Preparing Scholarly Practitioners: Redesigning the EdD to Reflect CPED Principles

Abstract

CPED presents guiding principles, rather than a prescriptive program model, for the EdD, requiring each CPED-influenced institution to engage in a program design process specific to its context. Over 80 CPED schools and colleges of education offer an EdD program that endorses the CPED framework which “blend[s] practical wisdom with professional skills and knowledge to name, frame, and solve problems of practice…”(CPED, 2010). As with any design process in a complex organization, faculty members may wonder where to begin. This article describes the context, guiding values, characteristics of our redesigned EdD, lessons learned, and implementation challenges of the education administration faculty in the Graduate School of Education at Portland State University as we increased our focus on CPED principle #1, a focus on “equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice” (CPED, 2009).