Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) in Educational Leadership (PSAP)
Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) in Educational Leadership (PSAP)
The Ed.D in Educational Leadership (PSAP) is a highly collaborative, 3-year doctoral program for systems-level educational leaders. Guided by the program’s distinctive approach to leadership and practical wisdom, you'll bring an equity-minded lens to decision-making and advocate for policies and practices that solve educational inequities.
Through a unique collaboration with the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents (MASS), the program also offers an optional Superintendent licensure track.
Boston College’s Ed.D. in Educational Leadership (PSAP) prepares you to lead your community and launch systems-level change. Our curriculum is built around three pillars that pair research and operational leadership with a deep commitment to social justice.
What is the Professional School Administrator Program (PSAP)?
Is a BC Lynch School Ed.D. right for you? Learn more about the highly collaborative, 3-year doctoral program from program administrators and current students.
Program Pillars
Scholar Practitioner
Prepares educational leaders to serve as informed consumers of research who bridge the gap between academic theory and organizational improvement. You’ll learn to leverage data and visualization to turn complex information into clear, actionable insights.
Systems Leader
Develops leaders and community advocates who are versed in educational policy, systemic change, and cultivating healthy organizational cultures. In this program, you will integrate the technical demands of operations–strategic planning, budgeting, and instructional leadership–with the interpersonal skills required for effective stakeholder engagement and managing conflict.
Social Justice Advocate
Forms ethical leaders grounded in the Lynch School’s mission, embracing empathy and moral clarity to advocate for marginalized populations. Alumni demonstrate practical wisdom by navigating the nuances of complex decision-making, carefully balancing the dignity of the individual with the well-being of the community.
Key Features
Cohort-Based Learning
Our students bring diverse professional backgrounds, perspectives, and expertise that foster a rich learning environment in a dedicated cohort. Cohort members develop lifelong relationships that enrich learning and professional growth now and into the future.
Professional Mentorship
Partnering with a community of mentors who graduated from the program and are accomplished scholar-practioner leaders, doctoral candidates are assigned a mentor who provides personalized guidance throughout their academic journey.
Executive Format
Online and in-person course experiences provide valuable opportunities to engage meaningfully with cohort members and faculty. The program’s executive format allows working professionals the flexibility to manage the demands of their busy schedules.
The Ed.D. program will be offered in a hybrid format that intentionally combines in-person and online learning experiences. Scheduled on-campus sessions provide opportunities for collaborative learning, engagement with faculty and mentors, and professional networking, while the remaining coursework is delivered through a combination of synchronous (live zoom sessions) and asynchronous online instruction.
In-person convenings occur on Boston College’s Chestnut Hill Campus for a total of 15 days per academic year, 5 days per term (Summer, Fall, and Spring). Each in-person day will run from 8:30 AM - 4 PM.
- Summer term - Students convene for one Saturday in June and 4 days in July.
- Fall term - Students convene on 5 Saturdays.
- Spring term - Students convene on 5 Saturdays.
At a Glance
Curriculum
Through a cohort model that emphasizes collaborative learning and support, the curriculum bridges scholarship and practice, equipping leaders with expertise in evaluation and research, resource management, finance, community-building, and instructional leadership. You'll apply these skills by leading and evaluating a real-world systems change initiative.
