-: Hello.
My name is Jiangang Xia and I am originally from China.
I teach theory courses including Administrative Theory
and Leadership Theory.
I also teach research courses including Foundational,
Intermediate, and Advanced Quantitative Methods;
Data for Decision Making; and Dissertation Proposal.
My research mainly focus on school leadership theory,
organizational theory, policy,
and school leadership effectiveness.
Some projects include public relationships in schools,
school as loosely coupled organizations,
distributive leadership, teacher self-efficacy
and job satisfaction.
My current interest is to make connections
between the concept of a power relationship,
distribute leadership, and coupling.
When I do my research, it's really something very creative.
So I can do something I really love.
I want to use my research to improve school leadership.
So hopefully my research can have some impact on the field.
Yeah, I would love to share something about my parents.
My dad had only one year of education.
My mom, she had three years of education.
So no one before me, no one else made it to the college.
So I was the first one, first generation, very lucky.
And I do believe principle, they matter a lot
to the school and teachers as well.
I had a math teacher and one time he talked to my dad
saying, "Your son will not make it to college
"because his math is horrible."
Later on, very luckily I had a new math teacher.
And this new math teacher had, changed my life.
The first math teacher, he didn't believe me.
He didn't believe I can improve myself.
But the second math teacher, he really believed me.
He encouraged me a lot.
He told me, "You will improve."
So that's a huge difference.
So I improved my math and then made it to college
but also I majored in math, became a math teacher.
Now today when I looking back at myself,
I'm teaching statistics, teaching quantitative
research methods, so incredible.
My family love Nebraska and we realize
we have great public schools and we love public schools
and this is a very very unique thing.
I love to play with my kids
so I co-coaching my kids' soccer
and also go fishing with them and take them to state parks
and reading books with them as well.
I love teaching.
I spend a lot of time on teaching because I have a heart
as a teacher.
I was a math teacher for seven years.
I love the teaching,
love the feeling of working with my students,
seeing them to growth.
So that's something in my heart.
I see this job as a very important one
so I can help my students to improve their learning
about school leadership and so they can go back
to do quality work to improve their schools.
The students, they realize research does matter.
So they came here, not only just to have a degree,
but also they really learn something about research
so when they go back,
they can integrate research with their practice.
Those students will be the most successful in the field.
If you believe research matters,
and you want to become a researcher practitioner,
if you value the use of data and the quantitative methods
for decision making and school improvement
and school research,
please join me, and we can work together
on important works that support our public schools.