JDP publishes forum

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January 9, 2007
For immediate release

The UC Santa Barbara/Cal Poly Joint Doctoral Program (JDP) is pleased to announce publication of its new journal: Central California Instructional Leadership Forum. The inaugural issue highlights the dissertation research of the program’s first June 06 graduates. Topics range from increasing literacy in kindergarten students, to configuring grade levels in high poverty, rural schools, to improving engagement in at risk junior high school students, to maintaining academic quality during declining enrollments, and to the implementation of student learning outcomes in community college settings. In addition to the print edition, the journal can also be read on line.

In his introduction to this edition Executive Editor and JDP Program Leader Dr. Jim Block writes: “The journal provides a forum for discussing and disseminating regional and distinctive instructional leadership ideas and practices. Forums have historically provided a vehicle for bi-directionality in communication between speakers and their audiences. Our Forum is designed to stimulate on-going public dialogue between university researchers and regional educational professionals about the big and small picture instructional leadership issues bedeviling Central California. The JDP intends the Forum to serve as a primary regional outlet for infusing P-16 schooling with university-generated scholarship and as an inlet for infusing university scholarship with actual problems of professional practice.”

The Joint Degree Program focuses on non-urban schools, like many of those in Central California, and combines the research aims of the University of California with the learn-by-doing focus at Cal Poly. Students in this innovative program spend their first year at UCSB completing core courses in educational leadership, policy, and organizations and in research methodology. They spend their second year completing a set of advanced doctoral seminars and practica at Cal Poly on information technology, policy and politics, learning organizations, organizational management, and financial leadership. While this coursework is underway, they also participate in ongoing research projects in various central coast Professional Development Districts, crafting solutions to regional educational problems. Students spend their final year of study completing coursework at both Cal Poly and UCSB as they research and write their dissertations. These dissertations cover topics such as increasing engagement among at-risk junior high school students and how new accreditation standards affect learning at community colleges.

[Jim Block is available for interviews; to arrange an interview, contact George Yatchisin at 805 893 5789]

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