Requirements
- Courses: 16
- Credits: 48
- Dissertation in Practice (DIP)
- Comprehensive Exam
| Course | Course Title | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| ELHE8830 | Becoming a Scholarly Practitioner This course introduces students to key themes and dispositions that they will revisit throughout their EdD journey: scholarly practice, systems leadership, and social justice advocacy. By the end of this course, students will have arrived at a clearly articulated problem of practice. Not only are such problems urgent to their respective organizations and contexts, but they also require knowledge about the relevant theories, leadership strategies, and systemic changes that might help to unravel them. | 3 |
| MESA6830 | Interpretation & Evaluation of Research This course will improve a students' understanding of the empirical research literature in education and psychology. It concentrates on developing the conceptual foundations of empirical research and the practical analytic skills needed by a competent reader and user of research articles. Topics address purpose statements, hypotheses, sampling techniques, sample sizes and power, instrument development, internal and external validity, and typical quantitative research designs. Exercises emphasize the critical evaluation of published research. Each student will develop a research proposal. | 3 |
| ELHE8831 | Systems Thinking in Education Policy and Reform This course introduces what it means to treat PreK-12 schools and districts as “systems” and how to begin assessing the root causes of problems of practice embedded within PreK-12 systems. The course will begin with a series of readings/activities that define what an educational system is/is not, what educational reform is/is not, and how educational policy shapes/is shaped by the work leaders and educators do within educational systems. Then, readings and activities will encourage students to apply these definitions as they examine contemporary educational policy/reform dilemmas confronting educational leaders. | 3 |
| APSY9851 | Qualitative Research Methods Qualitative Research Methods offers an introduction to qualitative research methods across the social sciences. This course provides opportunities to read about and discuss diverse approaches to qualitative research design, examine research studies in the field of education and other areas, and participate in multiple aspects of qualitative research. The purpose is to develop practical skills, analyze strong examples of qualitative research, and discuss enduring dilemmas in qualitative methods. | 3 |
| ELHE8833 | Enacting Leadership for Social Justice This course aims to strengthen participants’ leadership for social justice. The readings, activities, discussions, and assignments explore how to promote learning opportunities for all students in PK-12 schools, particularly those traditionally marginalized. The class seeks to deepen and strengthen the degree to which educational leadership practices are informed by empirical and theoretical literature. | 3 |
| MESA6410 | Introductory Statistics This course provides an introduction to quantitative research, descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, and null hypothesis significance testing in the context of z tests for proportions, t tests for means, and simple linear regression. In each area, students learn how to apply statistical procedures, interpret concepts and results, effectively display data and models, and critically evaluate evidence and implications. Software instruction is provided for IBM SPSS Statistics, R, Stata, and G*Power. | 3 |
| Course | Course Title | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| ELHE8832 | Professional Capital and Community Professional capital serves as an umbrella concept encapsulating the wide array of knowledge, skills, and dispositions educational leaders draw upon as they work with individuals, relationships, and resources. As a unique community, the contextual and situational features of each school drives leaders toward specific forms of capital (e.g., cultural, social, navigational, linguistic). In this course, participants will explore how to nurture professional capital across an array of educational communities. Topics include human resource management, collaborative leadership, conflict resolution, and organizational culture. Students will develop skills at navigating ethical tensions, political pressures, and constrained resources in their leadership. By the end of this course, students will be able to enact data-informed strategies to make professional communities more inclusive, innovative, equitable, and resilient. | 3 |
| ELHE7716 | Leading and Evaluating Systemic Change This course introduces students to theory, practice, and methods for evaluating systemic change. Whereas conventional evaluation draws on social science methods to evaluate discrete policies and programs, systemic approaches to evaluation draw on theory and methods from the systems and complexity sciences to support change or transformation in the face of complex issues and large-scale systems. Focal topics covered include differing rationales for and resistance to systemic change; ways to bring diverse actors and perspectives together; five phases of a systemic change process (i.e., shared vision, systems mapping, leverage points, navigating futures, and learning and adapting); and ways to evaluate the value and impact of a systemic change effort. | 3 |
| ELHE7714 | Community Engagement and Advocacy This course aims to strengthen educational leaders' ability to lead equitable, culturally responsive partnerships between schools, families, and communities. Leaders will examine how place-based historical inequities and institutional practices shape family–school-community relationships while strengthening their content knowledge on asset-based frameworks that position families and community members as authentic partners in student learning, systemic improvement, and social policy reform. As a culminating assignment, leaders will design and facilitate a cross-sector convening on various interest holders to elevate a pressing social or policy issue, document community concerns, and facilitate a structured dialogue on collaborative strategies to address a shared problem of practice. | 3 |
