Educational Leadership and Policy Studies

The EACS Program offers a Master's, certification (principal and superintendent) and Doctoral programs (Ed.D. and Ph.D.) to provide preparation for leadership positions in elementary and secondary school systems, district-level positions, administrative roles in government, researcher roles in policy and advocacy centers, and scholarly positions in colleges and universities. The EACS faculty is comprised of scholars and practitioners who have experience and understand issues facing schools and districts, and are committed to providing an enriched curriculum to equip educational leaders with the habits of mind, habits of hand, and habits of heart that are needed to develop stewards of the discipline (as termed by the Carnegie Foundation). The diverse selection of elective courses provides for shaping the individual's degree program according to their professional interests at both the doctoral and master's levels. Program offerings are located on both the Norman and Tulsa campuses.

EDS faculty and graduate students teach a foundational core course and urban field experience for undergraduate pre-service teachers. The EDS program offers liberally educated practitioners of education an interdisciplinary option for individualized pursuit of the M.Ed. and Ph.D. within a community of collaborative learning, original inquiry, and mutual support.

Currently active in human relations, women's & gender studies, religious studies, and the TE-PLUS program, EDS faculty provide close mentorship to graduate students and are themselves well-published scholars with extensive professional backgrounds as educators in day-care centers, schools, colleges, universities, and social settlements. Graduate study in EDS has an explicit research, teaching, and service mission: To foster social justice, non-violence, and democratic life through interpretive, critical, and normative inquiry in historical, philosophical, legal, social, and cultural studies of education--education for children and for adults, by various means, formal and informal, in diverse settings, local and global.

The University of Oklahoma has an accredited program for the preparation of school principals who are part of the state alternative certification program.  Alternatively certified candidates must complete an approved administrator preparation program of study in not more than three years (Oklahoma Statutes, 70-6-189(C)).  The preparation program at OU consists of a minimum 27 graduate credit hours PLUS the successful completion of an EACS Comprehensive Portfolio.

Learn More About Principal Certification

The University of Oklahoma has a program for the preparation of school superintendents (Oklahoma Statutes, 70-6-189(C)) that focuses on district level educational leadership competencies.  The preparation program at OU consists of a minimum 25 graduate credit hours.

Learn More About Superintendent Certification