The CSU/UC Irvine Joint Ed.D. program reflects a distinctive conceptualization of the nature and role of the university in advancing public education. Through linking of graduate preparation with scholarship on central problems of educational practice, the program aims to achieve transformations in the quality and effectiveness of education in the region and contribute knowledge on the most pressing of the state's educational needs.

The CSU/UC Irvine Joint Ed.D. program will include connections on each participating campus with faculty from other academic units and with outreach programs. A shared vision underlies the the CSU/UC Irvine Joint Ed.D. program and unites the participating faculty. It is a belief that this innovative graduate program can have a substantial impact in advancing educational opportunities for the diverse groups of students in the regions served while preparing a cadre of exceptional leaders.

The program is designed to offer a curriculum of graduate studies that is accessible to individuals having diverse backgrounds reflective of the communities they serve and prepares them as practitioner-scholars. A number of assumptions about education, change, and leadership serve as the philosophical underpinnings for the program. Foremost among these assumptions is that in the preparation of educational leaders, theory and practice should be interwoven; they should not be mutually exclusive, separated, or viewed as contradictory. As a consequence of this assumption, the program is both scholarly and practitioner-oriented.