This is a distinctive, intensive-residency, doctoral program that combines faculty-mentored, individualized learning in the student's area of professional interest with a challenging interdisciplinary core curriculum. The focus of the program is on understanding and leading organizational change. At the heart of study is the student's own practice in professional life. The focus of the program's educational efforts is on enabling student learners to continuously reflect on and integrate their professional experience, intellectual learning and methods of inquiry. This emphasis on
reflection also emphasizes the student learner as the initiator of the learning process and the faculty member as the mentor-collaborator in facilitating the reflection.
Some of the program's distinguishing characteristics are:
• A core curriculum that reflects an interdisciplinary approach to the study of leadership and organizational change that integrates research, theory, and practice primarily from the fields of education, the social sciences, and management;
• An educational model attuned to the needs of adult learners that emphasizes short-term intensive residencies, self-paced learning, and ongoing electronic interaction with faculty and students.
• The assessment of student learning through the demonstration of doctoral-level learning outcomes in three areas of the core curriculum and two areas of the student's own area of professional expertise;
• The integration of theory and practice, as exemplified by the design and implementation of an organizational change project which also includes an in-depth reflection on the student's own leadership and intervention;
• An individualized curriculum that emphasizes mentoring relationships based on students' areas of expertise and learning styles;
• Opportunities for reflection on the convergence of personal values, professional practice and critical theoretical orientations with the purpose of fostering personal and professional development as leaders; and,
• A research-based doctoral dissertation.
The Ph.D. Program curriculum and activities are based on three major underlying learning goals. These are to develop student learners as Reflective Learners, Reflective Practitioners and Reflective Scholars.
By "reflective learner", we refer to people who think deeply about their own learning needs, styles and goals within the context of both formal doctoral study as well as informal learning situations in their professional practice. The emphasis is to help students understand their role as a self-empowered learner, and to guide them in the process of constructing their doctoral study within the context of the program's structure.
By "reflective practitioner," we refer to people who think deeply about their own practice as a leader within the context of inclusive, ethical decision making and scholarly fields of study. Hence, not only will the conceptual issues of the core curriculum (leadership and organizational change, changing nature of the professions, and intercultural/global dynamics and societal change) be emphasized, so too will personal experiential issues dealing directly with leadership and, in particular, the ethical and moral issues which all leaders face as they make decisions and organize their institutions.
By "reflective scholar," we refer to individuals who think deeply about the intellectual content and achieve mastery of relevant fields of knowledge while engaging with others in public forums. The emphasis here is on student learners becoming "public scholars" who think deeply on the content of the core curriculum and their own areas of professional expertise and being able to present their scholarly knowledge to others. By "reflective researcher" we refer to an individual's exploration and production of knowledge in her/his field of expertise as well as in his/her ability to think critically about methods of inquiry and research.
While each of these goals can be discussed separately, the program views them as integrated within the working/learning life of individuals who desire to be leaders in their professions, as well as in their life as student learners in this Program. We also expect that the graduates' doctoral training will give them the capability to solve problems in more thoughtful ways as their conceptual knowledge informs their reflections on experience as well as by their ability to assess the relevance and quality of available scholarship and research. Further, we expect that many of the graduates will themselves contribute to scholarship in their professions as a result of their doctoral education.
In focusing on the development of reflective learners, practitioners, scholar-researchers, the program is naturally led to develop educational processes and activities that follow a pattern of focusing on the student learners' experience (through the interaction with peers, faculty members/mentors-advisors, and the subject matter being read and discussed), then reflecting on the meaning of that experience and finally acting/applying what they've learned to their work or living situations. This experience-reflection-action cycle is the core educational process of the Program.
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