The College of Human Sciences & Education is home to four centers and institutes: the Early Childhood Education Institute, the Healthy Aging Research Center, the Leadership Development Institute, and the Social Research & Evaluation Center.
Early Childhood Education Institute
The Early Childhood Education Institute (ECEI) is focused holistically on the early years of a child’s life and fills a unique niche by targeting the early care, specifically birth through age three. Holistic development invites collaboration from other disciplines in the study of recommended practice for young children. The ECEI aims to make LSU a leader in early care and education research, dissemination, and advocacy on recommended practices. In collaboration with both the LSU Early Childhood Education academic programs and the LSU Early Childhood Education Laboratory Preschool, the ECEI promotes recommended practices through discovery, curricula, programs, and strategic partnerships to provide an evidence-based focus on developing recommended practices in early childhood care and education for Louisiana and the nation. The ECEI links LSU’s expertise in early childhood education with the critical need for a highly educated early childhood workforce of researchers and advocates to advance the profession of early care and education.
Healthy Aging Research Center
The Healthy Aging Research Center (HARC) positively impacts the health of vulnerable older adults through interdisciplinary applied research: to improve the health, wellbeing, and independence of older adults and their caregivers. We focus on physiological, psychological, behavioral, social, and environmental processes involved in aging. HARC aims to educate policymakers on cognitive health and impairment, dementia, and caregiver support. We engage with the larger community in conversations about healthy aging, cognitive aging, and early detection and diagnosis of dementia and supports for people with dementia and their caregivers.
Leadership Development Institute
The Leadership Development Institute (LDI) offers cutting-edge, customized, evidence-based leadership development preparation, interventions, and coaching tailored to individuals, boards, communities, and organizations in the education, youth advancement, government, non-profit, and human services sector. Business and industry have known for decades that leadership development affects organizational effectiveness. Employers that deliberately focus on building leadership capacity in their workforce outperform peers by up to 13 times in key bottom line outcomes (Boatman et al, 2012). Applying these same strategies to target “the people who develop people” is critical to increasing retention, building morale, and achieving goals. LDI has the tools to research, build, and deliver the leadership solution for individuals, teams, and/or organizations to reach maximum potential. LDI offers an array of solutions, proven effective for industry and people, designed by experts in the fields of education and social impact. Capacity building, experiential learning, and transformation trainings will help individuals emerge as leaders. LDI is mission focused and uses research-driven approaches to deliver professional development that empowers a culture of leaders toward a world of growth.
Social Research & Evaluation Center
The Social Research & Evaluation Center (SREC) works to foster healthy social systems. SREC designs, implements, and evaluates community and social programs, and its work ranges from conducting rigorous research to providing consultation to community agencies, policy makers, and university partners. SREC connects communities by working to strengthen assets, informs decisions to maximize positive outcome, promotes visions to create successful people, groups, and environments, and generates knowledge through research and evaluation to improve understanding of social, economic, and behavioral needs and opportunities.