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Educational Organization & Leadership Faculty
Donald G. Hackmann
Associate Professor and Interim Head
Don Hackmann’s primary research agenda focuses on leadership preparation programming, including program quality, standards-based curricula, and characteristics of tenure-line and clinical educational leadership faculty members. An additional research interest addresses the principalship, focusing on effective leadership behaviors and strategies at the middle and high school levels that facilitate improved student learning, including effective supervisory approaches and the development of effective scheduling models.more information...
Kern Alexander
Professor
Kern Alexander’s current research interests include education finance and law. He has worked extensively as an expert in state school finance litigation. He is the Editor of the Journal of Education Finance and has recently completed a major revision of his widely-used graduate text, American Public School Law. Having served as president of two public universities, Alexander has an ongoing research interest in high education administrating, finance, and law.more information...
Gene Amberg
Clinical Assistant Professor
Gene Amberg brings a wealth of practitioner knowledge to the professoriate. His educational career spans years of experience in public schools, including 25 years as a practicing superintendent. Because of his 15-year tenure as superintendent of Urbana School District 116, his leadership experience in the large unit school district setting and his service to diverse communities has given him broad perspective on public education in the United States.more information...
Lorenzo Baber
Assistant Professor
Lorenzo Baber’s primary research agenda focuses on the impact of socioeconomic background and ethnicity on identity development and academic outcomes for postsecondary students. He is particularly interested in investigating the persistent educational achievement gap between minority and majority students at Predominately White Institutions. Additional research interests include examination of university-neighborhood partnership initiatives in urban communities and international comparative education.more information...
Debra Bragg
Professor
Debra Bragg’s research focuses on transition to college by youth and adults, especially student populations that have not attended college historically. She is particularly interested in how underserved youth and adult students (minority, low income, first-generation, immigrant students) use the community college to transition to higher education, including how public policies position community colleges as a primary port of entry. The expanding mission of community colleges, including the increasing importance of linkages to high schools, adult education, postsecondary education and the workforce is of particular interest. Her work is affiliated with the Office of Community College Research and Leadership (OCCRL)more information...
Timothy Reese Cain
Assistant Professor
Tim Cain’s research examines academic freedom, student speech, unionization in higher education, and related issues. His current projects include studies of the failed attempts to organize college instructors and professors in the years after World War I and an investigation into the lasting consequences of politically-motivated faculty dismissals.more information...
Richard Hunter
Professor
Richard Hunter is known for his extensive public school administrative experience in public education and for his academic research on topics in urban education, while teaching at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.more information...
Stanley Ikenberry
Regent Professor and President Emeritus
Stan Ikenberry, the former president of the University of Illinois and of the American Council of Education, teaches courses on higher education policy and leadership and serves as advisor to doctoral students. In addition, he holds an appointment as Senior Fellow in the University’s Institute of Government and Public Affairs and is Co-director of the Forum for the Future of Public Education. His current areas of interest include higher education assessment, public attitudes about higher education, and privatization of public universities.more information...
Brad Kose
Assistant Professor
Brad Kose’s research investigates how transformative principal leadership and teacher professional development influence and impact teaching practices and equitable student outcomes through qualitative and quantitative studies. Dr. Kose’s research helps illuminate how school principals can provide high-quality teacher learning opportunities for improving all students’—and especially traditionally marginalized students’—academic, social-emotional, multicultural, and citizenship development. This research suggests that contemporary theories often overlook the principal’s important role in supporting teachers’ social identity development and capacity for working with diverse students.more information...
Christopher Lubienski
Associate Professor
Chris Lubienski's research centers on public and private interests in education, including the use of market mechanisms such as choice and competition to improve schooling, especially for disadvantaged children. His work examines reforms and movements such as vouchers, charter schools, tuition tax credits, and home schooling that seek to decentralize and deregulate educational governance. He focuses on outcomes anticipated by reformers in areas such as increased innovation and higher levels of achievement, exploring the frequent disconnect between research findings and policy advocacy. He is currently investigating the organizational behavior of schools and districts in local education markets in metropolitan areas.more information...
Carolyn Shields
Professor
Carolyn Shields spent 18 years in K-12 education, including special education, French as a second language, gifted programs, and various leadership positions before completing her doctorate at the University of Saskatchewan and moving to the professorate where she is now a professor of educational leadership. Her research, teaching, and much of her advising are focused on leadership and social justice, with an emphasis on how leaders in North America and elsewhere can promote deeply democratic educational experiences for students through transformative leadership. She has published seven books and numerous articles related to these interests.more information...
Linda Sloat
Clinical Assistant Professor
Linda Sloat’s primary research interests focus on issues surrounding school improvement in K-12 education, including the administrator’s roles and responsibilities in the change process and leadership for learning at both the building and district level. During her extensive public school administrative career, she also focused on education for the gifted and literacy acquisition.more information...
Paul Thurston
Professor Emeritus
My past research has focused on school design collaborative (Ball Foundation); partnership relationship between College of Education and select schools working in a continuous improvement model; school law topics generally. My current projects include writing personel administration text, working with two school improvement projects, and an edited volume in Advances in Educational Administration series. My new area of research will be to publish the personnel administration book and to continue the refinement of the continuous improvement model.more information...