Vision statement

The vision statement for the licensure program is its guiding light. The three elements of the vision statement are embedded in all aspects of teaching and learning within the program.

The administrative licensure program is designed to honor the diversity of communities and learners and integrate professional wisdom; research, inquiry, and reflection; and authentic practice for the lifelong professional development of educational leaders. These leaders focus their talents on collaborating, creating, managing, and leading organizations and systems so that each student entrusted to them will be prepared to enter the work force or college without remediation upon graduation from high school.

Mission

The mission of the administrative licensure program is to prepare individuals to successfully fulfill all of the requirements of the State of Minnesota, the Minnesota Board of School Administrators, and the University of Minnesota for licensing as school superintendents, K-12 principals, directors of special education, and directors of community education. The University of Minnesota is a land-grant university and is dedicated to providing for the educational needs of all of the citizens of Minnesota. To this end the licensure program welcomes both the traditional and alternative licensure candidates and strives to be inclusive of all diversity.

Core beliefs

We believe:

• in the wisdom of those who drafted the guiding principles of MR3512 with particular emphasis on the shared role among the universities and field practitioners for preparing educational administrators.
• that individuals bring to the program unique strengths, formal training, and experiences and that all of these must be valued and recognized in the cumulative and collective preparation of educational administrators. Therefore, our program must allow for individualization to accommodate each learner.
• that educational administrators make an essential difference in the lives of children, communities, and the larger context of the role the children and youth will play as adults in the world. Therefore, administrators must be well prepared to meet the challenging responsibilities of leading educational organizations that respond to the needs of each child that comes to us.
• that leaders must be able to recognize and analyze complexities, think about problems and solutions in ways that integrate multiple competencies in authentic practice situations, use research and model best practices.