The incentives and costs of program coordination in P-12 educational leadership programs

Program coordination is typically relegated to service responsibilities of faculty members. Drawing upon data from multiple sources, including a cross-sectional survey sent to program coordinators at University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) member institutions, we sought to identify the incentives that institutions provide (or do not provide) for assuming program coordination responsibilities and to estimate the human resource costs of program coordination. Respondents reported spending an average of 17 hours a week on program coordination (s =10.59). We estimated high ($43,428.84 to $124,400.64), medium ($26,367.51 to $75,528.96), and low estimates ($9,306.18 to $26,657.28) of program coordination human resource costs across a range of salaries and contract types as well as for the incentives provided to program coordinators. The most common incentive that institutions provide is the course release, which incurs adjunct costs. Our study adds to the limited research on program coordination in universities and our understanding of the costs and incentives offered for assuming these roles.