James Henderson, Ed.D

After seven years of public school teaching while serving as an age-group and high school swimming coach, I pursued a doctorate in curriculum studies. I've been extremely pleased with this decision and feel fortunate to work at Kent State University, particularly given our Teaching, Learning and Curriculum Studies (TLC) School's commitment to advance the discipline of curriculum studies in our graduate programs.  I regularly teach three courses: Fundamentals of Curriculum, Curriculum Leadership, and Theory and Research in Curriculum.  I was coordinator of our TLC School's C&I Master's Degree (M.Ed.), Educational Specialist (Ed.S.) & Doctoral (Ph.D.) programs for 13 years, the co-coordinator of the EHHS College’s Teacher Leader Endorsement Program, and the co-creator and first co-editor of The Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy.  I am an active member in the Curriculum & Pedagogy Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies, the American Educational Research Association, and the Professors of Curriculum (POC) Honorary Society.  I am a past president of this honorary society, which has a venerable history of celebrating the discipline of curriculum studies.  My service work in these national and international professional organizations is closely linked to my scholarly interests, which focus on curriculum-based reflective inquiry and democratic leadership. I have authored, co-authored and co-edited five books on these topics, and two of these books are currently in their third editions. I have worked closely with a local Superintendent of Instruction on the creation of a web-based Curriculum Leadership Institute, and I am a member of a team that has received a large grant from the Ohio Department of Education to demonstrate the power of curriculum-based teacher leadership in inspiring and supporting meaningful educational reform.