Ask Doctoral Advising

August 29th, 2008   by Dana Forbes

Academic Gatorade

Last year I began running to stay healthy. After a few months, I set a goal to run my first 5K. I changed both my diet and running schedule to help achieve a more robust speed, endurance, and distance in my workouts. When I would return from workouts, with energy depleted and legs feeble, I would think to myself: is all this running worth the effort? Then I would remember my purpose for running, and the thoughts of quitting would subside. When I was physically exhausted, I drank Gatorade. Why? It rejuvenated me to keep my training goals, even during the most rigorous workout. As purpose kept me running toward my first 5K, academic gatorade will restore energy to achieve your academic goals. READ MORE

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August 27th, 2008   by Jonathan Gehrz

Scholar-Practitioner

Boyer (1990) asserts, “Surely, scholarship means engaging in original research. But the work of the scholar also means stepping back from one’s investigation, looking for connections, building bridges between theory and practice, and communicating one’s knowledge effectively to students” (p. 16). In your doctoral program tenure, you have inevitably heard the term “scholar-practitioner” used by faculty, by staff, and by learners alike. At the doctoral level, what distinguishes the doctoral learner from the graduate learner (MS/EdS) is an emphasis on the investigation and connection to scholarship. Yet, these connections are often easily neglected in the learner’s process of doctoral competency development and maturation. READ MORE

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August 25th, 2008   by Lynn Riskedal

Impact on Others

Training for a marathon impacts more than just you.

It impacts your family, since you will be training almost every day (before or after work) and on weekends.

It impacts your work, as you will be sharing what you are doing with your colleagues. They will all know you are training for a marathon.

It impacts your friends. It will change your social life. You may not go out to party/dinner as often. READ MORE

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August 24th, 2008   by Laura Hutt

Advising and Humor

Alan Alda (or was it Hawkeye Pierce) once said, “When people are laughing, they’re generally not killing each other”. You don’t make it through the dissertation process without a sense of humor and research supports this premise. The article, “The Influence of Graduate Advisor Use of Interpersonal Humor on Graduate Students” published in the Journal of the National Academic Advising Association (Volume 28, Number 1, Spring 2008, pp. 34-72) is a quantitative investigation of the influence of advisor use of interpersonal humor and graduate students. READ MORE

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August 20th, 2008   by Jonathan Gehrz

Distance Education’s Impact on the Essence of Ph.D.

Earlier this month I posted a contribution on the “Re-envisioning” of the Ph.D. Building on that initial dialogue, it’s interesting to learn how our expectations often translate to assumptions and how our assumptions often define or contribute to our learning experience or definition of the essence of a program.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (2006),

Distance education has become increasingly common in postsecondary education. In 2004–05, some 62 percent of public and private not-for-profit 2- and 4-year institutions offered distance education courses (defined as “an option for earning course credit at off- campus locations via cable television, internet, satellite classes, videotapes, correspondence courses, or other means”). A greater proportion of public than private not-for-profit institutions offered distance education courses: in the public sector about 88 percent of 2-year and 86 percent of 4-year institutions offered these courses, compared with 12 percent of 2-year and 40 percent of 4-year institutions in the private not-for-profit sector. READ MORE

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August 18th, 2008   by Lynn Riskedal

Athletic Success

With my own marathon training efforts, I learn from other athletic endeavors.

We are in the midst of the 2008 Olympics, with Michael Phelps astounding the world with his abilities and humbleness.  In reading about Michael, his coach (Bowman)  and his successes, this piece  stood out:
“Bowman, who is something of a student of success literature, said a recurring theme of his coaching and direction is that “successful people make a habit of doing things that unsuccessful people don’t like to do.

‘That’s it. They make a habit of doing things other people aren’t willing to do. And that’s our game here.’” READ MORE

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August 15th, 2008   by Jay Bergland

Not as Planned

A number of years ago a high school buddy and I decided to run a marathon.  We were both fairly active and figured completing a marathon wouldn’t necessarily be THAT much of a challenge.  If that delusion wasn’t enough, we set a goal for ourselves to qualify for the Boston Marathon, which for the age group we were in, meant we would need to run a three hour and fifteen minute marathon. READ MORE

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August 12th, 2008   by Jonathan Gehrz

Who am I in relation to the larger doctoral community?

Every year, the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) analyzes and publishes findings based on information reported in the Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED). The SED is a report administered by the NORC and conducted for the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. Department of Education (USED), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Information summaries and trends are published and released on the census of research doctorate participants who earned their degrees. READ MORE

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August 11th, 2008   by Lynn Riskedal

The Training: Gradually, Developmentally

When you look at a training plan for a marathon, you gradually build the number of miles you run during any give week. Wisdom and convention says to increase no more than 10% distance a week. Over that, and the chance of injury increases, dramatically. Again, no one just walks out the door and runs 26.2 miles, with no practice–trying out different paces (how fast you run in a mile), finding out if clothes chafe, what fuel works–and when to eat.

Part of the practice/training includes talking with a coach and others who have achieved a marathon, to help in the learning process, to debrief about a run, and to share the journey. READ MORE

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August 8th, 2008   by Laura Hutt

Advising practice and scholarship

I attended a private brick and mortar university for my Doctorate in Educational Leadership. The school was small compared to Capella: Capella confers more doctorates in one year than my alma mater will confer in the next 50 years. When I first entered the EdD program, I was assigned a faculty advisor; however, I never thought to schedule an academic advising conversation with my assigned advisor. If I needed advice on an available course or the correct form to file to meet a deadline, I went to the department administrative assistant who knew everything. That is, she knew every course that was offered, not necessarily the best courses for my academic degree. I still cringe when I think about the course on Spirituality at Work that I took one semester, solely because it was offered at half-price. READ MORE

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