Education Policy in the School of Education is designed to help students figure out how to create widespread change, and that's through policy. So policy can happen at multiple levels, the federal level, states, districts, within organizations. Some of our students are able to participate in research assistantships, where they're able to work with full-time faculty on research projects, on policy analysis, things that are actually making a difference.
So they want to be change agents, understanding, how do you create a policy memo? How is it written? How do you persuade or propose to an audience of policy makers? And then you can say to yourself, how can I apply this outside of class in the real world? The great part about it is that we're in DC. You can't be in a better place-- to implement policy.
Graduate school is an incredible opportunity to be able to work on your own leadership, work on your own identity, and your own vision, your own goals, your own purpose.
I see the future of the School of Education being doing much deeper work, especially in the DC community and deepening our partnerships with schools, and districts, and nonprofit organizations to understand deep and authentic community needs, and bringing about what education change can look like.
I came in as an educator, knowing that I can make impact but sort of afraid to take the leap of stepping out of the classroom. And after taking so many courses in regards to conscious leadership, learning about transformational leadership. People have changed roles. People are doing consultant work, already, while we're actually practicing still as doctoral students. I've also begun to engage in consultant work. So there's so many different pieces that we're adding now to influence and impact the way people are thinking about having anti-racism.
We help students prepare, how to have discussions, how to enact equitable policies, how to listen to the voices of community members of those that we're serving, to be able to create more effective policies that are equitable, that have a focus on anti-racism and that will ultimately transform society.
