Gordon Expands Graduate Leadership with Atlanta Cohort

With a growing number of students enrolling from the Southeastern United States, Gordon College plans to expand its graduate leadership program to include an Atlanta-based cohort in the summer of 2019.

“Given that the Atlanta metro-area has the highest concentration of Christian schools anywhere in the United States, it makes strategic and missional sense for Gordon’s successful graduate leadership program to expand its reach to this area of the country,” said Dr. David Tilley, senior advisor to the program and former headmaster of Mount Paran Christian School. “I am personally excited to be working with colleagues in Wenham in making this quality program available to Christian educators in the Atlanta area.”

Cohort members will complete the first of two summer residencies on the campus of Mount Paran Christian School, a private secondary school in Kennesaw, Georgia. The second residency will be completed on Gordon’s campus during the following summer. Both residencies—which include experiential leadership and unparalleled networking opportunities—will take place in June to accommodate the typical academic schedule for secondary school teachers and administrators in the Southeast region. (The graduate leadership program’s standard Boston cohort residencies will continue to be held every July.)

“A rigorous academic graduate program, specific to Christian education, is what makes Gordon College unique,” says Jason Beard ’18, a graduate leadership alumnus and current teacher at Mount Paran. “A Gordon cohort in Atlanta, a city with more than 60 Christian schools serving K-12 students, [will] raise academic standards and excellence for individual schools and the city.”

The graduate leadership program at Gordon College prepares Christian school staff to step into positions of leadership at their institutions. Through courses with nationally recognized leaders and one-on-one mentorship, students receive advanced leadership training from a Christian liberal arts perspective. Designed by heads of Christian schools, the program covers critical components of Christian school leadership, including school law and advancement. Students can earn either a Master of Arts in Leadership or an Education Specialist in Leadership degree.

To learn more or apply for the Atlanta cohort, contact [email protected].