Instructors and Advisors in the Ed.D. ADPO Concentration
Doug Archbald (Ph.D., Wisconsin) is the Coordinator of the Ed.D. program, in which he teaches graduate courses on communications, curriculum, policy, quantitative analysis, and using data. Dr. Archbald's research interests include accountability and testing policies, curriculum standards, and school choice policies. He has published numerous reports and articles on these subjects, directed several large national policy studies, consulted with state and national education agencies and foundations and written two books, one on authentic assessment and the other on defining and studying organizational improvement problems. Dr. Archbald formerly taught in elementary schools as an environmental education teacher, worked with the Unified Learning Institute in curriculum development, and conducted policy research for the Consortium for Policy Research in Education.
Joan Buttram (Ph.D., University of Virginia) is an Educational Researcher in the Delaware Education R&D Center and Assistant Professor in the School of Education at the University of Delaware. She has over 30 years of experience conducting program evaluations, the majority focused on programs to improve outcomes for disadvantaged children. Dr. Buttram has studied Delaware schools that outperform expectations and how district and school leaders spend their time. She is currently conducting a study on distributed leadership in a sample of Delaware schools and overseeing the Center's annual statewide poll on education. She also teachers the doctoral level course on program evaluation for the School of Education and advises doctoral students in the Educational Leadership program.
Elizabeth Farley-Ripple (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania) is Coordinator of the M.Ed. in School Leadership program and teaches courses on quantitative methods, data analysis, and evidence-based decision making. Her research interests include evidence-based decision-making, organizational studies, teacher policy, predictors of achievement and school dropout, accountability, and policy and program evaluation. She is a quantitative researcher with extensive experience managing, organizing, and analyzing large databases and conducting longitudinal and multilevel analyses. Dr. Farley-Ripple also conducts qualitative research directed at understanding decision-making and evidence-use processes in educational organizations. Her work has been published in Education Policy, American Journal of Education, Urban Education, and as book chapters and technical reports. She has also presented her work at the conferences of the American Educational Research Association, the American Sociological Association, the American Association of School Administrators, and the Population Association of America. Beginning as a research assistant at the Center for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins, she now works with Delaware schools and districts as well as with Research for Action, the Philadelphia Education Fund, and with Johns Hopkins University.
Dennis Loftus (Ed.D., Temple) has 22 years of experience as a school district superintendent or assistant superintendent. In 1994 he was selected as the Delaware Superintendent of the Year by the American Association of School Administrators. In addition to teaching and school administration, Dr. Loftus was also a State Supervisor in Delaware's Department of Public Instruction. In addition to his faculty affiliation with the Educational Leadership program, Dr. Loftus is currently the Program Coordinator of the Delaware Academy for School Leadership (DASL), a position he has held since 2000. He teaches courses on organizational management as well as directing the leadership practicum within the Educational Leadership program.
Frank Murray (Ph.D., Johns Hopkins), H. Rodney Sharp Professor of Education, specializes in educational psychology and teacher education. Dr. Murray has sixteen years of experience in higher education administration, including serving as a college dean and chair of the national Holmes Group, a consortium of colleges and universities dedicated to reshaping teacher education. Dr. Murray is currently president of The Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC). Recent books to which Dr. Murray contributed chapters or served as editor include "The Teacher Educator's Handbook: Building A Knowledge Base for the Preparation of Teachers," "The Role of the University in Preparation of Teachers," "Higher Education and School Reform," and "Myths of Teacher Education."
Sharon Walpole (Ph.D., University of Virginia) is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Delaware. She teaches graduate courses on literacy, instructional improvement, and supervision of the reading program, and undergraduate courses on language and literacy development in kindergarten and first grade. Dr. Walpole has extensive school-based experience, including both high school teaching and elementary school administration. She has also been involved in federally funded and homegrown school-wide reform projects. She has been studying the design and effects of school-wide reforms, particularly those involving literacy coaches. She works closely with the Reading First initiatives in Delaware and in Georgia. She is co-author of The literacy coach’s handbook: A guide to research-based reform and Differentiated reading instruction: Strategies for the primary grades as well as recent articles in Reading Research Quarterly, Journal of Educational Psychology, Reading and Writing Quarterly, Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Services in the Schools, Early Education and Development, and The Reading Teacher.
Adjunct Faculty
James Donovan (Ph.D., Ohio State University)
Amelia Hodges (Ed.D., University of Delaware)
