Educational Leadership Major, EdD
The Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies offers a Doctor of Education (EdD) degree. The four-year, 60 credit hour scholar-practitioner degree focuses on advanced district level knowledge and leadership skills and prepares individuals for the growing variety of school and school district leadership positions including the superintendency. The program uses a combination of delivery systems to accommodate working professionals including regular face-to-face weekend meetings once a month, occasional face-to-face courses, and online and hybrid courses.
Admissions Criteria and Academic Standards
All applicants for the EdD program must meet the general admission requirements of the Graduate School, as well as admission requirements for the program. Applicants must meet the following Graduate School requirements:
- Admission to graduate study requires a bachelor’s degree with a satisfactory grade point average (GPA) from a college or university accredited by the appropriate regional accrediting agency or foreign equivalent. For Graduate School GPA requirements, refer to the section on Academic Policies and Requirements for Graduate Students.
- For additional information, refer to the Graduate Admissions webpage at http://gradschool.utk.edu/admissions/
EdD Admissions Criteria
To be considered for admission to the EdD, applicants must meet the following minimum requirements:
- Master’s degree (or equivalent) from a regionally accredited university or foreign equivalent
- Cumulative GPA of 3.0 on all prior graduate work
- Three years of experience in school or district leadership
- Recent GRE scores (not more than 5 years old at the time of admission)
Application materials contain both the Graduate School and the department application. The application materials are processed by the Graduate Admissions Office and forwarded to the academic department for review by the EdD Admissions Committee, which consists of all educational leadership faculty members serving in the program. In the admissions process, a number of factors are considered holistically, including:
- GPA
- GRE scores
- Resume/CV
- Statement of Purpose Essay
- Three reference letters. One must be from a supervisor familiar with the candidate’s leadership experience.
Doctoral Committee Formation
The EdD committee consists of three members of the ELPS department. Two of the three must be doctoral directive. A student may choose a faculty member from outside of the department as one of the three committee members.
Comprehensive Examination
At the completion of the formal coursework (48 hours), students will be required to pass a comprehensive examination administered by the EdD faculty. The purpose of the examination is to assess the student’s mastery of the material and ability to synthesize and apply what was learned to practice-based settings and problems. In order to sit for the comprehensive examination, students must have at least a 3.0 cumulative GPA from course work. Successful passing of the comprehensive examination is requisite to advancing to formally working on an applied problem of practice within the framework of the Doctoral Applied Research course. Current rules of the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences and the Graduate School will apply to degree requirements and readiness to advance to the doctoral applied research portion of the degree.
The comprehensive examination for the EdD degree will follow the department’s procedures for the PhD degree. The examination will be developed by the student’s doctoral committee and guided by the chair of the committee. The student will have 6 weeks to prepare answers to the questions before submitting them to the committee. The student will arrange for an oral defense of the comprehensive exam no sooner than two weeks from the date of the submission of the responses to all members. At the oral defense, the committee will question the student about the responses submitted and vote on whether the student has passed or failed the comprehensive exam. The report of the outcome of the examination will be formally reported to the Graduate School.
Admission to Candidacy
The student will be admitted to degree candidacy upon successful completion of the following requirements:
- Submission and approval of the Admission to Candidacy application.
- Successful completion of 48 graduate credit hours (27 doctoral core and foundation credit hours, 21 specialized credit hours).
- Successful achievement of a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or above in the doctoral program, with no more than two grades below a “B” grade.
- Successful passage of the comprehensive examination.
- To meet the Graduate School requirement of 72 total graduate hours, students may list on the Admission to Candidacy Application up to 12 credit hours of previous graduate course work (from the Master’s or EdS degree).
Additional Requirements for Graduation:
- Approved Admission to Candidacy Application.
- Successful completion of a minimum of 12 credit hours of ELPS 601 (Doctoral Applied Research).
- Successful defense (Pass) of the work from ELPS 601 (Doctoral Applied Research).
Residence
Residence is defined as full-time registration for a given semester on the campus where the program is located. For the doctoral degree, a minimum of two consecutive semesters of residence is required.
