UNC School of Education

R. Wendell Eaves Sr. Distinguished Professor of Educational Leadership

Coordinator of Educational Leadership Program

T 919.843.4572
F 919.962.1693
fenglish@email.unc.edu

121E Peabody Hall
CB 3500

Fenwick W. English is the R. Wendell Eaves Distinguished Professor of Educational Leadership in the School of Education. He currently teaches in the Educational Leadership Program at the master’s and doctoral levels. He has served in administrative capacities in higher education as department chair, dean and vice chancellor of academic affairs.

English is a former superintendent of schools in New York, assistant superintendent of schools in Florida and middle school principal in California. He has served in an executive capacity at the national level with the American Association of School Administrators in Arlington, Virginia, and with KPMG Peat Marwick, a private accounting and consulting firm in Washington, D.C. English has lived or worked in all 50 states and two U.S. territories during his career. Over his educational career he has also headed task forces and committees sponsored by the National Secondary School Principals (NASSP) and Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD). He served as a member of the University Council of Educational Administration (UCEA) Executive Committee (2001-2009) and was elected President for the 2006-07 academic term.

English has presented his research nationally and internationally. He has given papers at British Educational Leadership Management Association Society (BELMAS) as well as Divisions A and L of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) and National Council of Professors of Educational Administration (NCPEA). He is also a frequent keynote speaker at practitioner conferences, most recently at the Midwinter Conference of the Texas Association of School Administrators in Austin, Texas. He has worked overseas in the American Diplomatic Schools in Saudi Arabia, Israel and Athens, Greece and Department of Defense Schools (DoDEA) in Germany, Japan, the Philippines and the United Kingdom.

• Ph.D. 1972 - Arizona State University, Secondary Education
• M.S. 1963 - University of Southern California, Elementary Administration
• B.S. 1961 - University of Southern California, English and Education

• Leadership Heuristics
• Leadership Identities
• Leadership Preparation Programs and Epistemological Claims About Them
• Research Overview

• Advanced Leadership Theory
• Central Office Leadership
• Curriculum Leadership

• Honored by Corwin Press SAGE as a $2 million dollar author, 2008
• Keynote speech on "Refounding Educational Leadership" at the First Annual Leadership Conference, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA., 2008
• President of the University Council of Educational Administration (UCEA), 2006-07
• Keynote speech, "An Anatomy of Professional Practice" for annual UCEA Conference, Alexandria, Virginia, November 2007
• Invited paper and presentation at the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration National Summit Meeting on the Preparation of Educational Leaders in Washington, D.C. entitled "Educational Leadership for Sale: Social Justice, the ISLLC Standards, and the Corporate Assault on Public Schools." Released in a conference proceedings document entitled "Crediting the Past, Challenging the Present, Creating the Future", 2005
  
• Elected to the Presidency of UCEA by a vote of the UCEA Plenum in Nashville, Tennessee, 2005
• Re-elected to a second three year term on the UCEA Executive Committee, 2004
  
• Named a "Million Dollar Author" by Corwin Press, 2004
  
• Appointed to the Review Board of Educational Administration Quarterly, 2003

• An Investigation of Leadership Heuristics in the US and the UK (on-going)

• Division A and L of AERA
• UCEA (as an institutional member)
• Phi Delta Kappa
• Editorial Board, Education and Urban Society, 2004
• Editorial Board, Journal of Mentoring and Tutoring, 2004
• Co-Lead Auditor for Phi Delta Kappa in a state wide curriculum management audit for the State Board of Education of Georgia.
• Lead auditor for Phi Delta Kappa of a curriculum management audit of the Anchorage, Alaska School District, May 2002
• Elected to the UCEA Executive Committee for a three-year term
• Editorial Board Member/Reviewer:
  • 1996-present, Journal of Commonwealth Council of Educational Administration
  • 1993-present, Educational Research Journal
  • 1990-93; 1998-99, Journal of School Leadership

• Program Presenter, North Carolina Turnaround High Schools, 2008
• Distinguished Lecturer, Texas Association of School Administrators Midwinter Conference in Austin, Texas, 2008
• Keynote Speaker, Seventh Annual North Carolina High School Network Conference, Raleigh, 2007
• Workshop Presenter, Southwest Education Alliance in Charlotte, North Carolina, 2007

English, F. (2008). Anatomy of Professional Practice: Promising Research Perspectives in Educational Leadership. Rowman and Littlefield.

English, F. (2008). The Art of educational leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

English, F. (2007). The NRC's scientific research in education: It isn't even wrong! In F. English & G. Furman (Eds.) Research and educational leadership, (pp.1-38). Lanham MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

English, F. (Ed.). (2006). The encyclopedia of educational leadership and administration, Two volumes. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

English, F. (2006). The unintended consequences of a standardized knowledge base in advancing educational leadership preparation. Educational Administration Quarterly, 42(3), 461-472.

English, F. (Ed.). (2005). The Sage handbook of educational leadership: Advances in Theory, Research and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

English, F. (2003). The postmodern challenge to the theory and practice of educational administration. Springfield ILL: Charles C. Thomas.

• 2005, Presenter at the Principals' Partnership Summer Leadership Institute sponsored by the Union Pacific Railroad in Desert Springs, California
• 2004, Conducted a two day workshop for school principals on test item de-construction in Columbus, Ohio for the Columbus Public Schools
• 2003, Conducted a one day workshop on curriculum alignment for the central office staff, Portland Public Schools, Portland, Oregon
• 2002, Conducted a two day session on curriculum alignment for the Spokane, Washington Public Schools
• 2001, Senior Auditor on a comprehensive program audit of the Bermuda College in Bermuda