The History

In 1989, The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture piloted a summer program for school principals and senior administrators modeled on its Summer Institute for Teachers, a program designed in 1984 to renew, inspire, and deepen school teachers. Funded by what was, at that time, called The Texas Committee for the Humanities, as well as by the Educational Foundation of America and public-spirited citizens and foundations, the highly acclaimed 1989 Principals Institute was expanded and extended to 1990 and 1991 to serve, in the end, over 90% of the principals in the Dallas ISD, as well as administrators from 11 schools and districts around the state.

Given the bold initiatives that the Dallas Independent School District has adopted in its drive to transform itself into the "best urban school district in America by 2010," the importance of visionary school administrators takes on a new and critical role, a role that has always been the foundation of the Dallas Institute's work with principals.

An excerpt from descriptions of the Dallas Institute's first Principals Institute in 1989 serves to make the point. Our director, the late Dr. Donald Cowan wrote:

"A principal presides over the most important unit of the educational project - the individual school. The person who fills the post is the headmaster of an enterprise for learning, one who must express the authority demanded by the position. That vision needs to be reawakened and refreshed from time to time if the school is to thrive in its commitment, the commitment of all educational institutions which is to induce every student into being a learner throughout life. To accomplish this end, teachers themselves need to be learners, manifesting a delight in learning and exhibiting a constant growth in understanding. And the administrator who leads these teachers, guides them, admonishes and admires them should be, in spirit, principal learner among them."

The Purpose

To provide opportunities for Dallas ISD Principals of all ranks to lead the way in learning in their school communities, the Principals Institute programs are:

• Highly concentrated classes and conferences in which principals of all ranks return to the classroom as students of great literature, philosophy, and history. Studying the humanities - the things that relate to our humanness - expands their understanding of and appreciation for the human community in which they work.
• Nationally acclaimed programs--Dr. Louise Cowan was awarded the National Humanities Medal (called the Charles Frankel Prize) by the President of the United States for having created the Summer Institute for Teachers and the Principals Institute.
• Designed to provide administrators with the opportunities not only to revive their own passion for learning but also to re-envision the role and responsibility of creative leadership.

The Method: Each Principals Institute class and conference is limited in size to insure the intimacy required for meaningful conversation and an easy exchange of ideas.

Lectures set the level of discussion and are, in themselves, instructive and interesting. But the real learning occurs in small-group seminars and workshops, with twelve participants and a skilled discussion leader interacting freely in each group. Some writing in journals is done most days to help deepen the participant's capacity for thinking concretely and expressing ideas critically, but nothing is graded.

The Principals Institute is an ideal model of a non-competitive learning community, fostering the highest ideas and virtues in both its faculty and participants and providing participants with extensive practice in "accountable talk" while immersed in "academic rigor in a thinking curriculum" under the direction of skilled faculty who model an expert level of "disciplinary literacy."

Principals Institute programs have always been conducted in the method of many of the concepts now being implemented across the Dallas ISD from the Institute for Learning.

Why Choose Literature As the Basis of Study of Effective Leadership: Although learning can occur in any field or discipline - history, philosophy, the sciences - certain advantages inhere in using a well-formed work of fiction as the focus of study for a group with varied backgrounds. Great literary texts - human stories - are immediately available to everyone, yet the depths they plumb are inexhaustible. Something more can always be learned from them. The analogues they suggest are universal in application, useful resources for visionary leaders.

Are the works difficult? In a sense, yes. They are important works, worth studying, and they contain the complexity of human experience that makes them viable for a serious consideration of human things. A first reading is likely to be difficult, even confusing, but once a work is studied in the group sessions, it becomes transparent and part of one's personal experience. The primary works come from our dominant cultural origins - from Greece, West Africa, and from Spain - cutting across cultural roots and branches, revealing the interrelated and profound heritage that we share.

The Faculty: As in any classroom experience, the Principals Institute faculty is one of the most important factors contributing to its success. Ph.D.'s of distinction, professors will reprise their roles from the first Principals Institutes to assure the most dynamic outcome for the program.

The Principals Institute is under the direction of Dr. Louise Cowan. Over sixty years a visionary educator and a master teacher, Dr. Cowan is the University Professor of Literature at the University of Dallas and still teaches a regular semester class at 91 years of age. Dr. Cowan's inspiring and profound educational theories are the foundation of the spirit and focus of the Teachers Academy work with educators.

For information about Principals Institute programs, contact Dr. Claudia Allums at 214-981-8813 or callums@dallasinstitute.org.