{"id":17787,"date":"2026-09-09T09:44:40","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T13:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/?p=17787"},"modified":"2026-09-09T09:55:38","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T13:55:38","slug":"understanding-higher-ed-governance-and-decision-making-in-times-of-crisis-qa-with-esther-enright","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/2026\/09\/09\/understanding-higher-ed-governance-and-decision-making-in-times-of-crisis-qa-with-esther-enright\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding higher ed governance and decision-making in times of crisis: Q&A with Esther Enright"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Esther Enright<\/em><\/a> joins URI as a clinical associate professor of education in the Feinstein College of Education. She is serving as director of the new transdisciplinary Doctorate of Education (Ed.D.) being offered through the College. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enright earned her Ph.D. in Education from the University of Michigan and has over 25 years of professional experience across middle and high school education, first response medicine, and higher education. She has extensive experience using justice-oriented frameworks to design and implement graduate programs for practicing and developing professionals.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enright\u2019s scholarship spans the fields of preK-12 and higher education. Her research interests center around the positioning of university-based professional preparation programs within the higher education system, and how a better understanding of that embeddedness could inform justice-oriented approaches to program recruitment, admissions, curriculum building, and faculty development. Additionally, Enright studies leadership in public systems within predominantly rural states. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you were explaining your research to someone outside the field of education, how would you describe it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mostly study governance these days. By governance, I mean the way an organization or system is managed through rules, processes, and laws. I’m mostly interested in how leaders in higher education make high stakes decisions as shared governance with other groups (e.g., faculty, governing boards, state legislatures) during times of crisis. I also study poverty governance in New England coastal towns, which means I examine how local leaders across public systems and nonprofits manage, monitor, assist, or intervene in the lives of people living in poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What drives your passion for your research? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The projects at the core of my research allow me to work with others to improve conditions for people. I do my research in order to have a positive impact on communities and people who need support to make things a bit better during difficult times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What questions are you most eager to explore in your research?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do leaders in public systems persist when conditions are really difficult? How do those leaders make difficult decisions? How do leaders work with and around others to govern organizations and systems under challenging conditions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What will you be teaching at URI? What are you most excited to teach?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will be mostly teaching doctoral courses in education. I’m very excited to teach a course on Policy Analysis to help students make connections between research and the world around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Enright enjoys enjoys traveling, the outdoors, and animals, especially dogs, horses, and sheep. Following a sledding excursion in Alaska, she enjoyed time with an iditarod puppy. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Besides your work, what are some of your other hobbies and passions?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love reading, especially audiobooks. I just finished reading Transcendent Kingdom<\/em> by Yaa Gyasi for the third time. I also recently re-read Death of the Author <\/em>by Nnedi Okorafor, which I’m a little obsessed with having lived in Chicago. I love walks outdoors with my dog, especially by the ocean. I also love anything that has to do with fiber arts, including spinning yarn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there anything else you\u2019d like the URI community to know about you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love hearing people’s stories. I hope folks will introduce themselves, share a hot beverage, and tell me some of their story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Esther Enright joins URI as a clinical associate professor of education in the Feinstein College of Education. She is serving as director of the new transdisciplinary Doctorate of Education (Ed.D.) being offered through the College.  Enright earned her Ph.D. in Education from the University of Michigan and has over 25 years of professional experience across […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4629,"featured_media":17788,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4629"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17787"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17790,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17787\/revisions\/17790"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}