Thomas Sergiovanni

It lifts both teachers and students to higher levels of self-understanding, commitment, and performance, beyond the reaches of the shortcomings and difficulties they face in their everyday lives. Community can help teachers and students be transformed from a collection of 'I's' to a collective 'we', thus providing them with a unique and enduring sense of identity, belonging, and place." Thomas Sergiovanni has spent the greater part of his long career in education studying the importance of community building on schools and students.

Sergiovanni is Lillian Radford Professor of Education and Administration at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Prior to joining the Trinity faculty, he was, for eighteen years, Professor of Educational Administration and Supervision at the University of Illinois. Former associate editor of "Educational Administration Quarterly," Dr. Sergiovanni serves on the editorial boards of "The Journal of Education Research," "The Journal of Curriculum and Supervision" and the "Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education." He has broad interests in the areas of school leadership and the supervision and evaluation of teaching.

"Successful community building," says Sergiovanni, "depends in large measure, on each individual school defining for itself its own life and creating for itself its own practice of schooling. This inside-out strategy requires a considerable amount of searching and reflection, as teachers struggle with such issues as who they are, what they hope to become for the students they serve, and how they will decide organize, teach, learn, and live together."

Sergiovanni's recent publications include "Value-Added Leadership: How to Get Extraordinary Performance in Schools" and "Moral Leadership Getting to the Heart of School Improvement" all based on his extensive studies of leadership in successful enterprises and his collection of "memorable leadership incidents" from school leaders.

Among his enormously successful books are "Building Community in Schools," "The Principalship and his newest, "Leadership for the Schoolhouse."