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New EDFL Concentrations

We are excited to welcome students into our two new doctoral program concentrations!  The first, headed by Christine Briggs, Ph.D., and Donna Wadsworth, Ph.D., is the Exceptional Learner Concentration, which focuses on providing the knowledge and skills that offer effective administrative support for special and gifted education teachers.  The second program, under the directorship of Peter Sheppard, Ph.D., is the Curriculum Leadership Concentration, and it's focus is on the need to address the growing emphasis of modes of teaching and learning to support pedagogy for diverse populations.  The Curriculum Leadership Concentration will give students the knowledge and skills needed to provide effective instructional leadership, and the Exceptional Learners Concentration will give students a better understanding of the needs of special and gifted education and the kind of administrative support required for them to be effective.

The new concentrations are collaborations between Educational Leadership and Curriculum & Instruction, and are unique in that they offer levels of interdepartmental cooperation and interaction that are not often seen in many education departments in American universities.  It is a distinctive interdisciplinary opportunity that integrates two departments in creative ways, and we look forward to passing that creativity on to our incoming cohorts.

Pictured above: Students in the Exceptional Learner Concentration meet for their first class, EDLD 890.

Dr. Briggs is the Director for the Center for Gifted Education, Dr. Wadsworth is the Graduate Coordinator for Special Education, and Dr. Sheppard is the Head of Curriculum & Instruction at UL.