If you Build It, Will they Come? Educational Leadership Program Coordinators’ Perceptions of Principal Preparation Redesign in Illinois

Abstract

This qualitative study examined the impacts of Illinois principal preparation program restructuring mandates on programs and faculty, from the perspectives of 14 faculty program coordinators who facilitated the revisions. Findings disclosed that coordinators, coping with considerable ambiguity and stress, were crucially positioned to lead their faculty through submission and implementation processes. Although program coordinators tended to describe compliance-driven, rather than mission-driven, restructuring, most perceived the changes as positively impacting programming in their respective institutions. However, precipitously declining student enrollments are perceived as a serious threat and have contributed to coordinators’ decisions to engage increasingly in policy advocacy.