Sacramento State is one of seven California State University campuses that will independently offer a doctorate of education for the first time beginning in the fall of 2007, thanks to a new California law.

“It’s very clear on its focus: train educational leaders and administrators,” said Rosemary Papa, director of the center for teaching and learning at Sac State.

Sac State and Sonoma State’s current joint doctorate of education has been operating fully for only one year, said Pia Lopez, associate professor at Sac State.

However, the program required a partnership with UC Davis because of a restriction in California’s Master Plan for Higher Education that stated CSU campuses could not provide doctoral programs.

The CSU restriction was lifted for only doctorates of education in September, and Sac State will begin to offer an Ed.D. to students interested in studying educational policy and leadership, according to the current joint program’s Web site.

One reason the state decided to allow CSU campuses to award doctorate degrees is because of work force-related issues ?” the state was not producing enough professionals in the education field, Papa said.

“In the sense of the master plan, we’ll never have a law school or medical (school), but in areas like education, where it’s the mission, we’ll do it,” Papa said. “It’s meant to produce practitioners.”

The current program, Capital Area North Doctorate Educational Leadership, is the joint program in which Sac State and Sonoma State participate.

Papa is the director of the program and will also be the director of the new program in fall of 2007.

This current program will continue to operate despite plans for the new doctorate program, Papa said. In 2008, the doctoral program will include six other CSU campuses.

Papa, who helped establish the first Ed.D. program at Fresno State in 1991, said “there has been a need for this for more than 20 years.”

Political issues of higher education postponed doctorate degrees to be issued by state universities, Papa said.

Faculty will write the curriculum for the program during the summer and student enrollment is unknown, Papa said.

The program has four themes: visionary leadership and management; policy into practice; data for decision; and building communities in a diverse society for school levels beginning at kindergarten and up to community colleges.

The program usually takes three years to complete and doesn’t require a master’s degree to begin. Gamaliel Ortiz can be reached at [email protected]