The mission of the Department of Organization and Leadership at Columbia University Teachers College is to educate, train, and serve current and future leaders. They include administrators, executives, policy makers, researchers, psychologists, and educators from around the world. Our students are, or aspire to be, in the fields of public and private education, higher and postsecondary education, adult education, health administration, advocacy, organizational behavior, and organizational development and change. We educate, train, and serve:

1. Leaders, managers, and administrators for all types of organizations, with an emphasis on educational and nonprofit institutions and health organizations in both the private and public sectors;
2. Those who help these leaders, executives, managers, and administrators; and
3. Those who conduct research pertinent to organizational dynamics and learning and who teach leadership, administration, education policy, organizational behavior, and organizational change.

To accomplish this mission the Department provides programs in Adult Learning and Leadership, Education Leadership, Nurse Executive Education, Higher and Postsecondary Education, and Social-Organizational Psychology.

The mission of the Adult Learning & Leadership Program is to empower graduates as facilitators of learning across the lifespan–in and outside of classrooms and virtual learning spaces. We emphasize leadership for reflective, proactive, and transformative learning. Our students help individual adults learn, and they help organizations, institutions, and communities learn from and with those adults.