Fast Facts

The Department of Educational Leadership, Research and Technology at Western Michigan University is proud of its accomplishments. Some of them:

• The educational and instructional technology unit offers online master of arts and certificate programs designed to prepare students to be K-12 technology coordinators.
• There are 20+ full-faculty members in the department.
• ELRT serves over 100 international students from 18 countries, several of whom are Fulbright Fellows.
• Educational leadership faculty members serve as principal investigators for major grants and projects:
• Achievement-Centered Learning
• Online Technical Education ($228,765) 
• First in the World Grant ($3.2 million) from the U.S. Department of Education to use the unique opportunities afforded by the existence of the Kalamazoo Promise to build an institutional culture focused on increased access and degree completion for underrepresented, underprepared or low-income students
• WMU emerging scholar - Dr. Jessaca Spybrook, who recently received an $800,000 National Science Foundation grant to head a team of researchers from WMU, the biological Sciences Curriculum Study and Abt Associates, will be presented with the 2016-17 Emerging Scholar Award
• High-Impact Leadership for School Renewal Project grant ($12.5 million award), from the U.S. Department of Education for a three-year effort aimed at intense school leadership development in high-poverty schools across West Michigan
• Distinguished Teaching Award - Dr. Louann Bierlein Palmer 2017-2018 Recipient
• Dr. Donna Talbot, Chair of ELRT, received the WMU Diversity & Inclusion Award, 2018.
• The HESA Leadership program sponsors a Study Abroad program to Singapore and Malaysia every other year (even years in summer I).