Xavier University of Louisiana has, since its establishment nearly 100 years ago, been driven by the need to make higher education more accessible to people, particularly Black and brown students, who otherwise may not have gotten the opportunity to go to college. That is the vision of educational equity that drove St. Katharine and the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament to form Xavier during a time when higher education was nearly inaccessible for people of color. In the increasingly digital world, Xavier still seeks to give students the most innovative and forward-thinking avenues of growth while ensuring the opportunity to experience its unique culture as the nation’s only historically Black and Catholic university, even if they are not physically on campus. To allow for flexibility and promote diversity in education, Xavier has moved its Master of Educational Leadership program entirely online starting in the Fall 2023 semester.

The Master of Educational Leadership program is one the many graduate programs that Xavier University of Louisiana offers to students. The 36-credit hour program focuses on developing skills in leadership, strategic planning, and supervision while enhancing a person’s ability to apply theory and practice through internships. Since the program was first introduced, it has been in-person, typically populated by principals, teachers, or other education professionals who sought to improve their skills. However, because the program was in-person, this meant that most of the students in the program were local to New Orleans and the surrounding areas. The move to online instruction will open the program up to people beyond the area’s limits, which is an exciting prospect for some because of the benefits that come from the program being more accessible.

“The advantage of it is that it opens the door for more and diverse creative thought processes having people from all over,” said Dr. Ramona Perkins, the Educational Leadership Program Coordinator for the Master and Doctorate programs at Xavier University of Louisiana. “[There is] a vacuum, or silo, that it creates when your only audience are those who can drive to the university... Now, we don’t have people just from New Orleans talking about what they ‘do’ in New Orleans [education]. Now we have, ‘Well, we don’t do that here,’ ‘This is what we do in Washington State,’ ‘Oh, this is what we do in New York,’ and so on. So, when that melting pot comes together, what it does is that it really adds richness to leadership possibilities, to the learning about leadership.”

The decision to move the Master of Educational Leadership Program online follows a previous decision by the university to move Xavier’s Doctorate of Educational Leadership (Ed.D.) Program online. The Ed.D. program was first established in 2015, and after its first year being in-person, students, many of whom were full-time principals, expressed their desire for the program to give them more flexibility to optimally participate in both their careers and schooling. This led the university to move the program online, where it has remained since. Now, the master's program has followed suit.

“Ninety percent of our students are working people and most of them are principals. You can’t always just shut the school down because you have a class,” said Dr. Perkins. “It’s challenging enough with your time when you are even in school, and working, and have children even when you are face-to-face, so online gives you more flexibility with your time.”

In addition to the increase in accessibility, flexibility, and diversity that the now online program will be able to offer, it will also make providing instruction more adaptable to ever-changing societal conditions. The COVID-19 pandemic is one such situation that caused a societal shift to a more digital sphere, one that had trivial effect on the already online Ed.D. Program.

“When COVID first hit...we just kept going. We didn’t have to learn about a platform. The students made no adjustments. We didn’t skip a beat,” said Dr. Ramona Perkins about the additional benefits that came from an already remote program. “With climate change, pandemics, endemics, everything that happens, hurricanes [too]! We’re in New Orleans, an institution in New Orleans. [Being online,] we shouldn’t have to suspend learning.”

Other aspects of the online master’s are encouraging for those who may be apprehensive about learning virtually. The program at Xavier includes providing a “residency” in the summer that will allow students who may not be as tech-savvy to come to campus and learn how to use the different interfaces and platforms to best access the program. The faculty, much like with the online doctorate program, also utilizes all the tools at their disposal to create an environment similar to a classroom on campus, even if the participants are many miles apart. This innovation helps virtual Xavierites experience the family-centric culture the university provides, without having to be on campus to do so.

As Xavier nears its historic centennial, it continues to find ways to bring its excellence to those all around the world. With this move to the digital sphere, students of the Master of Educational Leadership program can experience more than just Xavier and its culture; They can take Xavier with them anywhere in the world they go, further elevating the mission of Xavier to promote a more just and humane society.