New Doctoral Degree and Professional Development Opportunities: College of Education Empowering Educators
Lubbock Christian University’s College of Education continues to be a resource to students, graduates, and area educators—and in the last year alone, the college has added two new programs and continued to build resources to serve educators across the South Plains and beyond.
“We owe a lot to the shoulders on which we stand here in the College of Education,” said Dr. David Boyer (’92), Dean of the College of Education. “Lubbock Christian University has had a long history of producing fantastic educators, and we always strive to be responsive to what our community is looking for. Within about one hundred miles, a lot of the schools and school districts have hired our people over the years. About a third of the Region 17 administrators and campus leaders have come through our principal program or one of our leadership programs in our graduate school.”
Dean Boyer explains the values at the heart of their students’ success: “The retention rate of educators that come through our undergrad program is phenomenal in comparison to almost any other college in the US, and that's because we have people who come here because they just love people, they love children, they love education, they want to help, and they want to serve. When you couple that with the quality and skill sets of our instructors, all of our experiences, and our passion for education, we’re able to produce and grow skilled educators—whether they’re brand new or experienced, at the height of their careers. We believe that our Christian perspective of preparing educators is why we're here.”
One of the most impressive additions to LCU’s portfolio of programs is the Doctor of Education (EdD) degree, LCU’s third doctoral offering, beginning classes this fall.
“I know that's been a dream of a lot of people that have worked here in the College of Education for some time,” shared Dr. Boyer. “It's an exciting time to see these additional ways that we'll prepare educators to serve at the highest level possible.”
“Our first cohort is getting off the ground,” explained Dr. Gene Sheets, Associate Professor of Education, who is directing the new program. “We’ve seen a need for leadership positions in schools, both in this area and all over Texas—particularly Christian leadership. There are only two other programs in the state that offer a doctoral program from a Christian worldview.”
This advanced degree has been developed to mentor and equip educational leaders. “The program is designed to give educators and administrators essential tools,” Dr. Sheets continued. “They’ll gain experience from both research and practical points of view.”
The College of Education offers two pathways for the four-year, 66-hour doctoral program. All students will take the same 54-hour core courses, and the final 12 hours will either be geared toward training in educational leadership for principal and superintendents, or toward curriculum instructional leadership, which will be more for educational professionals whose goals are outside becoming a principal or superintendent—perhaps as a curriculum and instruction assistant superintendent or as a professor at the university level.
One of the benefits of the EdD is that, for those who enter already holding a superintendent certification or other leadership certificate, their prior education can count toward some components of this new program.
“We have 15 in the cohort this fall,” Dr. Sheets shared, “and we have several in this first cohort that already have their superintendent certificate—and that eliminates one year from the normal four-year schedule, so they'll have a 54-hour program.”
One advantage of the program for current educators is that it does not include a traditional dissertation. “There is research involved,” Dr. Sheets emphasized. “All graduates of our program will have completed two action research projects that will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal or presented at a conference.”
Dr. Sheets also added that, because the program is cohort-driven, the students will take all classes together for three years—a format that aids in professional support and community-building.
“I think the biggest difference that distinguishes our program,” he added, “is that we include a travel component each summer for the three core years. The first summer, the cohort will go to Austin, and over a week we'll visit the state capital and legislature, Texas Education Agency, and other state locations. During the second summer,” he continued, “we're going to go to Washington, DC, where our students will get a national view of education—visiting Congress and national education associations. Then, during the third year, we're going to go to Europe for a week. Giving our leaders a global perspective on education will broaden their horizons and help them think outside the box—something that can be essential in their roles.”
The new EdD program isn’t the only new option for educators at LCU—the university also unveiled a new alternative certification program: the Lubbock Educator Alternative-Certification Program (LEAP), which is aimed at helping those who wish to enter the teaching profession after attaining a bachelor’s degree in a different discipline.
“We're seeing more and more people getting alternatively certified,” explained Dr. Connor Bryant (’16), Assistant Professor of Secondary Education and Program Director for the new LCU LEAP program. “For the 2024-25 school year, out of all new teacher hires, over half were alternatively certified, and we realized we were not meeting such students in that space. Outside of a full master's degree, we had no way for students who had already earned their bachelor's degree to get certification to teach.”
“The alternative certification program that we've just launched is really a reaction to the state of preparing educators in the United States, period,” added Dr. Boyer. “There's just a shortage of teachers, everywhere, and so there are a lot of professionals out there who maybe wanted to turn to education after getting their bachelor’s degree in some other discipline, and they've discovered that going through an alternative certification program can provide them essential training while they're also on the job teaching. We didn't want to move into that space until we were certain that we could do that better than anybody else and maintain the reputation that the College of Education has.”
