Faculty
Dr. Eleanor Drago-Severson
Professor of Education Leadership, Teachers College,
Columbia University
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Dr. Eleanor “Ellie” Drago-Severson is Professor of Education Leadership and Adult Learning and Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University. A developmental psychologist, Ellie teaches, conducts research, and consults to school and district leaders, and teacher leaders in independent, public and charter schools and systems—on professional and personal growth and learning; leadership that supports principal, teacher, school, and leadership development; and coaching and mentoring in K–12 schools, university settings, and other adult education contexts domestically and internationally. She is also an internationally certified developmental coach who works with superintendents, principals, heads of school, assistant principals, teacher leaders and other leaders to build internal capacity and achieve goals. Her work is inspired by the idea that schools must be places where adults and children can grow, and she is dedicated to creating the conditions to achieve this and to helping leaders and educators of all kinds to do the same on behalf of supporting adults and youth.
At Columbia University—Teachers College, Ellie is director of the PhD Program in Educational Leadership, teaches aspiring and practicing principals in the Summer Principals Academy and aspiring superintendents in the Urban Educators Leaders Program, and also coaches teacher leaders, principals, assistant principals, and district leaders in the Cahn Distinguished Principals Fellowship and in her private coaching practice to help educators grow their practice and themselves. Ellie also serves as faculty director and co-facilitator of the Leadership Institute for School Change at Teachers College.
Ellie is a developmental coach, program director, developmental psychologist, and author of the best-selling books Helping Teachers Learn: Principal Leadership for Adult Growth and Development (Corwin, 2004) and Leading Adult Learning: Supporting Adult Development in Our Schools (Corwin/The National Staff Development Council, 2009)—as well as Becoming Adult Learners: Principles and Practices for Effective Development (Teachers College Press, 2004) and Helping Educators Grow: Practices and Strategies for Supporting Leadership Development (Harvard Education Press, 2012). She is also a co-author of Learning for Leadership: Developmental Strategies for Building Capacity in Our Schools (Corwin, 2013), Learning Designs: Reach the Highest Standard of Professional Learning (Corwin, 2014) and The Art of Feedback: Tell Me So I Can Hear You (Harvard Education Press, 2016), and Leading change together: Building educator capacity in schools and systems (ASCD, 2018).
Currently, she and coauthors Pat Maslin-Ostrowski and Jessica Blum-DeStefano are writing Leaders’ Internal Experiences with Challenge and Change (forthcoming), which is based on their longitudinal, mixed-methods research with leaders domestically and internationally. In addition—along with coauthors Jessica Blum-DeStefano and Deb Brooks-Lawrence—Ellie is examining how leaders’ internal capacities influence the ways they lead on behalf of social justice and equity (Sage/Corwin, forthcoming). This research aims to articulate a developmental continuum that can help leaders and those who prepare them.
She serves as teacher, program designer/director, consultant, professional developer, facilitator, trusted advisor and consultant in K-12 schools domestically and internationally. Her work has been recognized by and supported with awards from the Spencer Foundation, the Klingenstein Foundation, and Harvard University where she served on faculty from 1998—2005. While serving at Harvard, Ellie was awarded the 2005 Morningstar Award for Excellence in Teaching. Most recently, Ellie received three outstanding teaching awards from Teachers College, Columbia University. She has earned degrees from Long Island University (BA) and Harvard University (EdM, EdD and Post-Doctoral Fellowship).
Dr. Brian K. Perkins
Associate Professor of Practice in Education Leadership & Director of the Summer Principals Academy, New Orleans, Teachers College, Columbia University
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Dr. Brian K. Perkins is the Director of the Summer Principals Academy offered by Teachers College Columbia University in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was previously the director of the Urban Education Leadership Program at Teachers College where he was responsible for designing and gaining accreditation of the doctoral program with a new conceptual framework. He is the former Chair and Professor of Education Law and Policy at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, Connecticut.
He has served as a consultant to schools and districts throughout the U.S., Brazil, Israel, Indonesia, Thailand, the People’s Republic of China, India, Venezuela and the Republic of South Africa. Dr. Perkins has previously served as a visiting professor at the University of Pretoria in South Africa for more than a decade. Dr. Perkins received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemistry from Grambling State University, a Master’s Degree in Public Health from the Yale University School of Medicine and his Doctor of Education Degree from Columbia University Teachers College.
Dr. Carolyn Riehl
Associate Professor, Sociology & Education Policy, Teachers College, Columbia University
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Dr. Carolyn Riehl’s research reflects a broad concern for how schools can be organized and administered so that they are lively, humane, equitable, and productive settings for learning and accomplishment for both teachers and students, especially students who traditionally have been poorly served by schooling.
She situates her scholarship at the juncture between the sociology of education and organizational and administrative studies, the fields in which she pursued graduate training. The sociological perspective addresses the dynamic interrelationships among individuals, social groups, organizations and institutions, and wider sociocultural contexts, with particular regard to issues of equity. The administrative/organizational perspective covers technical, interpretive, and critical approaches to the design and administration of school programs and structures and the intricacies of culture and meaning in schooling. These fields are complementary in their attention to educational practice and to the cultural and institutional foundations of that practice. They converge in questions about how to organize and administer schools. Yet their concerns, while overlapping, are not identical.
Sociological approaches to schooling explore the role of schools within society and their effects on individuals and groups, but almost never frame administration as an important aspect of the social order of the school. Administrative approaches focus on leadership and administrative practice, organizational dynamics, and the process of change, but rarely look at school organization and administration through wider interpretive perspectives on human action or social structure.
Her work tries to build bridges across these disciplines and to generate unifying approaches to the problems of knowledge and practice that they raise. Dr. Riehl’s scholarship reflects different epistemological traditions, ranging from “soft positivism” to interpretive and critical studies; she finds something of value in each tradition. She utilizes both qualitative and quantitative methods in her empirical work. Her research has clustered around three general themes: studies of school organization; studies of the practice of school administration and leadership; and scholarship on research. An additional theme focusing on issues of diversity and equity stretches across all three clusters. She can be reached via email at riehl@exchange.tc.columbia.edu, or by telephone at 212-678-3728.
Dr. Jeffrey Young
Program Director, Educational Leadership & Policy Studies Master Lecturer, Boston University
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Dr. Jeffrey M. Young is a master lecturer and director of the Educational Leadership & Policy Studies program at Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. His research interests include school district leadership and the superintendency, equity and excellence in education, politics and policy in education, community engagement, executive coaching for leaders in education, and organizational development.
Since 2016, Dr. Young served as professor of practice in Education Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City. He also served as Program Director for TC’s Education Leadership Program and Director of the Urban Education Leaders Program (UELP), an EdD program for aspiring district-level leaders. He is a core faculty member of the Cahn Fellowship, a national institute for distinguished urban public school principals. Previously, Dr. Young served as superintendent of schools in Cambridge, MA., from 2009 through 2016, following terms as superintendent in Newton, Lexington, and Lynnfield, MA. He began his career in education as an English teacher, department chair, and curriculum coordinator in the Brookline Public Schools.
Dr. Young has delivered talks at various institutions of higher learning as well as at the International Education Conference in Beijing, China and Shenzhen University in China. Among his distinctions, he has been recognized by the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents with the President’s Award; Brandeis University with the Levitan Award for Leadership; and the Cambridge NAACP with the Martin Luther King, Jr., Award for his work “to provide an effective, innovative education to all of Cambridge’s children regardless of race or class.”