About this Program

The organizational improvement certificate is a 12-credit certificate program intended to introduce students to organizational improvement with a particular emphasis on improving educational organizations like schools, school districts, higher education institutions, and other non-profit organizations. Organizational improvement is complex work, requiring people to have a wide range of competencies in areas like systems thinking, data collection, data analysis, concept mapping, communication, negotiation, collaboration, and evaluation. These competencies often influence one another, meaning how a person collaborates with others can influence the kinds of data analysis efforts they are able to do as they engage in organizational improvement work. As such, it is essential to ensure a person has a holistic introduction to how to think about organizational improvement, how organizational improvement can happen, and how to work with others to design and implement organizational improvement efforts. This program’s purpose is intended to be a support system for helping students develop foundational knowledge, skills, and dispositions for improving organizations so that those organizations can better serve their constituents, clients, students, and/or communities. This development will prepare students to be trained diagnosticians of organizational improvement so that they can enhance how they do their current job, how they work with others, and how they learn about others’ needs and develop and implement efforts to address those needs.