Carrol Warren, Ed.D., the inaugural director of the UNC School of Education’s new online Ed.D. in Organizational Learning and Leadership program, knows that leadership takes many forms.
“There are many views of what it means to be a leader,” Warren said. “Often, when we mention leadership or leader, the image that comes to mind is that of a CEO or the president of an organization. However, this is a one-dimensional perspective, and it doesn’t have to be so narrowly defined. The opportunity to serve in leadership roles often goes beyond such a narrow scope, and the flexibility of what leadership roles can look like is something to appreciate.”
When classes for the online Ed.D. in Organizational Learning and Leadership program begin in August 2024, Warren and School of Education leadership and faculty members expect the program’s students — and where they are in their careers — to reflect that broad view of leadership. The program was intentionally designed for working professionals from across sectors and industries who aspire to become human-centered leaders, helping organizations achieve goals and deliver on their missions.
To learn more about the program, visit online.unc.edu/online-doctoral-programs/online-edd-organizational-learning-and-leadership.
A student-centered higher education leader
Before coming to Carolina, Warren served as an assistant teaching professor at NC State University and as a faculty scholar with a research center on campus, where she launched and led an award-winning executive mentoring program for Ed.D. students pursuing careers in community college leadership.
The mentoring program paired students with senior-level community college administrators, helping those students grow their professional networks and enabling them to connect coursework grounded in theory and research to practice. Students had opportunities to shadow their mentors, attend board meetings, statewide legislative meetings, and conferences, and these executive mentors would guide these doctoral students through their career journeys, she said.
Before NC State, Warren herself rose through the ranks at Johnston Community College where she entered as a counselor on a federally funded grant program, working closely with first-generation students to help them navigate their college experiences. With guidance from her own mentor, Warren was promoted to director of student support services, incorporating a strengths-based model and writing grants that would ultimately help to best serve students.
In that role, as she completed her Ed.D., Warren said she became “heavily invested in crisis intervention and management” after seeing first-hand the mental health needs of college students.
“We didn’t have a crisis intervention team on our campus, and students were meeting with me expressing distress and a lack of resources, which evolved into great concern,” she said. “Even though I wasn’t the school counselor, I would receive referrals from people across campus. We needed a better way to manage that process and assess avenues that could support the well-being of students.”
The challenges presented in her day-to-day work informed the work of her dissertation research, which focused on mental health crisis planning at community colleges, and she launched a care team at Johnston Community College to assess those situations and connect students to supportive structures so they could successfully engage in their coursework.
At the time, Warren said only four out of 58 community colleges in North Carolina had crisis intervention plans in place. She eventually became the quality enhancement plan project administrator at the community college, contributing to accreditation efforts, before moving to NC State.
Leading the online Ed.D. in Organizational Learning and Leadership
Warren will play an outsized role in the launch of Carolina’s first fully online Ed.D. program. Students who complete the program will earn a Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership with a concentration in Organizational Learning and Leadership.
She will work closely with enrolled students to help maximize their experiences, and she already is collaborating with expert faculty members to help deliver courses on improvement science, change leadership, human-centered design, equitable and inclusive practice, research methodology, and more.
As students in the program will learn, Warren takes a human-centered approach to achieving organizational and programmatic success.
“What I appreciate about leadership is that it’s a chance to serve, a chance to go beyond and do what’s good for people outside of your immediate circle,” she said. “It’s about impact and contributing at the highest capacity possible for the greater good.”
Below is a Q&A with Warren that has been edited for length and clarity.
What makes this program unique?
Many things make this program unique, but a big one is that this is an Ed.D., a Doctor of Education, focused on organizational learning and leadership. This degree will be applicable to so many fields far beyond education.
Students who enroll will discover that the program equips them with versatile skills applicable across fields. Whether it’s data collection and analysis, relationship and empathy-building, or improvement science, this program will provide the tools for students to be leaders within any organization. The faculty have made sure courses are tailored to the specific needs of working professionals in a way that creates action-oriented learning experiences.
Across industries, organizations are in need of effective management teams and bold leaders. That’s what our students will find valuable in this program, how applicable program takeaways will be across disciplines and industries.
What does the ideal student look like for this program?
If I were to fast forward one year from now, when we have students in the program, I hope it will be difficult to define or describe what an ideal student would look like because they will all be so different. I imagine they will be at varying levels within their own career journey and will represent different time zones and industries.
What all of the students in the program will have in common is their ability to problem-solve and the desire to acknowledge that challenges can be solved through and approached from a variety of perspectives. The opportunity to problem-solve and have their perspectives challenged will be offered through courses mapped toward high-quality standards for student success.
What will this program provide for students?
This program ensures students will go beyond showing up to check off a box for attendance. It will offer engaging experiences both inside and outside of the online learning environment to foster an educational journey that gets to the essence of what enhances organizational strength.
Throughout the program, students can choose to participate in an optional in-person immersion, fostering connections with UNC-Chapel Hill faculty, peers, and innovative leaders from a variety of industries. This experience aims to break down barriers and inspire creativity.
The final three semesters of the program will offer a series of three capstone courses. The capstone courses will offer students a platform to recognize challenges or issues within their industry or organization and subsequently conduct research to propose solutions. The curriculum is scaffolded toward the capstone with coursework progressively guiding them through the process. Additionally, students will receive support from faculty members, the UNC School of Education, UNC Digital and Lifelong Learning, and 2U. Through the capstone, students will effectively be able to apply their acquired knowledge, resulting in a research project that yields ideas that can propel their organizations forward.
By the end of the program, I hope our graduates can see themselves as leaders who are brave, empathetic, and highly skilled in their place of work. The UNC School of Education faculty will have prepared students with the knowledge needed to advance in their careers to the highest level possible.