The EduLead partnership was featured in a September 21, 2007, article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch titled "VCU and UR Team Up to Help Principals: Program Will Teach About Best Practices in School Leadership."

VCU and UR Team Up to Help Principals: Program Will Teach About Best Practices in School Leadership

Full text © 2007 Richmond Times-Dispatch

The University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University have established a partnership to assist up to 80 school principals in the Richmond area.

The partnership also will serve about 30 Fairfax County principals with a similar program.

The program, called EDULEAD, will offer leadership programs to:

• aspiring principals;
• first-year principals;
• principals of academically struggling schools; and
• principals of highly successful schools.

The partnership also will follow up with impact studies.

The program will be assisted by a grant from the Genworth Foundation, the charitable giving arm of Richmond-based Genworth Financial Inc.

VCU President Eugene P. Trani said the program "will provide the region's school systems with the best practices and latest theories in school leadership."

UR President Edward L. Ayers said the partnership "shows what schools, universities and business can accomplish when they collaborate."

Program officials said EDULEAD was created in response to requests from superintendents and staff development specialists of the public school systems in Richmond and Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico counties.

Program co-directors are Thomas J. Shields, director of the Center for Leadership in Education -- a joint project of UR's Jepson School of Leadership Studies and School of Continuing Studies -- and Jo Lynne DeMary, director of the VCU School of Education's Center for School Improvement and a former Virginia superintendent of public instruction.