Steve's ABD Completion Update

There are a number of folks who have investigated Nigeria from a number of perspectives. With a former doctoral student, we published the following study:
Teamwork in Health Care Services Delivery in Nigeria: A Mixed Methods Assessment of Perceptions and Lived Experiences of Pharmacists in a Tertiary Hospital: Integrated Pharmacy Research and Practice 2022:11 33–45, January, 2022

It may surprise you that soon to be Dr. Forester has founded a university with a mission of service. I am really proud of his work, and taking this step!

Finally, a group here in the US is attempting now to start a university in the Biafran Region of Nigeria. Headed by an individual who is from that area, now residing in NC. He wants to see his people gain some ground after years of brutalization.

 

Turnover is usually a problem at colleges that don't have tenure-track professors or at least full-time professors. I scanned the list of Baker College faculty, and hardly any of them have doctoral degrees. Many of them only have a bachelor's or associate's, but it's fitting since Baker is more of a vocational college.

 

You have many strengths!

 

There are over 300 Ph.D holders, the majority of them from Capella University and Walden University.

URL: https://www.baker.edu/wp-content/uploads/faculty-list.pdf

 

Out of the thousands of faculty members. PhD holders are a small minority.

 

Any updates on your journey at Manhattanville College

 

@SteveFoerster: Manhattanville? It's all good, Steve - just as long as you don't revive "The Manhattan Project."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project#

 

Get it done, Sir.

 

So how does this work? You defend your thesis before you've written it? I've heard Stanford does it that way.

 

Some schools require the prospective candidate to defend the proposal.

 

I like Marina Bear's story about her dissertation defense at Vanderbilt. When her advisor introduced her to the examining committee, he said, "Marina Bear is here to defend her dissertation." Marina interjected, "I'm not here to defend it. I'm here to explain it."

 

So you go through TWO oral defenses?

 

The standard process for the Dissertation is first to complete a proposal, which is presented, and defended. One approved the writing of the dissertation begins, and at the end, a formal Oral Defense for the entire project is completed. And yes, there are people who get to the oral defense who are rejected, with changes required, and come back and do it again! I've chaired 50+ at different institutions, and this is fairly standard for PhDs. For other professional doctorates with Applied Dissertations (DHA, DHEd and others) most require an oral defense as well.

 

Any update on how the completion of the ABD at Manhattanville University is going ? I am actually from NYC and this university is not to far from me lol

 

What percentage of dissertations get "shelved", I wonder? I never attempted a doctorate for one reason and with one (lame) excuse. The reason is that I found the idea of doing a dissertation intimidating and the excuse is that a dissertation doctorate in law in the U.S. isn't necessary or even useful to any career path open to me.

 

According to one AI bot, about half of all doctoral candidates fail to complete their dissertations. That sounds about right.