Transfer, maybe?

[jarwiz]

I have been working on my Doctor of Education /Educational Leadership/ Curriculum through a large online program. My committee has been assembled, My subject matter approved and a few chapters / detailed outline have been distributed. However, my committee chair has severed their relationship with the school. While finding a replacement chair, legislation has been issued that might unravel  the quantitative portion of my study, causing to make me rethink my path. Now, the replacement Chair has been incapacitated and will not be able to serve.

I am thinking that I might want to change schools so that I might either (a) get the right advisor/chair to work with me, and/or change the specialization area/topic.

Here are my restraints: I am 50ish with a full time great job in my chosen field in Healthcare that I am not willing to leave. I live in the middle of nowhere, so online is the way to go. Is this possible without having to redo the coursework which is 95% finished. 

jarwiz

 

[ZeChocMoose]

Do you need the degree?

Given your constraints, the easiest seems to be find another chair and committee at your current school.  You might have to switch topics to find suitable people to supervise your dissertation, but it seems like you might have to do that anyways as the legislation change may force you to do that.  

I am not sure why your preferred solution is to change schools. Would you switch to another online university since you are location bound?  I suppose you could shop around and reach out to schools that you would want to attend, but there really isn't such thing as transferring at the doctoral level.  Usually, you would have to redo the course work and qualifying exams at your new school.  In my opinion that isn't worth it unless you can't find anyone at your current institution to direct your dissertation.  And if you can't find a replacement chair and committee then I would also imagine it is going to be difficult to get recommendations to switch to a new school which leads me back to -- do you really need the degree?

Since you are already gainfully employed - how much trouble is it worth it to you personally to finish?  Could you just leave with the master's?  It might be better to cut your losses now if finding another chair and committee is going to be impossible.

Edited January 29, 2016 by ZeChocMoose

[jarwiz]

On 1/29/2016 at 1:48 PM, ZeChocMoose said:

Do you need the degree?

Given your constraints, the easiest seems to be find another chair and committee at your current school.  You might have to switch topics to find suitable people to supervise your dissertation, but it seems like you might have to do that anyways as the legislation change may force you to do that.  

I am not sure why your preferred solution is to change schools. Would you switch to another online university since you are location bound?  I suppose you could shop around and reach out to schools that you would want to attend, but there really isn't such thing as transferring at the doctoral level.  Usually, you would have to redo the course work and qualifying exams at your new school.  In my opinion that isn't worth it unless you can't find anyone at your current institution to direct your dissertation.  And if you can't find a replacement chair and committee then I would also imagine it is going to be difficult to get recommendations to switch to a new school which leads me back to -- do you really need the degree?

Since you are already gainfully employed - how much trouble is it worth it to you personally to finish?  Could you just leave with the master's?  It might be better to cut your losses now if finding another chair and committee is going to be impossible.

Thought I would share an update. I decided that I wanted the Doctorate for professional (and perhaps personal) reasons. Since I was close. So I found a new chair. started to move forward. The I foolishly did not realize to financial commitment I was making. Mandatory retaking of a course to get the Chair comfortable, Mandatory additional residency which was a repeat of the previous one, that is, no discipline related learning occurred. University will only review dissertation while I am actively in Class. So more repeat classes, although I did learn a few things. Now, as I am about to submit my revised dissertation, the chair resign from my committee, and the Board will not accept a paper where there is no chair. The instructions are to get a new chair, wait a month then enroll in a redundant class (at full tuition of course), submit paper, re-enroll in non-learning residency. The bad news is that folks I have reached out to tell me that is should expect to be in limbo like this for two more rounds of tuition . I think Phoenix has beaten me. ZeChocMoose, I should have listened

[ZeChocMoose]

On 10/25/2016 at 3:48 PM, jarwiz said:

Thought I would share an update. I decided that I wanted the Doctorate for professional (and perhaps personal) reasons. Since I was close. So I found a new chair. started to move forward. The I foolishly did not realize to financial commitment I was making. Mandatory retaking of a course to get the Chair comfortable, Mandatory additional residency which was a repeat of the previous one, that is, no discipline related learning occurred. University will only review dissertation while I am actively in Class. So more repeat classes, although I did learn a few things. Now, as I am about to submit my revised dissertation, the chair resign from my committee, and the Board will not accept a paper where there is no chair. The instructions are to get a new chair, wait a month then enroll in a redundant class (at full tuition of course), submit paper, re-enroll in non-learning residency. The bad news is that folks I have reached out to tell me that is should expect to be in limbo like this for two more rounds of tuition . I think Phoenix has beaten me. ZeChocMoose, I should have listened

Sorry to hear that it worked out the way that it worked out, jarwiz.

Schools like Phoenix are tricky given their rotating faculty and how doctoral students are so dependent on their chairs/committee to finish.  If you feel up to it, you can make a complaint with their accreditator - Higher Learning Comission.  Information on how to do it is here: https://www.hlcommission.org/HLC-Institutions/complaints.html