University of New England Professional Statement for M.S.

in Educational Leadership
Kara HB. Farwell
November 20, 2014

I am looking forward to pursuing a M.S. in Educational Leadership at the University of

New England (UNE). It is my professional goal to not only be a successful educator but to
provide high quality leadership within Maines public school systems.
I believe that UNE is the right program for me because of the ability to complete
coursework online. I feel that I can effectively use technology to help accomplish the goals and
assignments of the program while at the same time maintaining my current position. The mission
of UNEs department of education states that it utilizes four major principals in delivering the
material: rigorous mind, compassionate heart, reflective stance and competent demonstration. All
of these are qualities that I believe, are imperative to being a successful educator and leader. I
also believe strongly in transformative leadership and try to model the key qualities of
encouraging followers to take ownership and to increase intrinsic motivation in my classroom.
My professional growth plan is to continue in my current position as a middle level
educator with the Lisbon School Department while pursuing my M.S. Ed. I would like to take
those years to gain tutelage from the veteran teachers and building administrators that I am
surrounded by each day. Eventually, I envision myself becoming a middle level building
administrator and moving into either a special education directorship or superintendent of
schools.
I believe that I am a unique candidate for your program because of my past experiences
that reach beyond teaching in the classroom. After graduating from the University of Maine at

Professional Statement for Kara HB. Farwell

Farmington with a B.S. in Elementary Education, I worked for four years in human resources
gaining valuable knowledge around the laws and legal requirements for managing and
maintaining personnel in the state of Maine. In one of my positions, I was responsible for the
recruitment, hiring, retention and evaluating of over 150 employees and in another I was
responsible for the recruitment, hiring and training of over 250 individuals. I thoroughly enjoyed
my experiences in human resources but felt a strong desire to return to the world of education
and so I accepted a position with the Maine Department of Education, Special Services division.
While there, I had the pleasure of working directly under Jan Breton, Director who has been a
strong mentor of mine for the past two years. While there I assisted a team of professionals to
write a $5 million dollar State Personnel Development Grant which was awarded by the federal
government to further the credentials of certain and crucial personnel in special services,
particularly in underserved regions in Maine. It also provided me with the opportunity to learn
the administrative side of public school systems. I assisted special education directors and
superintendents to apply for federal IDEA grant funds which in turn taught me much about
budget codes and EDGAR as well as many different technological delivery systems.
Once hired by the Lisbon School Department, I felt that I had finally achieved a goal and
had found my lifes passion and dream job. And I have. I truly believe that I am one of the
luckiest people in universe to come to work with the middle schoolers of Lisbon and to be
mentored by fellow, equally compassionate staff. However, just as we teach students to set
SMART (Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely) goals, with my hire at Lisbon,
I achieved one SMART goal and it is now time to set another. It is my hope that with the
expertise of the professors and staff at UNE that I will be able to achieve my goal of attaining my
M.S. Ed. and to move into a leadership role within Maines public schools.