“We talked to a lot of local school districts,” Dr. Bryant emphasized, “and asked a lot of questions—we wanted to know that, if we were to offer this program, what do area schools need, and what do these schools want to see? How can we partner with them? We got some really good feedback from area districts, especially a lot of discussion about practicality and preparing them for current age school, not just theory.”
Using that feedback, the College of Education shaped a program to be as practical as possible, while still remaining competitive in the alternative certification market. The program is a year-long, 24-credit-hour program, at a cost of $7,000—a very competitive rate for such a program. Those 24 hours, Dr. Bryant noted, are also directly applicable to a master's degree if a student wishes to continue their education after completing the certification.
The first cohort of the program started in the summer, and more students are beginning their classes this fall.
Because of the way that the Texas Education Agency (TEA) requires new programs like LCU LEAP to certify each new age group and subject separately, LCU currently only offers certification for middle school math, science, social studies, and English, but more options are on the way each semester.
“TEA requires us to apply individually for every certification area and every grade level,” Dr. Bryant explained, “But we’re hoping to add more every summer—we're currently in the process of applying for more certifications for elementary and high school core disciplines, and even all-level certifications such as music, PE, and Spanish.”
Even beyond these new opportunities in the classroom, however, the College of Education is also constantly seeking opportunities to serve and support local educators—and one initiative LCU began offering just two years ago continues to grow in popularity: the LCU Summer Educator Conference.
“As we strive to respond to what our community needs and our educators need,” explained Dr. Boyer, “we kept hearing that teachers were looking for more opportunities to earn professional development hours. Their districts provide a lot of them, but then they leave some on the table for those teachers to find their own resources, and that’s where we stepped in.”
“We just held the second annual conference,” Dr. Bryant continued, “and this is a huge resource for teachers in our area. Of course, prior to COVID, we’d always provided some sort of professional development for teachers, but those had been held in November and were mostly geared toward LCU’s own recent graduates. After that conference was suspended during the pandemic, in the summer of '23, we put together a committee to examine the whole event as we looked at the best way to bring it back.”
As the committee evaluated the timing, they realized that November wasn’t optimal for teachers—they almost certainly needed to secure a substitute teacher, and the conference usually landed during the holiday season. Because of that, the committee decided to look at summer to see if that would be a better option, and since teachers are required to complete a certain amount of professional development for their certification, and they have more flexibility during the summer months, that turned out to be a great choice.
“In the past, we've usually had about 50 attendees at those November meetings,” Dr. Bryant explained, “so we were expecting 50 to 100—instead, we ended up having over 350 attendees at that first year back.”
This Summer Educator Conference also featured a different format than its previous iterations. “We landed on a one-day professional development directly in response to what these participants want and/or need,” Dr. Bryant explained. “We included a keynote and then had various breakout sessions for different grade levels and content areas, as well as general sessions over classroom management and other topics. We also were intentional about closing out with a very deliberate encouragement for teachers.”
The 2024 event was an instant hit. “We got incredible feedback from teachers saying they appreciated that we made it accessible to them during the summer, and that we didn't require them to pay for anything—which was possible because we had some generous donations and sponsorships. We’ve been able to build rapport with the educators in our community,” Dr. Bryant added, “as our university works to meet our community’s needs.”
When the College of Education held the second annual event this summer, they had over 400 participants, maxing out their capacity. The free event featured keynote speaker Aric Bostick, a nationally recognized speaker and expert in education and leadership, specialized breakout sessions for teachers over a variety of topics, and free breakfast, lunch, and snacks. Teachers also received credit towards their professional development requirements—and once again, the team received glowing comments and feedback.
“I think teachers are looking for non-virtual options to better their teaching,” Dr. Bryant emphasized. “While virtual options are great for flexibility, I think teaching is such a practical profession that there's just something about actually being around other educators—they need to learn through seeing, through community, and I think that really is what this provides: an opportunity for community.”
He added, “We had representation from more than 15 districts around this area, and even teachers and groups from New Mexico and South Texas. Among those coming from our local area, it wasn’t just from our larger schools around us—we had many people from a lot of smaller surrounding districts.”
“We want to show them who LCU is, what we stand for,” Bryant emphasized. “We've had a lot of people in the past say how much they appreciate being prayed over at a professional development. The fact that we don’t meet only their professional needs, but spiritual needs as well—that’s a really cool thing that we get to do. We want them to know that we see them, we support them, and we are here for them—whenever and wherever. It’s so powerful to truly meet our educators where they are at.”