Doctoral Project

and my doctoral project, I decided to create a question

here, which I used to interview various professionals, two of

which work within enrollment management, and one which works within

the honors program.

Throughout this project, I will include the interview questions, the

answers and responses from the interviewees, as well as my

personal, um, analysis of various themes that I've noticed as

they relate to academic and professional aspects about my doctoral

journey and including a reflection as well about the information

that I've learned and synthesized from this project.

As an overview, I decided to select two individuals who

worked with an enrollment management, one being Dr Andrea Felder,

who was the previous director of admissions with the University

of Florida.

Also a mentor and role model figure that I look

up to and then the second individual with enrollment.

Management includes Dr Tammy, a guard who is one of

the assist associate vice presidents and enrollment management at the

University of Florida.

As someone who currently works within admissions, I wanted to

interview individuals who also hold leadership positions vowed to aspire

to potentially achieve in the future.

Additionally, I also decided to interview Dr Melissa Johnson within

the honors program, transitioning into work within student affairs and

working with an academic programs have also been potential areas

of interest.

I've interacted with Dr Melissa Johnson in the past through

being a part of the honors program as an undergraduate

student, and I was really curious to learn a lot

about her rule currently her journey in the doctoral program

on Dhe.

Throughout this interview, I decided to create basically a questionnaire

which I administered to the interviewees on.

Basically, this served as the basis for the interview.

Just to go over the questions, I asked each interviewee

how they explain their current job and responsibilities.

While I had the ability to look up their descriptions

online, I wanted to hear from their perspective all the

different nuances that they felt there, Ruling tells I asked

him to describe their doctoral journey and how it affected

the professional growth what they considered to be challenging aspects

of a doctor program.

Also asked whether or not they worked full time and

how they managed to balance the responsibilities, I asked what

advice that they would give for succeeding in a doctorate

program, experiences and recommendations and then advice relating to the

research area of specialization for someone who's new to the

doctoral program.

Finally, I asked about their discipline and year of graduation

from their program.

The first interview I want to focus on was with

Dr Andrea Felder, who is currently the assistant vice provost

for undergraduate admissions in American University, and asking her about

her roles and responsibilities.

She mentioned that she basically facilitated strategic recruitment and admissions

for first year and transfer students at an American university.

She supervises over 25 professional staff and is tasked with

recruiting a diverse and talented first year class.

So learning about her specific position at her current institution,

I was able to get some insight into the extent

in which he serves as the leader, um, for the

recruitment efforts, which was very helpful for me to learn

about and connect to some of the differences from her

previous role at the University of Florida as a director

and learning about her journey, Dr Felder largely talked about

how long and difficult process Waas.

While she did identify that the coursework wasn't very challenging

for her, the balancing part of it served as a

very large challenge within her journey.

She also identified that the dissertation writing part was the

main challenge of her doctoral program and that she was

very distracted and that finding a way to the finish

line was a major obstacle that she faced additional challenges.

Um, she identified within the dissertation area was being able

to distill information that she gained within the program in

terms of program balance.

Dr Felder talked a lot about the need for being

ableto complete coursework over the weekend as well as evening

hours being very essential and then having a careful balance

with making sure that she also took time for herself

in the evenings to be able to enjoy the rest

of her evening and and to be able to de

stress from urban areas.

Responsibilities, faras advice for current doctoral students, her advice of

understanding what you're getting into and definitely identifying weaknesses really

struck to me.

Um, just being able to dissect and digest the entire

journey from from her perspective, then looking into the core

structure, um, for the program of study, all the different

experiences involved in um certainly for me is someone who

is currently in the early stages being ableto look at

the entire journey digested and then also look at my

current weaknesses definitely is an important insight that I've gained

from her interview and being able to think of ways

that I can continue to grow and develop as a

scholar and also as a professional in terms of recommendations,

Dr Felder provided some recommendations that if I wanted to

stay with enrollment management in the future, that I might

consider gaining some experience learning about financial aid and registrar

work. And this piece of advice, I think, is definitely

resignation with me because it pointed out the importance of

gaining the holistic understanding of how enrollment management functions and

how essential it is for someone who's in, uh, executive

leadership position in regards to identifying a research area specialization.

I really appreciated that Dr Felder provided some questions that

she felt that anyone who is a doctoral journey should

ask. So what questions do I have about my subject

area? What are things that I've always wondered about the

program and then also this was a very helpful piece

of advice because it also kind of set the stage

for how asking these questions are very important to narrow

down the area of specialization and why I am just

within the first semester of the program.

These air some questions that I think have definitely gotten

the brand juices flowing as far as the discipline and

graduation of her program.

Dr. Andrea Felder completed her dissertation Working graduated in 2016

with an Eddie and Higher Education administration from N.

C. State.

From my second interview, I interviewed Dr Melissa Johnson, who

received the PhD from the University of Florida in curriculum

and instruction with an emphasis and educational technology.

I wanted to interview her for a variety of reasons,

mainly because of her current role as the associate director

of an honors program and that being an area of

interest in the future.

But also her experience.

Having completed a program within the same department is mine.

In regards to the first question about her description of

her rules and responsibilities, Dr Melissa Johnson is in a

faculty administrative hybrid position.

While it is classified as a faculty position, it encompasses

a lot of different responsibilities that she also considers to

be administrative, and she described her responsibilities as kind of

being a jack of all trades relating to teaching, Advising

admissions program, completion assessment, event planning, organization, advising, fundraising and

supervision. Um, and she really appreciates having that variety within

her current role in terms of describing her doctoral journey.

