Principal programs move to off-campus sites

Beginning this fall, courses supporting the University of Wyoming College of Education principal preparation program (leading to a master’s degree) and its principal endorsement program will move from the Laramie campus to sites in Casper and Ethete.

Educational leadership faculty will teach one core course per site every semester. Each class will be offered using a combination of intensive weekends and distance technologies (e.g., videoconferencing or online).

Both sites were selected for their accessibility to major portions of the state: Ethete serving students in western Wyoming, Casper serving those in the east. Key to the move is a partnership with the Outreach Credit Programs Office (OCP) and the UW/Casper College Center (UWCC), both units of the UW Outreach School. OCP will coordinate the Ethete program; UWCC will coordinate the Casper program.

Moving the programs off campus brings them closer to the professional educators seeking professional development opportunities.

“We’ve been developing this vision for quite awhile,” Bill Berube, Educational Leadership Department head, says. It also continues the college’s decades-old commitment to delivering educational programming to sitebound students around the state.

 “It’s clear that, when you move off campus and into the state, it is well received,” Berube adds. “At least that’s the reception we’ve received so far.”

Up to this point, both the endorsement program and the master’s program were based on the Laramie campus, with courses offered during the summer and during intensive weekends in the fall and spring. When department faculty developed four core courses that the programs share helped pave the way for streamlining offerings – and the move off campus.

Assistant professor Robin Dexter launches the Ethete program, teaching “Personnel Development and Communication.” Assistant professor Bob McCarthy will teach the first offering in Casper, “School Organizations.” Berube and assistant professor Heather Duncan will teach the spring courses, Berube in Ethete and Duncan in Casper.

Applications to both programs are now accepted year-round, with admissions made in in the fall and spring semesters. While this means that students will enter and leave the program at different times, Berube predicts that participants likely will develop close, collaborative cohort-like relationships.

“We think that kind of a cohort may be more real-world or real-school,” he says, since there will be exists and introductions into the community. “Those people who have been in the program are receiving the new students: helping them and mentoring them. It’s a lot like what occurs in schools.”

Another major change differentiates the new off-campus programs from their predecessors: the way in which the required internship is fulfilled.

 “We have a chunk of their internship attached to each of the courses, so that when they take a core course, there is a connection between the internship they’re doing and the content of each of the courses,” Berube explains. Previously, internships were self-contained experiences, generally undertaken after coursework had been completed.

For more information on the programs, including applications, visit the department website (http://www.uwyo.edu/edleadership), call the office (307-766-5649) or e-mail (edleader@uwyo.edu).