Greetings Members, Brenda and I are doing some really cool behind-the-scenes research on the history of doctoral education and current trends. The result of this research will inform the Collegium's curriculum and also serve as the basis for some articles the Institute plans to publish in the coming months. We've identified three overarching eras, that I thought I share with everyone, to give some food for thought. The Medieval Era: The doctorate served as proof of mastery of an accepted body of knowledge and permitted a person to teach at a university. The university at this time was also quite uncodified and function essentially like a mini-nation where professors were often paid in rights to brew beer or cultivate land. The Humboldtian Era: The doctorate became a means of generating new knowledge. The doctoral candidate was expected to both undergo a personal transformation and edification in addition to becoming an independent scholar. It was the reforms of Humboldt that transformed the university in a public institution rather than an exclusive guild of masters. The Knowledge Economy Era: This characterizes generally the era we are in now. The doctorate and research more generally is now treated as an economic tool and the university is much more concerned with participating in this economy, focusing on employability and societal impact. The downside to this Knowledge Economy Era is that the formative aspect of doctorate education is often overlooked. The doctoral candidate is increasingly seen as both a consumer of a product (i.e., a credential) and a product of the university which can then participate as an agent in the market. We are uncovering some very interesting trends and findings in the literature on the nature of higher education that we are really excited to synthesize into curriculum content and formal reports/articles. Check out our latest post on LinkedIn in which I expound on these eras in a bit more detail. Let me know your thoughts!

Hello everyone, Unfortunately I'm going to have to cancel the office hour today. Please feel free to schedule a one-on-one or I can reschedule for tomorrow. I'm flexible. My apologies

Greetings Members, We are happy to announce our fall 2026 Doctoral Colloquium series. Attached is a flyer with the sessions we will offer throughout the semester. Please forward to any doctoral candidates in your network, like/share my recent LinkedIn post, and mark your own calendars to attend. -Ryan

Greetings Members, I wanted to provide some thoughts on how to approach writing your methodology chapter or section. If you have followed some of my posts from earlier in the summer, I discussed how any methodology chapters will involve three layers of discussion: Philosophical Paradigm This is the most abstract element of the methodology chapter and is grounded a great deal in philosophy of science. It is here where various research paradigms such as positivism, post-positivism, constructivism, pragmatism, and interpretivism come in. These are not merely lofty, nerdy, pedantic (pick your favourite adjective) elements that force you to do extra reading — they serve legitimate and practical purposes for your study. Each research paradigm will provide you a framework for understanding the epistemology (what counts as knowledge and how you obtain knowledge), ontology (the nature of reality), and axiology (what counts as evidence) for your study. Research Design Proper Having established a research paradigm to govern your study, you can then turn to research design. At the most basic level, this involves making a decision whether you will take a qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods approach. But, beyond those high level labels, you will then have to assess and evaluate a specific tradition within each mode of research. Let's take qualitative as an example. Under qualitative research, there are many designs: case study, phenomenology, grounded theory, etc. These are not convenient labels that you apply to a study characterized by interviews and thematic analysis, but represent entire research traditions that give your study both architecture and lineage. Methodology Proper Here you might ask what is the difference between research design and methodology. The answer is simple — a research design is a framework and the methodology is the practical enactment of your study. Although a dissertation chapter might be labelled "Methodology: overall, methodology specifically refers to the procedures and protocols you will follow to collect data, recruit participants, organize your data, and then analyze it. This is the most concrete element of your study, but if you begin with establishing a research paradigm, understand the architecture and lineage imported by your chosen research design, then the practical elements of your study will emerge with greater clarity.

Hello members! How's it going? Office hours for this week have been posted in the calendar as follows: Saturday 6:00 PM EST Please let us know if you intend to attend and what you would like to discuss. As usual, everyone is welcome. Have a great week!