Special Issue Creating a New System for Principal Preparation: Reflections on Efforts to Transcend Tradition and Create New Cultures

When selected as a pilot redesign site, we decided to both refocus the underlying assumptions guiding our program and to engage in processes allowing us to model best practices while creating a new program. This article summarizes key aspects of our redesign work and offers reflections on the processes used and challenges faced. Murphy’s (2006) guiding principles for “fostering the reculturing of preparation programs ” serves as our point of reference for conducting this programmatic critique, examining where we were, where we are now, and where we are headed. “Two major hypotheses for the change in the way leadership is conceptualized are that the context in which leadership takes place has changed and that new perspectives and ideas about leadership have been introduced from scholars and practitioners. These two forces are interdependent and are hard to separate—as our views change, we enact a different world and as we enact a different world, our views change. ” (Kezar & Carducci, 2007, p. 4) We live in rapidly changing times that challenge us to keep up with exploding volumes of information, instantaneously evolving technology, and increasingly diverse community demographics. The context in which we live and work is likely to continue changing at rapidly increasing rates (Friedman, 2005). As our operational paradigms change, scholars studying leadership continue to present models of leadership such as an ecological theory of leadership (Allen, Stelzner & Wielkiewicz, 1998) and constructivist leadership (Lambert, et al., 2002) that reflect these ongoing paradigmatic shifts. In the field of educational leadership preparation, our views have generally changed faster than our programs have been able to keep up. Educational leadership programs have primarily been changing on the margins (Murphy, 2006). As university faculty members piloting a state initiated redesign effort for principal preparation programs, we have had the opportunity to engage in the collaborative creation of a new wa