| ELHE8835 | Dissertation in Practice: Proposal and Preparation This course guides EdD students through the development of a complete Dissertation in Practice (DIP) proposal and preparation for proposal defense. As such, it builds upon their pre-proposal and relevant experiences throughout the program. A full proposal includes: a clear account of the challenge candidates are investigating within their own organization, a focused literature review, methodological decisions appropriate to a systems change study, and initial framing for the real-world application of knowledge relating to their area of change (see program handbook for additional details). Key course experiences include: identifying key leverage points and a theory of change, conducting independent readings and reviews of literature, articulating key rationales for their change initiative, their methodologies for systemically collecting and interpreting data. Students will be supported by their program mentors and respective DIP groups throughout the course and remainder of the program. Upon successful proposal defense, the course will include additional support relating to IRB preparation. | 3 |
| ELHE8834 | Systems Level Leadership for Learning This course examines the systemic improvement of teaching and learning across public and private elementary and secondary educational settings in the United States. Grounded in the integration of theory and practice, the course engages participants in developing a coherent vision of high-quality student and adult learning as the foundation for an equitable, student-centered theory of change. | 3 |
| ELHE7703 | Legal and Policy Dimensions of Systems Leadership This course addresses the legal and policy dimensions of public and private elementary and secondary education in U.S. democracy. As a participant in the course, you will develop a basic understanding of how the three branches of government, individually and in interaction, shape the provision of public and private education. You will also develop a basic understanding of how legal and policy dimensions interact with ethical principles and other data guiding your leadership. | 3 |
| Course | Course Title | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| ELHE7713 | Strategic Planning & Budgeting Participants will engage in the study of organizational, political, and instructional considerations unique to executive-level leadership that are relevant to strategic planning and budgeting to advance an organization’s mission in meeting the needs of the individuals and communities they serve. Emphasis will be placed on interrogating, refining, and strengthening strategic planning and budget processes through an equity lens, one that is responsive to community context and grounded in transparent, coherent decision-making. | 3 |
| ELHE7715 | Data Presentation & Effective Communication Educational leaders are constantly asked to make sense of complex data and then make that data make sense to others. This course prepares doctoral students to communicate institutional data strategically, clearly, and with integrity across the full range of leadership contexts they inhabit: boardrooms, community town halls, staff meetings, and the press. Students develop competency in stakeholder analysis, message framing, and data visualization, with sustained attention to equity, trust, and the ethical responsibilities of leaders who shape how communities understand their schools. Every major assignment is grounded in the student's own institutional context, making the course immediately applicable to their leadership practice. By the end of the course, students will have produced a complete strategic communication plan for a real data challenge in their district, ready to present to an authentic stakeholder audience. | 3 |
| ELHE8836 | Dissertation in Practice: Analysis and Writing This course supports candidates as they move through the analysis and writing phases of their Systems Change Initiative, working toward complete drafts of both the Part 2: Systems Change Initiative Report and the Part 3: Demonstration of Real-World Impact. Candidates continue working within their own sites of practice, interpreting and analyzing data collected and translating that analysis into scholarly and practitioner-facing writing. Workshop sessions for the systems change initiative report provide structured support in the core intellectual work of this phase: coding and interpreting data, building data-informed arguments, and writing about findings in ways that step outside the immediate organizational context to speak to broader audiences. | 3 |
| ELHE9901 | Doctoral Comprehensive Exam The Comprehensive Examination assesses EdD (PSAP) candidates' mastery of the program's three pillars and learning outcomes across the full arc of their doctoral journey. Students should expect questions that range across the breadth of all prior coursework, as well as their Dissertation in Practice. In general, the first component of the exam involves the timely submission of required materials. The second involves oral examination relating to those materials and other knowledge relating to prior coursework, program learning outcomes, and the student’s Dissertation in Practice. Specific requirements and details can be found in the program handbook. | 3 |
Through a partnership with the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents (MASS), the Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) in Educational Leadership (PSAP) at Boston College offers a state-approved pathway for eligible students seeking an Initial License as a Superintendent/Assistant Superintendent in Massachusetts.
Students pursuing the licensure track complete specialized coursework concurrently with a 500-hour supervised practicum in a Superintendent/Assistant Superintendent role within a Massachusetts school setting. The licensure track includes the courses included in years 1-3 as well as three additional credits to be completed during the third year of the PSAP program, with coursework extending across the summer, fall, and spring terms. This integrated structure allows students to connect the specialized licensure curriculum with sustained, applied leadership experience in a school setting.
Throughout the practicum, students receive individualized mentorship and guidance from experienced educational leaders as they develop and refine their leadership practice. Each student works closely with a Boston College Program Supervisor and a Supervising Practitioner who holds a Massachusetts license as a Superintendent/Assistant Superintendent. Together, they provide a collaborative framework for supervision, with ongoing opportunities for feedback, assessment, reflection, and professional growth.
