History

In 2003, Drs. Scott McLeod and Joan Hughes received a large federal Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) grant to create the first graduate program in the country designed to prepare technology-savvy school administrators. The School Technology Leadership Initiative (STLI) had numerous external partners, including the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), Microsoft, IBM, the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), and the George Lucas Educational Foundation.

Over the next few years, Scott and Joan created a 15-credit graduate certificate program at the University of Minnesota, gave away the curriculum to ten partner universities and assisted them with local implementation, and ran four global cohorts through the program. They also leveraged the FIPSE grant to support P-12 school leaders and to bring in additional grants and external contracts. Jayson Richardson was a graduate assistant for STLI before he graduated with his Ph.D. and became a university faculty member.

In 2005, Scott and Jayson petitioned the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) to create a new, national Program Center focused on school technology leadership. The University of Minnesota was named as the host of that center and the Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE) was born!

CASTLE was later hosted by Iowa State University and the University of Kentucky. At Iowa State University, CASTLE was a key facilitator of Iowa’s statewide, grass roots, 1:1 computing / rural digital equity movement. CASTLE also began facilitating regional Innovation Academies for Iowa school leaders, in partnership with the School Administrators of Iowa. At the University of Kentucky, CASTLE helped launch the College of Education’s School Technology Leadership graduate program and its Next Generation Leadership Academy, which has been a transformational experience for school districts across the state. The Next Gen Academy is now run by the College’s Center for Next Generation Leadership.

Jayson and Scott’s current institutions, the University of Denver and the University of Colorado Denver (respectively), now serve as CASTLE co-hosts and we are looking forward to similar impacts in Colorado in addition to our national and global work. Thank you to everyone that has been involved in CASTLE’s various research, teaching, service, and grant activities over the years!