Q & A About Pursuing a Doctorate: Online Leaders Share Their Pathways and Perspectives

Concurrent Session 4

Brief Abstract

Are you considering a doctoral degree as a next step for your higher education career?  There are many options based on the type of program, requirements, and modality. Bring your questions and join us for a discussion with online learning leaders who recently followed different paths to doctoral degrees.

Presenters

Lead Presenter: Clark Shah-Nelson, University of Maryland - Baltimore

Clark Shah-Nelson serves as Assistant Dean of Instructional Design and Technology for the University of Maryland School of Social Work and is a doctoral student in Evidence-Based Management/Business Administration. Clark is an eLearning instructional design development professional with 25 years experience in educational technology innovations: teaching, designing leading award-winning online and distance learning teams for learning management platform implementation, training, end user support, professional development and engagement. He has presented at numerous online learning and ed tech conferences, was co-founder of the Blend-Online Educause constituent group, co-founding master chef of the Online Learning Consortium (OLC) Technology Test Kitchen, and has recently volunteered as Conference Co-Chair for OLC Innovate and Engagement Co-Chair for OLC Accelerate Clark has authored chapters on synchronous tools for teaching and learning support and co-authored a chapter on professional development installations. As a consultant, Clark has worked on several international projects in the realm of blended and online learning.

Co-presenter: Tina Rettler-Pagel, Madison College

Tina Rettler-Pagel is a Faculty member and Chief Online Learning Officer at Madison College, in Madison, Wisconsin. Tina holds a B.S in Education with an emphasis on Emotional Disabilities from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an M.S. in Administrative Leadership from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She has an Ed.D. in Student Affairs Administration from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Tina has completed an Online Learning Consortium (OLC) Online Teaching Certificate, as well as participated in OLC's Institute for Engaged Leadership in Online Learning (IELOL) in 2017. Her research interests include retention and persistence in the online classroom, the success of women of color in online learning spaces, women in higher education leadership and governance, digital equity, and community college approaches to teaching and learning. Tina's hashtags? #Mom #Partner #CommunityCollegeProud #OnWisconsin #A11yAdvocate #OnlineTeaching #Includer #Kindness #Connector #OnlineLearning #TechNerd #Resilience #StrongGirlsStrongWomen #Hockey #Fishing #AnythingSummer #JamMaker #Perseverance #SayYesToNewAdventures #ComeAsYouAre #StartWhereYouAre #ImpostorPhenomemon #Access

Co-presenter: Ben Scragg, Online Learning Consortium Inc.

Extended Abstract

PhD? EdD? SciD? DM? DBA? Several types of terminal degrees exist. Similarly, there are also many options for the modality, length and type of doctoral program and its final product, including online, blended, residency, cohort, dissertation, articles, capstone, primary research and secondary research, among others. 

Jobs that require a doctoral degree in the US are growing. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), occupations with entry education requirements of a doctoral degree are projected to grow by 12.2 percent between 2014 and 2024 (Watson, 2017). The BLS further projects that jobs that require a doctoral degree will more than double from 2.7% to 5.9% between 2019 and 2029 (BLS, 2020). While a large percentage of instructional designers and online learning administrators have Master’s degrees, some pursue doctoral degrees as a way to delve into research and publishing, deepen their practitioner knowledge, expand their sphere of influence, or create more possibility for upward mobility into leadership roles. For others, personal reasons drive this pursuit, whether it be a love of scholarship or an aspiration to be a doctor. (Trust us, we’ve felt many of these ourselves!)

In this Q&A session, instructional design and online learning leaders who have gone down the doctoral path will share the differences, highlights, struggles and joys of working toward their terminal degrees, while also holding down full time careers and balancing family life, during a pandemic. If you are on the fence, looking for more information and examples of different doctoral programs and paths, or just want to learn more about the process, please join this session for a deep dive into the recent experiences of several OLC community members who have completed or are about to complete their doctoral degrees. 

Attendees will be engaged through an invitation to vote on questions they would like the presenters to address, as well as have the option to add any questions they brought with them to the session.

Resources

Audrey L. Watson, "Employment trends by typical entry-level education requirement," Monthly Labor Review, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, September 2017, https://doi.org/10.21916/mlr.2017.22.

BLS (2020).   https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/education-summary.htm#ep_table_502.f.1