The Executive Doctorate curriculum is designed to provide a breadth of critical understanding and skills necessary to effectively lead institutions of higher education, as well as related organizations and government agencies.  Our philosophy is that leaders of dynamic organizations must innovatively practice data-driven decision-making within a complex social, political, and economic environment.  Students are admitted based on their accomplishments in one or more segments of the field (e.g., legal counsel, student services), but the program then builds an interdisciplinary understanding of and skill set for confronting the broader challenges higher education faces.

The curriculum is delivered through three means:  courses with core Penn higher education faculty, courses with nationally-recognized practitioner faculty, and supervised development of a scholarly dissertation.  The First Year has a greater emphasis on coursework, providing a practical, theoretical, and methodological foundation for designing the dissertation.  The Second Year continues but scales back coursework, as students focus on their independent investigations and analyses for their dissertations. 

Coursework changes annually based on a continuous improvement plan that both explores faculty- and practitioner-identified emerging trends in the field and heeds the evaluations by our students and alumni.  Three branches of the curriculum provide an ongoing structure to the student learning experience.

Higher Education Contexts

Successful higher education leaders must grapple with various difficulties and opportunities within the multi-layered contexts in which they operate.  Executive Doctorate courses addressing these diverse perspectives and environments include:
-Contemporary Issues,
-Higher Education History,
-Organizational Change,
-Presidential and Board Leadership,
-Preventative Law, and
-Diversity in Higher Education. 
The Public Policy and International Context courses bring students face-to-face with leaders in these environments:  the policy seminar meets with national leaders in places like the National Center for Higher Education in Washington, D.C. or the State Higher Education Policy Center in Boulder, Colorado; the international seminar travels to meet with higher education leaders in countries such as South Africa, Spain, Hungary, or Brazil.

Institutional Leadership

The Executive Doctorate aims to provide leaders with a toolkit of analytic strategies and skills for effectively managing institutions.  Course readings and activities build off of the experiences of instructors recognized nationally as being at the top of their field.  Courses that develop institutional leadership competencies include:
-Strategic Management Research,
-Case Studies in Leadership,
-Negotiating and Bargaining,
-Conflict Management,
-University-Community Partnerships,
-College Finance,
-Institutional Advancement, and
-Campus Planning.

Evidence-Based Management

Successful higher education leaders employ data and information effectively; The Executive Doctorate curriculum focuses on the strategic framing of questions and the use of data to puzzle through possible answers. Our coursework provides a systematic, embedded process for the dissertation, which facilitates on-time completion for nearly all students – an achievement that is remarkable among Ed.D. programs.  The First Year includes a year-long Proseminar sequence supporting the development of the dissertation proposal, as well as introductory modules in both Quantitative and Qualitative Methods.  Faculty mentors lead individual and small-group Dissertation Workshops in The Second Year.