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About the 2009 Charlotte cohort and the Program Structure
The NC State University Ed.D. doctoral cohort in Adult and Community College Education meets in the Charlotte area and provides a unique opportunity for working professionals to complete a doctoral program.
As stated by one of the current graduate students “I truly appreciate the structure of the program which allows me to plan ahead of time for potential conflicts between work projects and class assignments. As a working professional, being able to balance my work responsibilities with academic commitments is essential to my success and sanity!”
Key Features of the upcoming 2009 cohort include:
- Faculty with national reputations in adult education, community college education, higher education administration, and human resource development
- High quality NC State doctoral program
- Executive Format to meet working professionals’ schedules
- Meets on Fridays and Saturdays throughout the year.
- Doctoral program which combines theory, research, and practice
- Focus on leadership and innovation for a dynamic knowledge economy
- Faculty commitment to mentor and individually supervise students
- Innovative support through a cohort learning model
- Peer cohort students who are top professionals in adult, community college, higher education, and human resource education.
- Learning network among students, practitioners, and the scholarly community
- Successful history in cohort doctoral level programs
- 3 cohorts in Asheville and one current cohort in Charlotte
- Dedicated full-time faculty member to serve as administrator over program
Program Structure
Admitted doctoral students will enroll in a set curriculum and participate in 3 ½ years of coursework to begin August, 2009. Students will participate in 6 credit hours of course work each fall and spring semesters, as well as up to one course each summer session. A tentative listing of selected course offerings are presented on the curriculum section of this website.
The two courses offered each semester will meet on Friday evenings (6:00 - 9:00 pm) and Saturdays (8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.) for a potential maximum of 12 weeks in a 14 week semester or in the summer the one course will need to meet either 5 or 8 weeks in the summer. However, some of the courses may meet for part of the time in a hybrid format through internet web presence or in variations of Friday/Saturday offerings. A few courses will be offered completely online and not meet face-to-face. (Note there will be occasional modifications of course offerings to maximize involvement of quality NC State faculty or to have appropriate classroom space and technology support).
Most of the courses will have a web presence, and some courses may represent “distributed learning” with both in-class engagement, as well as select class sessions on the Internet. With prior negotiation with the cohort, there will be an occasional weekend in the Raleigh area. This involvement at the Raleigh campus will be infrequent.
At the point of dissertation development (approximately the latter half of the second year), each student will have identified (with the assistance of the Doctoral Cohort Director and other faculty) the specific NC State faculty who will guide the student in the development, research effort, and defense of the dissertation research for 12 hours of dissertation supervision.
last updated 7/11/08
