believe educational leaders should:
- advocate for teaching and learning by articulating and working to achieve a school-community's shared educational commitments;
- facilitate processes that engage self and others in critiquing the way things are, exploring the way life should be in moral and just communities, and stimulating action directed toward achieving the latter;
- mobilize economic, political, social, and personal resources to articulate and achieve a school-community's shared educational commitments;
- appreciate the joy of learning, delight in the growth of self and others, promote the love of learning, and create practices in schools that provide an outstanding education for all students.