Abstract
IntroductionLeaders in K-12 education, higher education, and workforce development settings increasingly encounter Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a framework for improving access and participation across their organizations, yet doctoral leadership preparation programs rarely examine how their course designs shape the capacity of emerging leaders to apply UDL in real organizational contexts.MethodsThis case study examines how six doctoral students enrolled in a required UDL leadership preparation course applied UDL principles within their professional organizations and what conditions supported or constrained that application across varied learning settings. Using qualitative thematic analysis within a case study framework, the study draws on semi-structured interviews conducted three to four months after course completion and corroborated by participants' reflective journals completed during the course. Participants held professional roles across K-12 education, higher education, and workforce learning organizations.ResultsThree themes emerged from the analysis. Participants applied UDL most extensively when the course anchored their work in real organizational problems rather than hypothetical scenarios, and they carried an analytical stance toward barrier identification and proactive design into their professional contexts after the course concluded. Participants used the UDL framework as a flexible communication tool, adapting its language and principles to varied audiences and organizational settings, developing translation strategies largely through their own professional experience rather than through explicit course preparation. Positional authority shaped the depth and scope of participants' UDL application, and institutional resistance functioned as a cross-cutting constraint that participants navigated in ways that varied with the authority they held and the organizational cultures they inhabited.DiscussionThese findings affirm that the design of doctoral leadership preparation courses matters not only for what participants learn but for how durably and broadly they apply that learning. Findings also reveal a persistent gap between individual UDL fluency and the organizational change capacity needed to advance UDL beyond individual practice. Doctoral programs that prepare leaders to understand UDL must also prepare them to navigate the structural and political dimensions of implementing it across learning organizations.