Ed School Dean Steps Down After Three Years

Ellen Condliffe Lagemann will step down from her post as dean of the Graduate School of Education (GSE) on June 30, only three years after taking the job and three months after she shocked her faculty with a sudden and unexpected resignation.

She announced her resignation in an e-mail to GSE students, faculty, and staff on March 21, uncharacteristically late in the academic year for deans to announce their resignation.

The previous five GSE deans had each served for at least eight years. And five of the last six deans of Harvard faculties to step down prior to Lagemann had announced their resignation at least six months prior to their departure.

“I never wanted to be a dean,” Lagemann wrote in the March e-mail.

“It’s really a personal decision having to do with how I want to spend the next part of my life,” Lagemann said last week. “I very much want to go back to being a historian and back to teaching and writing.”

The next dean is expected to be appointed soon, though Professor of Education and Social Policy Gary Orfield has said the University may find it difficult to find someone willing to take the post.

“The University is in a crisis right now,” Orfield said. “Finding someone who wants to take the deanship under difficult circumstances is going to be tough.”

Upon hearing news of Lagemann’s resignation, some faculty said the announcement was unexpected.

“The news is new to everyone today,” GSE spokesman Michael Rodman said on March 21.

“I was surprised by the decision to step down,” Shattuck Professor of Education Catherine E. Snow said last week.

Professional Development Educational Chair Robert G. Kegan said Lagemann did not enjoy her administrative post as much as she enjoys teaching.

“It’s not uncommon for people who take on a deanship for the first time to come to a gradual sense that this may not be exactly what they most want to do, and I think that’s what happened,” Kegan said.

During her three-year stint as dean, Lagemann oversaw an extensive restructuring of the GSE. Previously, the school had three relatively independent departments that were highly atomized. Each department even had separate admissions policies.

Under Lagemann, the three divisions—Human Development and Psychology; Administration, Planning, and Social Policy; and Learning and Teaching—were united under a single faculty.

Lagemann also inaugurated a review of the GSE’s curriculum, which may lead to the creation of a core curriculum for all the school’s students.

Kagen said all of Lagemann’s accomplishments were guided by a principle of enhancing the status of the profession of education.

“As a historian of education, she has a very deep view of the way in which education as a field and as a profession needs to by itself be stronger and be more respected within society,” said Kagen.

Under Lagemann, the faculty also saw some growth. She made four appointments during her three years, upping the total number of faculty in the school to 65, 21 of whom are professors.

As Lagemann leaves, the next dean’s principal challenge will be to oversee the GSE’s planned move to Allston. She said the planning will take several years, and that there should be one dean to oversee the school throughout those years.

“One of the reasons why I decided to step down is it’s a natural break point in a sense. The next person’s who’s in is going to have stay through the planning of Allston,” she said.

Lagemann said the GSE will benefit from the new facilities in Allston.

She said that many students find themselves sitting on the floor during class because the classrooms are not big enough, that there are not enough classrooms or bathrooms, and that professors’ offices are incredibly small.

“We increasingly are unable to fulfill our academic mission” because of the poor conditions, Lagemann said.

—Staff writer William C. Marra can be reached at wmarra@fas.harvard.edu.