PhD in Educational Studies
Description
The PhD (Educational Studies) Program is designed to further the development of leaders already serving in organizations such as higher education institutions, mission agencies, congregations, parachurch agencies, and relief and development agencies. The PhD/EDS supports an interdependent learning community comprised of leaders from a variety of cultures, countries, and backgrounds.
Core Competencies
Three foundational areas of professional competency provide the academic focus of the program: thinking as a researcher, thinking as an educational leader, and the capacity to think theologically about educational issues against a broadly cultural and missiological framework. The intentional linkages between the PhD (Educational Studies) and the PhD (Intercultural Studies) provide opportunity to relate principles from theology and the social sciences to education, mission, and leadership.
 Dr. Miriam L. Charter Program Director |
Program Values
Participants engage one another professionally, academically, and personally. They share resources and ideas and consult one another concerning specific issues and situations related to their ministry. The program style is collaborative rather than competitive, and mutual respect for colleagues and the diversity of perspectives is evident. The international learning community thus formed is grounded in a fundamental respect for God's revealed truth, God's redemptive purposes, and God's image in all persons. In this community, the human tendency to homogeneity is discouraged while, at the same time, the individual is respected.
Learning is seen as lifelong, formal and nonformal in context, linear and narrative in approach, and participatory. The interdependence of theory and practice, the processes of dialogue and disciplined inquiry, and the integration of theology and the social sciences are viewed as normative. Faculty are committed to the effective progress and completion of the participants and, through the experiences of the program, seek to foster the cultivation of sustainable habits in thought, spirit, relationship, and service. As a community of colleagues, we sharpen one another in character and spirit, in scholarship and professional practice. Evaluation and assessment are, therefore, ongoing, formative, and collegial.
Members of the community, individually and corporately, are committed to a responsible, rigorous, lifelong search for truth. Therefore, professional collaboration and personal relationships continue beyond the formal boundaries of the PhD program. Experiences within the program assist with the building of personal and professional networks, and participants are encouraged to continue the cultivation of professional values, relationships, and habits of scholarly enterprise that develop during the program. Participants typically share their email addresses with each other and maintain a continuing consultation with colleagues.