MA-TLC - Organizational Capabilities: HGSE

Harvard Graduate School of Education
Organizational Capabilities

Harvard University appointed its first faculty member in education in 1891 and formally established the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) in 1920. The School now has a total of 111 faculty members, and grants over 600 degrees to doctoral, master’s, and advanced study candidates each year in three programs: Administration, Planning and Social Policy; Human Development and Psychology; and Learning and Teaching. The School’s mission is to increase the opportunities for all children to learn and thrive. Four broad strategies stand at the core of this mission:

Preparing leaders - not just visible heads of organizations, but also policy makers, principals, teachers, curriculum designers, and scholars.
Generating and disseminating ideas - that inform and improve educational practice.
Developing model programs - that other institutions can emulate and adapt.
Shaping the debate - and raising the quality of public discourse about school reform and the condition of children, and about the relationship between them.

To this end, in addition to the traditional degree-granting programs, HGSE houses a number of research centers, institutes, special projects, and academic areas that focus on major educational issues. These include groups such as Harvard Project Zero, Programs in Professional Education, the Principals’ Center, the Family Research Project, the Native American Program, the Civil Rights Project, the Project on Adult Literacy, the Risk and Prevention Group, and The Consortium for Policy Research in Education.

In recent years, the School has established new academic programs focused on the urban superintendency; arts in education; technology in education; mind, brain, and education; language and literacy; and in school reform.

An active concern for the relationship between research and practice has been the hallmark of the HGSE since its inception. One vehicle for translating research to practice has been Programs in Professional Education, the division of the School that develops, plans, and administers a variety of professional development programs for educators.

Programs in Professional Education (PPE). Since 1976, Programs in Professional Education has been helping transform educational practitioners, their institutions, and their programs. All of PPE’s programs create intensive, highly interactive learning environments with designs based on research in how adults learn best. PPE’s programs are led and taught by HGSE faculty and other nationally-recognized experts. Programs range from two- and three-day seminars and workshops to residential Institutes of up to three weeks in duration. In a given year, PPE’s audience reaches over 2500 educators from elementary and secondary schools and school districts, colleges and universities, ministries, associations, and non-governmental agencies from the U.S. and abroad. All programs share common fundamental goals -- to foster personal reflection and the acquisition of new knowledge, skills, and perspectives to support more effective educational leadership, learning, and teaching. In recent years, PPE has offered annually more than a dozen programs for K-12 educators, including the Harvard Institute for School Leadership (focused on school reform, standards, and accountability), the Seminar for Superintendents, The Project Zero Classroom, Leadership and the New Technologies, Critical Issues in Urban Special Education, the Public Engagement Seminar, Current Issues in School Law, a program on Language, Learning and Literacy, the Learning Disorders Conference, a program for humanities teachers on the Media and American Democracy, and a series of seminars on Full Service Schools. PPE’s higher education programs serve college and university leaders through the Institute for Educational Management, the Management Development Program, the Institute for Management and Leadership in Education, the Harvard Seminar for New Presidents, among others. In the international arena, PPE provides high-quality technical assistance, research, and professional development and training for educational systems around the world (Africa, Asia, Middle East, Latin America). In this realm, PPE works with donor agencies (e.g., World Bank and InterAmerican Development Bank) and governments in foreign countries seeking to strengthen national education systems by improving local decision-making and management capacity.

PPE’s participation in the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Consortium (MA-TLC) gives Massachusetts educators access to the experience and resources of the country’s leading university provider of professional education for educators.

Contact information:
Linda Greyser, Ed.D.
Associate Director, Programs in Professional Education
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Gutman Library 339
Cambridge, MA 02138
phone: 617-496-8227
fax: 617-496-8051
email: Linda_Greyser@harvard.edu

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