The 500-hour practicum must be completed in person within a Massachusetts school setting under the supervision of an appropriately licensed Superintendent/Assistant Superintendent. Successful completion of all required licensure coursework and practicum requirements is necessary for Boston College to recommend a student for licensure in Massachusetts. Licensure is granted by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), not by Boston College, and is subject to all applicable state requirements.
| Course | Course Title | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| ELHE8838 | Superintendent Practicum & Supervision Seminar 1 Superintendent candidates enter this course understanding their role is to build and sustain the conditions under which every administrator becomes a more skilled and equity-committed instructional leader. This course develops candidates’ supervisory vision at the district level: how to observe and analyze administrator practice, provide targeted feedback, and use disaggregated data to interrupt racial inequity in curriculum, instruction, and assessment. | 3 |
| ELHE8839 | Superintendent Practicum & Supervision Seminar 2 This course asks what makes effective instructional supervision structurally possible. The organizational systems a superintendent oversees such as how staff are recruited and retained, how schedules are built, how money is spent, how buildings are run, and how conflict is managed within legal and ethical frameworks are not logistical background to the real work. They are the real work, and they are never neutral. Every operational decision either reinforces or disrupts patterns of inequity. This course develops candidates’ capacity to supervise and redesign district management andoperational systems with an explicit equity orientation, grounded in MA Standard 2 and its indicators for school culture and climate (2A), HR management and development (2B), scheduling and management information systems (2C), law, ethics, and policies (2D), and fiscal systems (2E). Candidates examine how to audit existing systems for racial bias, lead participatory processes for budgeting and policy development, build a racially diverse educator workforce, and fulfill responsibilities under state and federal law. Through this course, candidates continuously examine operational decisions for their instructional consequences. | 3 |
| ELHE8840 | Superintendent Practicum & Supervision Seminar 3 The research is unambiguous that the deepest driver of long-term, equitable student outcomes is the quality of the human relationships and organizational culture in which all other work is embedded. Whether a district can interrupt systemic inequity depends, ultimately, on whether its leadership can build genuine partnership with families and communities, cultivate a professional culture of honest reflection and continuous learning, and lead adaptively through the conflict and resistance that equity work inevitably generates. This capstone course develops those capacities, grounded in MA Standards 3 and 4 and their indicators across family and community engagement (3A–D) and professional culture (4A–F). Candidates examine what it means to treat families as genuine partners rather than recipients of communication; how to build trust with communities whose past experiences with schools have been harmful; how to develop and sustain a district culture in which all staff continuously examine their identities, biases, and practices; how to hold a shared vision across a diverse and sometimes divided community; and how to manage conflict in ways that preserve relationships while advancing equity commitments. Candidates bring their learning from all three courses to bear on a capstone project that requires integrating all four standards into a coherent vision for district leadership. | 3 |
- Cultivate wisdom by balancing individual and community needs, navigating uncertainties, learning from feedback, and reflecting critically on your own leadership and growth.
- Implement equity-centered leadership practices to navigate and dismantle barriers to justice in educational settings.
- Promote organizational and professional cultures that are ethical, culturally responsive, and that prioritize community, collaboration, and advocacy.
- Design and evaluate systemic changes that can address challenges and their underlying causes within organizations
- Approach relevant research, policies, and data as scholar-practitioners, shepherding systemic solutions to persistent problems in education.
- Use highly effective communication skills and data analysis when reporting to community actors, managing conflict and crises, negotiating, and engaging with various audiences.
- Effectively manage school and district-level operations and resources in ways that are data-informed and mission-aligned, ensuring continuous evaluation and improvement.
- Strengthen educator professional capital by integrating collaborative inquiry and strategic retention efforts with a rigorous culture of academic excellence
Tuition & Aid
Education should level the playing field. We feel the same way about financial aid.
The Lynch School of Education and Human Development provides more than $13.8 million in financial aid to students each year. As a result, the quality of BC’s instruction, the benefit of our alumni network, and the impact a BC degree will have on your employment options is both affordable and invaluable.
Careers
Roles and Organizations
- Partner - School Design Services, Transcend Education
- Leadership Coach, Lynch Leadership Academy
- President, Mission Grammar School
- Director, Catholic School Teacher Corps, Seattle University
- Deputy commissioner, DESE
- Head of Schools, KIPP Massachusetts Public Charter Schools
- Deputy Superintendent of Community and Family Advancement, Boston Public Schools
- Executive Director, Shah Family Foundation
- Head of School, Codman Academy Charter Public School
Research in Practice
Throughout the program, Students prepare brief practitioner oriented reports to demonstrate meaningful impact on practice.
Apply
PrintApplication & Deadlines
Prerequisite Information: To be eligible for the Ed.D. program, applicants must already hold a master's degree and have 5 or more years of experience in education (focused on prek-12 levels), with a minimum of 2 years of leadership experience.
A non-refundable application fee of $75 is required. The fee is waived for select applicants.
Please review our AI Use Policy before preparing your application materials
Summer 2027 Enrollment:
- Deadline: January 15
This program does not offer rolling admission after the deadline.
