Christine Leung Awarded the Broad Residency in Urban Education Christine Leung (MS08), an alumna of the Master of Science in Learning and Organizational Change (MSLOC) program, was recently awarded a Broad Residency in Urban Education. She will be working with the San Francisco Unified School District from 2009 to 2011.The Broad Residency selects promising leaders and places them in high-level management positions in school districts and charter management organizations, with the aim of improving education for America’s students. Broad Residents receive two years of professional development and access to a nationwide network of education leaders For her first year, Leung’s role at SFUSD will be as project manager of an effort to improve communications for the district. “Increased coordination will aid knowledge sharing between stakeholders as well as change the overall manner of conducting, improving and managing work throughout the district,” she notes. Leung was interested in the Broad Residency because of her commitment to education reform. “I have been passionate about education, particularly access to higher education for all, for as long as I can remember,” notes Leung. In fact, her decision to pursue the MSLOC degree at Northwestern was tied to a larger career move from federal government consulting to education reform. “Though working within the institutionalized bureaucracy that exists in major urban public school districts is not the most glamorous of work, I know that the real change in our education system must happen at the district-level right now,” she says. “Furthermore, I believe top-down education reform is only effective when it operates in conjunction with bottom-up (i.e., community-based) and multi-lateral collaboration and efforts involving all stakeholders," says Leung, who supports SFUSD's current direction. "Importantly, the Broad Residency provides the support of a nationwide cohort and regular professional development workshops which I think are critical to evoking the rich dialogue necessary for large-scale change in our country's education industry.” Leung has realistic but optimistic goals for her Residency. “I know I will not 'fix' the crisis we are facing in regard to educating our nation's youth within the two years of the Residency program. However, within this time, I do hope to help break down the barriers to communication and silos of knowledge within the school district in order to make the organization a better place to work and learn,” she says. by Marilyn Sherman Updated May 14, 2009  E-mail this story
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