Chapter 6: Cognitive Evolution: The Reflections of Two Doctoral Students: The Reflections of Two Doctoral Students

This chapter describes how students attending a small, private liberal arts institution in southern United States dealt with challenges and opportunities encountered on an innovative scholar practitioner doctoral degree program. The discussion focuses on the experiences of two students, one of whom can be described as a domestic insider having completed her master’s in educational leadership at the university; the other an international outsider who completed her master’s in educational leadership at a large public university (Merton, 1972). The students explain why, after exploring doctoral programs at several local universities, they chose the program at Lynn University. They proceed to describe the program’s admission process, the impact of the university’s partnership with the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED), and the importance of the role played by critical friends (Duquesne University, Vanderbilt University, University of Connecticut, University of Houston, University of Southern California, and University of Vermont) as encountered at CPED Convenings. The concluding section of the chapter reflects on how the program has contributed to the improvement of leadership development in order to affect leadership’s influence on student engagement and learning. Both students attribute their varied educational experiences as teachers and graduate students as motivation for applying into the doctoral program at Lynn University.