Nov 21, 2024  
Academic Catalog 2024-2025 
    
Academic Catalog 2024-2025

Human Development, PhD (with optional concentrations)


The PhD in Human Development is focused on individual and transformational growth in personal, organizational, and cultural settings. The degree empowers doctoral scholar-practitioners with foundational and current research across the lifespan from multidisciplinary perspectives. Students study humans as individuals and as members of systems, learning to optimize interpersonal relationships and empower themselves and others to become change agents for social and ecological justice. The degree requires completion of the following:

  • New Student Orientation (NSO) and Learning Plan
  • Interdisciplinary foundations and leadership courses
  • Human Development emphasis courses
  • Advanced research studies, including a Portfolio Review and Comprehensive Assessment
  • Elective coursework
  • Dissertation

Our PhD offers a master’s along the way , as well as the option to fulfill elective requirements choosing not just from HOD prefix electives but from any of the general electives offered in the Leadership for Change  program.

HD students may structure their elective choices to fulfill an optional HD concentration in one of the following:

  • Creative Longevity & Wisdom
  • Somatics, Phenomenology and Communicative Leadership

Or one of these concentrations as listed below:

  • Coaching
  • Community College Leadership for Change
  • Dual Language
  • Inclusive Leadership for Social Justice
  • Leadership of Higher Education Systems
  • Media, Technology, & Innovation
  • Organization Development
  • Sustainability Leadership

Graduates of the program are leaders in their professional and personal lives as consultants, professors, community activists, authors, nonprofit executives, healthcare administrators, and coaches.

Required Coursework:


Effective date: 09/01/2023

Advanced Human Development course


Required Advanced (16 credits)


Electives (24 credits)


Choose any additional 24 credits from HD/ODC concentration and elective courses listed below, additional Advanced Research Methodology courses listed above, or any general electives with ELC course prefixes.

Total Semester Credits: 84


Optional Concentrations


Students matriculated into the Fall 2016 catalog can concentrate their elective studies in the HD/OD&C concentrations listed below, or from any concentration offered in other School of Leadership Studies. In this way, students can individualize their doctoral program and expand their professional expertise. Each concentration typically includes a minimum of three tailored courses and access to a community of scholar-practitioners who are passionate about this specialized field of study.

Coaching Concentration


The doctoral concentration in Coaching offers an interdisciplinary approach to integrating research-based coaching theory with professional practice in organizational and individual coaching. Participants will study the core theories that underpin principle practices of individual and organizational coaching and undertake individual research to integrate theory with practice in individual and organizational settings.

Community College Leadership for Change Concentration


The doctoral concentration in Community College Leadership for Change addresses the most current issues in community colleges and builds students’ knowledge and skills as scholar-practitioners.

Required


Choose two from


Creative Longevity & Wisdom Concentration


The goal of the Creative Longevity & Wisdom concentration is to enhance knowledge and practice in areas concerning mid-life and older adults.

Dual Language Concentration


The Dual Language Concentration offers an academic program to guide teachers, administrators, and scholar-leaders in examining the research, theory, and practices needed to develop effective K-12 dual language programs. This concentration is currently closed to new enrollments.

Inclusive Leadership for Social Justice Concentration


The doctoral concentration in Inclusive Leadership for Social Justice is designed to develop more inclusive scholar-leaders who are knowledgeable about and sensitive to the complex ways that power and injustice manifest in organizations and communities in order to co-create a more just society.

Required


Leadership of Higher Education Systems Concentration


The doctoral concentration in Leadership of Higher Education Systems focuses students’ doctoral study on the knowledge and skills needed to become leaders and change agents in higher education institutions, such as 4-year colleges, universities, and graduate schools

Required


Media, Technology, & Innovation Concentration


The doctoral concentration in Media, Technology, & Innovation is focused on the ways in which media, technology, and knowledge networks are transforming our societies, organizations, and ourselves by becoming the dominant driving force for innovation and organizational change.

Organization Development Concentration


A doctoral degree with a concentration in Organization Development (OD) prepares students to become scholar practitioners, thought leaders, and change agents in a variety of organizations-profit, non-profit, and public sectors.

Somatics, Phenomenology & Communicative Leadership Concentration


This Somatics, Phenomenology & Communicative Leadership Concentration combines and integrates scholarly theory and mastery of embodied mindful awareness (somatics) with substantial grounding in transformative phenomenology (consciousness and deep personal reflection) along with the interpretive and practical dynamics of social constructionism (Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM), Symbolic Interactionism, and related communication and social construction disciplines). The impact of the artful blending of these three disciplines and bodies of theory is to: (1) reinforce the validity of “essence-based evidence” available through the phenomenological lens, (2) provide insights into improved research and practice through lifeworld analysis (3) improve practice skills through somatic awareness and practices (4) intensify and enhance leadership skills through increase communication practices such as CMM, (Communicative Management of Meaning) which was developed and perfected by the late Barnett Pearce, HOD Professor Emeritus, and (5) increase contemplative skills as related to research and practice based.

Sustainability Leadership Concentration


The objective of the doctoral concentration in Sustainability Leadership is to produce leaders in businesses, nonprofits, governments, and educational institutions.