A worldwide leadership magazine ranked Ball State University's Department of Educational Leadership as one of the top 10 leadership development programs in the country.
"I'm quite humbled, but it is a result of our excellent faculty and all of the fine work they do," said Joseph McKinney, chairman for the Department of Educational Leadership at the Teachers College.
Creators of the magazine Executive Excellence usually rank the top 10 leadership development programs overall, but this year, they decided to create seven categories and rank the top 10 in each. The creators surveyed more than 500 organizations to compile this year's list.
"These programs appear to me to deliver the best return on investment," Ken Shelton, Executive Excellence editor, said. "Participants come in with clear expectations and go away with concrete applications and accountability for results. - They are better people as a result of their participation in the program."
Ball State tied for 10th with Emory University under the Education universities/schools of management and business category. Listed with Ball State are schools such as Harvard Business School, MIT/Sloan and UCLA/Anderson.
Ball State's ranking will add prestige to the school and the leadership program because the magazine has a world-wide circulation of 100,000, McKinney said.
"This means that over 100,000 leaders around the world are going to see that the Department of Educational Leadership has a top quality leadership program," he said.
The 70 programs on the magazine's list were analyzed for seven factors: vision and mission, involvement and participation, measurement and accountability, curriculum, presentation, take-home value for participants and outreach.
Executive Excellence was particularly impressed with Ball State's educational experts, said Whitney Ransom, Executive Excellence public relations director. The program reinforces professional expertise through advanced coursework, projects, authentic experiences and leadership, she said.
McKinney attributes the honor to the faculty, composed of leadership experts, as well the program's take-home value for students. The Department of Educational Leadership's students are educators wanting to be administrators or administrators furthering their knowledge, McKinney said.
And the department is always evaluating itself so it can improve, he said.
"We continue to assess the needs of school communities and ensure that our students are prepared to meet those needs," McKinney said. "We want to prepare engaged educational experts who are sensitive and responsive to the different contexts that they find themselves in."
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