More than 40 percent of the nation’s 93,000 principals are expected to retire in the next five years. To address a potential shortage of leaders, Walden University recently partnered with Texas’s Harris County Department of Education (HCDE) to launch a program that combines HCDE’s Texas Principal Certification Program with a two-year master’s degree program from Walden.

The unique collaboration, approved by the state of Texas as a program leading to initial principal certification, offers future administrators an opportunity to further their education, enhance learning for their students, and fulfill the growing need for principals.

Texas educators accepted into this program complete a master’s program at Walden, which uses the Leadership for Learning curriculum developed with the American Association of School Administrators. They then attend five weekend education sessions to help them prepare for the Texas Examinations of Educator Standards (TExES) Principal test. For more information, visit http://www.hcde-texas.org/.

In recognition of its “35 Years of Inquiry for Social Change,” Walden University, through its new Center for Social Change, held a Conference on Social Change in October in Baltimore, Md.

More than 400 doctoral students, faculty members, and social change leaders participated in workshops, presentations, and discussion groups with local and national experts on a variety of national and global social change topics.

Selected papers from the conference will be included in the inaugural issue of the Journal of Social Change, planned for early 2006. The online, peer-reviewed journal will be published semiannually and will be devoted to theories and applied research on social change. This is the second peer-reviewed journal sponsored by Walden. The School of Management’s International Journal of Applied Management and Technology (IJAMT) launched in November 2003.

Alumni, faculty, students, and other experts are encouraged to submit papers to each journal. The IJAMT is online at http://www.ijamt.org/, and the Journal of Social Change is currently hosted in the “About Walden” section of http://www.waldenu.edu/.

Walden’s mission of professional excellence and social change has been the focus of the university’s national advertising campaign, which began in January 2005.

Since then, millions of people have seen Walden's message in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Smithsonian, Psychology Today, and a number of trade publications. Walden has also been a sponsor of National Public Radio.

	Universidad del Valle de Mexico (UVM) undergraduates have the opportunity, as of last fall, to earn a U.S. degree without ever leaving the country, thanks to a dual degree program with Walden University. Students on several campuses in Mexico are earning a “licenciatura” degree from UVM’s School of Administration and Economics and a B.S. in Business Administration from Walden.   UVM students fulfill degree requirements from both universities over nine semesters by taking courses on campus at UVM and online from Walden. Both universities are part of Laureate Education, Inc., an international leader in higher education that serves more than 215,000 students through a network of accredited universities in 15 countries.

According to Diverse: Issues in Higher Education magazine, Walden University is once again ranked as one of the top producers of African-American doctorates.

In a survey of historically black colleges and universities and traditionally white institutions, the magazine ranked Walden University 13th for conferring doctorates to African Americans in all categories. Walden was also ranked fourth for doctoral degrees in psychology and fifth in education. For master’s degrees in education, Walden ranked 28th. The survey included degrees conferred between July 2003 and July 2004.

“I’m not at all surprised that Walden is at the top of the list again,” says Dr. Walter McCollum, who earned a Ph.D. in Applied Management and Decision Sciences from Walden in 2004. “Walden is a real advocate for being accessible to all students.”

McCollum, a senior manager at Science Application International Corp. and NASA headquarters, credits Walden for enhancing his critical-thinking skills, which aided him in writing two books, Process Improvement in Quality Management Systems: Case Study of Carnegie Mellon’s Capability Maturity Model (CMM), an outgrowth of his dissertation, and Strength of a Black Man, an examination of self-empowerment in the African-American community. “Earning my doctorate at Walden gave me the confidence to write these books as well as to impact social change in the public and government sectors,” he says.

Like Walden, McCollum is committed to providing access to higher education to those who otherwise may not have an opportunity to learn. “I established a scholarship in memory of my grandfather for this reason,” he says. “The scholarship is for graduate students seeking a degree in any of the social sciences because I want to help empower them to effect positive changes in our society.”

As a leading provider of education degrees, Walden University is engaged in a number of activities to help educators improve student achievement and address the challenges they face in the classroom. For instance, Walden recently began supporting the Michigan Schools to Watch program by hosting its Web site, www.WaldenU.edu/stw.

Michigan Schools to Watch is a state-level model of the nationally recognized Schools to Watch program created by the National Forum to Accelerate Middle- Grades Reform. Walden shares the program’s goal of identifying and applying best practices to support positive student development in the middle grades.

Last summer, Walden’s School of Education helped to sponsor the forum’s conference. Walden faculty members Fran Salyers and Linda Chase represented their middle level schools there, and Dr. Peggy Gaskill, associate dean in the School of Education, also attended the Washington, D.C., event. Gaskill helped develop the forum’s Schools to Watch program, which recognizes schools that meet specific standards for academic excellence, developmental responsiveness, and social equity.

	Skilled mental health counselors have the opportunity to make a difference with individuals, families, and groups who need counseling for a variety of reasons—addiction, depression, stress management, parenting, or relationship issues.   In August, Walden’s School of Psychology launched an M.S. in Mental Health Counseling to help those who want to address and treat such behavioral disorders knowledgeably, ethically, and with respect for diversity. Based on a research-intensive model, the program helps students gain the knowledge, credentials, and confidence to seek licensure and to apply best practices as change agents in the counseling profession.   In addition to Walden’s own experienced faculty, the program includes a select group of mental health experts, including Dr. Patricia Arredondo, president-elect of the American Counseling Association; Dr. Mary Gergen and Dr. Kenneth J. Gergen, Penn State and Swarthmore College professors, respectively, who are known for their expertise in gender studies and the social construct; Dr. Beverly Greene, professor of psychology at St. John’s University and noted Diplomate in Clinical Psychology (ABPP), as well as Fellow of the American Psychological Association and six of its divisions; and Dr. Susan R. Seem, chair of the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs’ Board of Directors, with expertise in areas concerning diversity.   To learn more, visit the Schools & Programs section of http://www.waldenu.edu/.

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