The independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871

The Daily Illini

The independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871

The Daily Illini

The independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871

The Daily Illini

The independent student newspaper at the University of Illinois since 1871

The Daily Illini

Newly launched University of Illinois education unit combines old department with the new

Beginning this semester, the College of Education launched a new department: the department of educational policy, organization and leadership.

The department combines three already existing departments within the college: educational organizational leadership, educational policy studies, and human resources education, said James Anderson, head of the new department.

“I was already head of the educational policy studies department. The other two departments, as we moved towards reorganization, did not have permanent heads but interims in both places,” Anderson said.

He added that the process of establishing the department began about three years ago with talks with Dean of Education Mary Kalantzis.

“It is a long process. We met for a year as a task force, composed of faculty from each unit to simply go over the opportunities of reorganization and what would be some of the strengths in the new unit. We went over every issue again and again for a year,” Anderson said.

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From there, a proposal had to be submitted to the Urbana-Champaign Senate Education Policy Committee, which came to the college for a hearing, after which the proposal passed and went to the Office of the Provost, Anderson said. After that, the proposal goes to the Board of Trustees and then to the Illinois Board of Higher Education for final approval.

“It wasn’t until last fall that we finally got word that the reorganization had finally been approved,” Anderson said.

At first, the task force, made up of education faculty and staff did not think the reorganization would work, he said. All sides were initially hesitant, because it would change the class structure that has been already present for decades.

“I think all sides were a little reluctant to engage in the process. But we saw that there were some things that we could pinpoint as being stronger, things like the whole field of higher education,” Anderson said.

Though each department focused on higher education, Anderson said the new department was better at specializing in the field.

“We realized that when we merge, we bring the entire faculty in higher education together to create a much stronger, more diverse and expansive field of higher education that could make us one of the top higher education programs in the country,” Anderson said.

The merger brings people from all fields of education, including people with research grants, specializations, and more.

“I feel like (the switch) is just a title, because I already know the faculty from each department because my work has been spanned across those departments. This is my last semester, so I don’t feel like it is a switch for me. But it may be for other students,” said Chamara Kwakye, graduate student.

Jennifer Felt, freshman in Education, said she also does not feel there has been a change or that anything is different in her foundations of education policy studies.

“In some ways (the purpose of the department) is consistent with the traditional strengths of the original departments. But we are primarily a graduate department, even though we do have some undergraduate courses,” Anderson said.

The reorganization has not disrupted the graduate classes that have already been in place, with all the original classes from each of the three departments still continuing, Anderson said. He added that they will be creating a few new classes that are the same across the unit.

The current programs include education administration, higher education, human resource development, history of education, philosophy of education, global studies of education, and socioculture of education.

As of now, no new programs have been created, but Anderson said they are thinking about creating new ones in the future, such as a program in technology studies in education.

“Even though there are so many people on the faculty, I still like the synergy of the new unit,” said Jeanne Connell, professor in Education.

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