Our Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) in Organizational Leadership program is designed for working adult professionals who seek dynamic growth in their leadership practice, whether to move into upper-level management or to make a more significant impact driving progress on the complex challenges that matter most.
Students should plan to earn five to eight credit hours per semester, with a broader commitment of approximately 34 months to complete the required 57 credit hours. Additionally, classes will meet one weekend a month with a week-long intensive course each summer.
Our institutions face unprecedented challenges across all industries. Whether it is in education, medicine, government, church, or business, today’s organizations face issues for which our industrial age leadership theories and practices are ill-equipped. This comprehensive program, leading to a terminal degree, works to develop students as trustworthy authority figures, with capacity and tools to exercise leadership from any position—mobilizing others to make progress on an organization’s most difficult issues.
The program is designed to help students build the emotional and psychological capacity for the burden of leadership, advance and enhance leadership skills, prepare them to employ research to diagnose organizational needs, and investigate the range and effectiveness of possible interventions.
As Marian University actively seeks to grow leadership capacity, the doctoral program will prepare students to impact not only the social systems of their own organization but the community at large.
There is more to organizational leadership than simply meeting goals and objectives. The doctorate in organizational leadership emphasizes the Adaptive Leadership framework as its foundation, which provides a leadership focus that recognizes organizations as social systems, differentiates between technical problems and adaptive challenges, and expressly accounts for the nuance and power of authority and group dynamics.
This program has six overarching goals for candidates, such that at the completion of this program the graduate will be able to:
Graduates of the Ed.D. program will be prepared to mobilize others, lead change, and manage educational systems. Ed.D. students may also choose to pursue superintendent licensure as part of their degree. Indiana District Level Administrator Superintendent licensure prepares you for a leadership role in your school district, network, or diocese.
Professionals from diverse industries and domains—from healthcare to technology to government to clergy—will benefit from this doctoral program. Indianapolis, specifically, and Indiana, in general, are seeing enormous growth in a variety of sectors where skilled leadership development personnel are needed. In 2017, the Brookings Institute found that Indianapolis is among the fastest-growing metropolitan areas for tech-related jobs. And in 2019, Zippia, The Career Expert, utilized data sourced from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to report that seven out of the ten of the fastest-growing occupations in Indianapolis are in health care.
| Semester | Application Deadline | File Completion Deadline | Courses Begin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Summer (Early) 2025 | December 1, 2024 | December 10, 2024 | June 2025 |
| Summer (Final) 2025 | April 1, 2025 | April 15, 2025 | June 2025 |
To be eligible for admission to this program, applicants must have a master's degree from an accredited institution with a graduate GPA of at least 3.00 and complete a face-to-face interview.
Please visit the Business Office "Tuition Rates" page.
Marian University’s organizational leadership doctoral program provides working adults with the skills they need to exercise leadership and pursue advanced leadership positions in their organizations. Interested in learning more?
Learn more about our Doctorate in Organizational Leadership
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