Wedding invitations. Birth announcements. Helpful conversations on choosing the perfect mother-of-the-groom dress.
For Jim and Becky Surber, the longtime and now-retired coordinators of the NIU College of Education’s M.S.Ed. in Educational Administration – known colloquially as “principal preparation” – these little slices of life span the border of personal and professional.
All come from graduates of their program who have found in the Surbers not only the hands-on and best-practice knowledge and skills to serve as effective school leaders but also the demonstrated understanding of the intangibles that foster success.
“What’s really kept us going all this time is relationships with students and hearing from them as they progress through their districts,” says Jim, who retired in January.
“We hope we’ve been able to model good leadership with trust and integrity, which then leads them to help build good school culture where they get out into the building,” he adds. “You can’t lead groups or individuals or anyone unless you have a good relationship with that person – and the relationship is based upon trust and integrity, and I think what we’ve brought to the program is the ability to model that based on our experiences in the schools.”
“Just last month, we went to the wedding of two of our former students. They had met in one of our earlier cohorts and had gotten to know each other going through the process and it was just like this was the culmination,” says Becky, who will retire at the end of August.
“So, yes, we get wedding announcements from former students. Baby announcements. One student one year sent us a copy of the Christmas card they had sent out – you know how they have that collage of pictures? We were in the collage. I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness. We really are a part of their lives.’ ”
And, of course, their résumés.
More than 300 students have earned NIU master’s degrees in Educational Administration since the Surbers joined the Department of Leadership, Educational Pscyhology and Foundations as clinical assistant professors in 2011.
“They’re now in leadership positions, doing great jobs and making differences for the kids and families that they’re working with, and that’s really our ultimate goal,” Jim says. “There are improved student outcomes and performances in the public schools based on the leadership provided by the principals and assistant principals we’ve trained throughout the years.”
NIU PROVIDED THE SURBERS “a second career” – a chance to advance their life’s work in education after their retirement from the K-12 world.
Becky started as a special education teacher, followed by roles as a school psychologist, special education consultant, special education director, building principal and assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction in districts that include Harlem, East Moline, Galesburg, Woodridge and Normal.
Jim, meanwhile, worked as a school psychologist in Normal and for the Illinois State Board of Education. He also held leadership positions in the Knox-Warren Special Education District, the LaGrange Area Department of Special Education and at a day treatment program in Galesburg for students with several emotional and problems.
Higher education also paints their pre-NIU story.
Jim served as an adjunct instructor at Illinois State University, Western Illinois University and Knox College, and Becky is the daughter of the late Louis M. Grado, who taught for four decades at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston and chaired its Department of Elementary, Junior High and Special Education for 25 years.
In DeKalb, the couple nurtured a 36-semester-hour program that they eventually moved to a fully online delivery in 2024, attracting students from Chicago as well as downstate.
They also developed and, in 2021, launched the PLEDGE Principal Residency Program, a cohort-based model preparing and promoting educators in Rockford and Elgin public schools who know and understand the local culture of their districts – and who want to stay and grow there.
Among the benefits are coaching, support and feedback from the Illinois Principals Association and tuition paid by their employers.
“When we started the residency program with Rockford and Elgin, it was really, at the time, the only program in the state doing that,” Jim says.
“We were placing these projected future leaders in leadership positions and allowing them to learn based on day-to-day activities that they were doing in high-needs schools, so it was really a hands-on learning experience,” he adds. “And their internship was the most practical it could possibly be by already being in a leadership role, doing the day-to-day work of principals and then taking risks, being allowed to fail and to get feedback and then to improve their performance in real-life situations.”
at an August 2022 completion ceremony.
Spanning three consecutive semesters during the second year of the program, the internship requires candidates to work full time at their current buildings – something the Surbers supervised and observed during as they traveled to those schools.
Also critical to the program’s success is the faculty, some of whom are alumni who’ve returned to pay it forward: Donna Larson, principal of DeKalb High School, and Sean Potts, principal of Lake Park High School East Campus in Roselle.
“We’ve worked very hard to get the best of the best teaching our students,” Jim says.
The Surbers credit former department chair Carolyn Pluim, now serving as the college’s interim associate dean for Academic Affairs, for supporting that philosophy and outreach.
“We use adjuncts who are in the field currently and up-to-date, and I think our students find that what they’re learning is very practical and are things that they are going to implement as future leaders,” Jim says.
“Thanks to Carolyn, in our course, ‘The Principalship,’ we make sure that our adjunct professors are either current principals or recently retired principals so that our students get practical experiences and understanding of what it’s like to be a day-to-day principal,” he says.
“A lot of times, the first thing in class is the principal talking about their day or their week or a real-life situation in real time that came up,” he adds, “and then they can have these really relevant conversations about, ‘This is what it looks like leading a building. These are the kinds of things you’re going to encounter. Talk about how you would deal with them.”
PREPARING STRONG PRINCIPALS is imperative.
“Obviously, teachers in the classroom are going to have the greatest impact on student performance and student outcomes, but second in line is the school leader in terms of the culture that he or she develops,” he adds.
“Again, it all leads back to developing relationships and trust and setting goals, because you’re not going to reach goals and move in new directions and improve learning and outcomes in schools unless there’s that trust and integrity. The trust and integrity that the teachers feel in the leader of their building is so crucial to developing positive school culture.”
The Surbers are proud of what they are leaving in “the really good hands” of Christine Nelson, who’s taking the reins.
And they’re not alone.
One of Becky’s final tasks was successfully shepherding NIU’s M.S.Ed. in Educational Administration to Specialized Professional Associations (SPA) accreditation through the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation.
“It was a multiyear, time-intensive process, but we came out on the positive end: We received our national recognition in January of this year,” says Becky, who also spent much of the last year working closely with Nelson to provide a seamless transition in management.
SPA’s seal of approval “shows that the programming that you’re offering is of the highest standard, that you are willing to take the time to submit all of your work and to make sure that the alignment that they want to see is there.”
“Fewer and fewer universities are going through this process, so I think NIU is a standout because we have this accreditation,” Becky says.
“Part of this is that educational leadership standards change over time, and so it’s important to then incorporate those standards into your coursework,” she adds.
EXTERNAL VALIDATION OF their work fills the Surbers with assurance as they begin their third chapter.
Retirement comes just in time for Becky and Jim to add new titles: Grandma and Grandpa. Their son, Jon, and his wife, Jessica, married last year (remember that mother-of-the-groom dress?) and living in Chicago are expecting a baby due Dec. 26.
And, Becky adds, “we are doing some of the traditional retirement activities. We have several trips planned to New York City, and we’re going out to Napa, but we’re really not sure after that.
“You know, this is our second big retirement – we retired from the public schools back in 2011, and then we came into this second career – so I keep saying to Jim, ‘Never say never. We don’t know what’s next.”
What they do know is that coming to NIU was a great decision.
Both have fond memories of their 2011 beginning under then-chair Patrick Roberts, who hired them and then traveled with them to Springfield to secure program approval from the Illinois Board of Higher Education and the Illinois State Board of Education.
Seeing Roberts back in that role now as interim department chair is “good karma,” they say, and “like we’ve come full circle.”
