Inspiring Confidence and Professional Growth in Leadership: Student Perspectives on University-District Partnership Master's Academies

Introduction School leadership matters when discussing teacher effectiveness and student performance, and preparation programs need to graduate principals with the skills necessary to lead schools for tomorrow. The traditional approach to preparing educational leaders is no longer getting the job done. It is going to take everyone working together to better prepare those who will lead the schools we need (Miller, T., Devin, M., Shoop, 2005). Working together is exactly what Kansas State University (KSU) is doing by partnering with public school leaders to design a preparation program for leaders based on an effective blend of theory and practice. This collaborative relationship, in the form of universitydistrict partnership master’s degree academies, have prepared over 300 educators in the last 15 years for various leadership responsibilities at the building level, whether serving from the classroom or in an administrative position. As students who completed such a KSU-district partnership academy as part of our professional development, we can speak to the experience of being a student in the academy and we can comment on connections between our learning experiences and the leadership roles we have assumed in the years after the academy. After reflecting on our own experiences and reaching out to other former academy students, we found that the partnership master’s academies inspire high levels of confidence and professional growth in students, and at the same time helped the students think systemically as members of a larger organization.