Resume
To be uploaded to your online application.
In addition to your academic history and relevant volunteer and/or work experience, please include any licenses currently held, any social justice-related experience, any language skills other than English, and any research experience or publications.
Personal Statement
To be uploaded to your online application.
Students in our Ed.D. program are outstanding administrators and have diverse backgrounds, experiences, and interests. Together, cohort members collaborate with and challenge each other intellectually.
In lieu of a traditional personal statement, we ask for responses to each of the following questions. Your responses provide an opportunity to get to know you, your hopes for your doctoral experience, and any challenges or experiences that shed light on you as a leader or potential cohort member.
Please number the questions and limit your response to each question to 500 words.
Question 1 — Goals and Purpose
Our Ed.D. prepares educational leaders to drive systems-level change. Describe the problem, challenge, or opportunity in your educational context that motivates your pursuit of a doctorate. What do you hope to accomplish — in your organization, your community, or your field — and how does doctoral study connect to that work?
Question 2 — Scholar-Practitioner Identity
Our Ed.D. develops graduates who bridge research and practice: leaders who consume and produce knowledge, analyze and act on data, and bring an inquiry stance to organizational problems. Describe a moment when you engaged research, evidence, or data in your leadership work. What did that experience reveal about your growth as a leader who bridges research and practice, and what do you want to develop further?
Question 3 — Systems Leader and Social Justice Advocate
Our Ed.D. graduates lead complex organizations while remaining grounded in equity and justice. Describe a situation in which you navigated systemic barriers, institutional resistance, or competing stakeholder interests in pursuit of a more just outcome. What did that experience teach you about yourself as a leader, and what do you bring to a cohort of peers grappling with similar challenges?
Letters of Recommendation
Three letters of recommendation are required. Together, these letters should provide a picture of you as a leader, collaborator, and emerging scholar-practitioner.
At least one letter should speak directly to your leadership practice and organizational impact. This will often come from someone who has seen your leadership up close. Examples include: a supervisor, a school board member, a close colleague, or a community partner.
At least one letter should speak to your capacity for rigorous, inquiry-driven work — your ability to engage research critically, analyze complex problems, and communicate clearly in writing. This might come from a professor, research collaborator, or another person with a doctorate; it could equally come from a supervisor or colleague who has seen you engage with difficult questions, learn from evidence, or change course based on what you found.
The third letter is your choice. The letter writer should know you well enough to assess your candidacy and alignment to our Ed.D. program.
Tip from the Admissions Team: Reach out to recommenders early to share your graduate school goals and confirm they can meet your deadline. Make sure to enter your recommender's contact information correctly on the application, as it can't be edited after you submit. Taking these steps generally leads to stronger letters and less stress.
Transcripts
Transcripts from all college/university study are required.
For degrees from the United States and Canada, unofficial transcripts may be used for application review. Official transcripts will be required upon enrollment.
Applicants who have received degrees from institutions outside the United States should view the "International Students" section for additional credential evaluation requirements.
Please begin your online application before submitting your transcripts. Details on how to submit transcripts and international credential evaluations can be found within the application. In order to ensure your transcript reaches our office, it is important to review and follow the instructions.
Standardized Tests
GRE scores are not required. If you wish to send GRE scores, the Lynch School GRE code is 3218.
Please view the "International Students" section for information on English Proficiency test requirements.
Writing Sample
All applicants to this program are required to submit one writing sample demonstrating their ability to effectively communicate at the graduate level. Applicants should be the sole author of the sample, and it should reflect (a) critical thinking and/or synthesis of ideas, and (b) effective organization, logic, and argumentation.
Quality in these criteria is more important than length. Appropriate choices include, but are not limited to: term paper from a graduate course; newspaper op-ed; memo to community members about a difficult decision; district evaluation report; or academic journal article.
International Students
Applicants who have completed a degree outside of the United States must have a course-by-course evaluation of their transcript(s) completed by an evaluation company approved by the National Association of Credential Evaluation Services (NACES). Submission of falsified documents is grounds for denial of admission or dismissal from the University.
Applicants who are not native speakers of English and who have not received a degree from an institution where English is the primary language of instruction must also submit a TOEFL, Duolingo, or IELTS test result that meets the minimum score requirement.
Please click the link below for full details on these requirements.
Requirements for International Students
Tip from the Admissions Team: Order your credential evaluation and submit all documents to the evaluator at least one month before your program’s deadline. During peak application times, delays are common and can lead to missed deadlines.
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