Chapter 13: No Longer “PhD-Lite”: Establishing a Professional Practice Doctorate of Substance

Nebraska’s demographics and academic traditions pose unique challenges for the educational administrator charged with the management and leadership of advanced graduate programs. We live in a rural state with two major urban centers serving students from urban, suburban, and rural communities. In addition, we pride ourselves on increasingly large national and international contingents of students entering our doctoral programs. Our university remains both a Land Grant and a researchintensive institution, one of the few “dual mission” universities nationally, bound to serve constituents and to generate new knowledge in equal measure. We struggle at times to find a focus among competing agendas to address the range of needs brought to our graduate offerings by individuals representing contrasting environments.