By Susan Lang
Jerome M. Ziegler, former dean of the College of Human Ecology, is applying a
lifetime of acquired knowledge and skills related to education and passing them on to
school principals in an innovative professional education program.
The Leadership Institute for School Principals, which Ziegler designed and leads, gives principals and other board of educa tion personnel a fresh view on critical issues, new skills to enhance their roles as educational leaders and experience leading semi nars and workshops in their schools. It is sponsored by the Educa tion Division of the National Executive Service Corps, a non-profit organization that taps the resources of retired executives for volunteer management consulting.
The 60-hour, 10-week institute, which already has served about 150 principals and 40 other personnel in New York City, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Boston, is unique in that it uses no experts or lectures. "The participants and the readings are the experts," said Ziegler, professor emeritus in the Department of Human Service Studies at Cornell and a senior educational consult ant for the National Executive Service Corps. The readings focus on educational philoso phy, education theory, organization management and societal issues.
Participants take responsibility for exploring the issues and concepts of the read ings and trying to fit them into their own professional experience. By breaking out into small groups periodically, participants talk through problems drawn from their experience or suggested by the readings and offer solutions to problems they may face on the job.
"The use of the seminar and workshop combined invites participants to think as hard as they can about difficult, complicated issues affecting the way they act and serve as educational leaders," said Ziegler, who teaches courses at Cornell on intergov ernmental systems, professional ethics and public policy, and policy analysis and pub lic administration.
Topics for the Leadership Institute include: the nature of leadership; how educa tional leadership may differ from other forms; factors in the external and internal environments that affect schools; learning styles of children; how to improve the teach ing/learning environment in each school; the process of empowerment; system and school restructuring; the issue of power; how race and ethnicity affect schools; man aging vs. leading; handling stress in the system; and how to fuse a vision for the future with the daily nitty-gritty.
"Principals are embedded in one of the most hierarchical systems in the U.S.," said Ziegler, who hopes the institute will go national in the next few years and is also planning similar seminar/workshops for the central administrations of boards of educa tion. "This program gives them training in democratic group processes and experience in how to lead a more democratic system that will ultimately improve how teachers teach and how students learn. It is also designed to give participants a model for professional development in their schools."
Ziegler, who was dean of the College of Human Ecology from 1978 to 1988, is an emeritus professor of human service studies and an expert on urban education, higher education and intergovernmental relations.
For more information on the The Leadership Institute for School Principals, con tact Ziegler at (607) 255-7770 or fax at (607) 255-4071, or the National Executive Service Corps at (212) 529-6660 or fax at (212) 228-3958.