Um, something that I really appreciated from Dr Johnson's reflection

is that she mentioned that it was a normal, very

abnormal. She mentioned that she started a different program and

that she transferred into the Ed Tech program.

And that was something I was very interested for me

because she also talked about how for her it was

kind of abnormal, challenging a bit longer than she anticipated.

Due toa course working faculty changes and definitely for me

that pointed out that programs continue to develop and change,

and it's important for students to also be, um, very

adaptable and also toe understand that sometimes our our vision,

um, could change throughout the course of the program in

terms of professional development and growth.

She mentioned how she took an extra research methods course

and how that was incredibly important for her to gain

skills in terms of assessment and research that also made

her more confident in presenting um and also this confidence

also assisted her in terms of her professional associations in

her role within the honors program.

In terms of some of the challenges that she identified,

she mentioned that there are many challenges outside of the

classroom on, but also because she was working full time.

She didn't have a traditional experience as many other PhD

students, and that sometimes she felt a bit disengaged, a

lot of the opportunities for research and some of the

other opportunities that were offered within the program in terms

of time management balance.

Dr Johnson mentioned that she was taking 9 to 12

credit hours while working full time while also being able

Thio juggle various responsibilities.

She mentioned that for her personally, she likes being busy

and having multiple responsibility, so didn't feel difficult for her.

But certainly she mentioned that having the support of supervisor

and work environment, having those conversations and navigating uh, the

wide array of responsibilities is very key and being successful.

Terms of advice for success, she mentioned, mentioned the importance

of advocacy and how essential it is for a doctoral

students to be able to advocate for themselves and kind

of tying in advocacy being able to advocate for yourself

and also experiences recommended.

I really interpreted a connection here between being able to

look for opportunities, advocating for oneself in terms of finding

developmental opportunities, even ones that aren't necessarily offered through a

program or listserv.

So that could be potentially teaching, being able to look

at opportunities as a t A.

Being able to teach courses within the honors program or

being able to present conferences and continue to grow as

a professional in terms of advice.

You talked very largely about paying attention, a hot topics

and how it intersects within my current area off studies

on my specialization area, as well as how it could

work with in a professional setting.

Dr. Melissa Johnson completed her PhD in curriculum and instruction

with an emphasis and educational technology from the University of

Florida in 2000 and 12 the third individual that I

decided to interview with Dr Tammy Hagar in regards to

her rules and responsibilities, she's considered the second in command

for enrollment management at the University of Florida, responsible for

admission, student financial affairs, and you have online enrollment management.

On with that, she deals with coordinating the budget submission

of documents, strategic planning and essentially is very responsible for

all of the different elements that comes into play with

running the operations for enrollment management.

Okay, in regards her doctoral journey, she mentioned it.

It's been a long term goal of hers and that

she had to juggle her career, her education being a

mother in a variety of different responsibilities.

Regards to challenges doctor a guard mention that there was

a wide variety of challenges being able to understand that

her program had a K through 12 focused in that

in many cases wasn't necessarily applicable to the higher education

area and that she needed to sometimes challenge her faculty

members and colleagues on, but then also being create creatively

about how she could apply the coursework and basically apply

it to her particular setting.

Another theme is that Dr A Guard talked about balance

and how that was also challenged in terms of being

in a full time position, also being interim registrar at

her institution, implementing a new student information system, being a

mother of two preteens, and that it was very necessary

for her to work in the coursework during the evening

evening and weekends.

Faras advice her advice about being able to identify a

topic early on, UM, to be able to leverage assignments

from that topic and area specialization throughout the course.

And to be able to apply that to the research

area in the future, as far as experience is recommended

to attain a position like hers in the future.

She talked about the importance of getting some information insight

into multiple areas of enrollment management, such as admissions, registrar

or financial aid, which was similar to the recommendation that

Dr Felder made in regards to research area and identifying

it as a doctoral student.

She recommended Find something you're passionate about and then also

thinking about how you can maximize course assignments throughout the

program and leverage it towards research instruments and for the

future. And then also, she recommended being able to identify

potentially a chair who may have an area of interest

and sometimes that could also be assisted, very useful and

completing that process.

Doctor, a guard received her doctor of education and educational

leadership from the University of Wyoming and graduated in May

2010 to central themes that have identified within the research

within the various interviews, Time management was one key theme

that was mentioned.

Connecting learning from within the program to professional setting with

another major theme.

Identifying research areas early was very important and in diversifying

skills, improving weaknesses and taking opportunities to be able to

home strengths.

Okay, in terms of themes professionally, being able to expand

functional areas and gain experience within the register and financially

departments and other areas is also key recommendation.

Becoming comfortable collecting, utilizing and synthesizing data was also a

very important recommendation.

Attending conferences and contributing toe other professional settings is also

recommendation as well as finding opportunities to teach.

Being able to teach uncommon courses was another recommendation to

continue to grow and develop professionally throughout the doctoral journey.

For my final reflections have included some basically synthesis in

regards to the overall recommendations from the interviewees, pointing to

a need for balance being willing to continuously grow and

develop throughout the doctoral journey.

The doctoral journey encompasses being able to balance the jack

of all trades of responsibilities from the myriad of being

a full time professional, which many which all three of

the interviewees had, as well as being able to balance

the various responsibilities of being a doctoral student, ranging from

research, um to coursework as well as being able to

Doctoral Project

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