Dear Members, Please be advised that Dissertation Demystified will henceforth be known as the Dissertation Collegium, the flagship program of the Institute for Doctoral Formation. This change more accurately reflects the mission of our community. What we are building together is not merely a program designed to help individuals complete the dissertation, but a space for serious intellectual and scholarly formation that extends beyond the defense itself. We are united by a shared conviction: the ultimate aim of doctoral education is formation, not credentialism. Certainly, earning the degree matters, and that remains an immediate goal of the work we undertake together. Yet the deeper reward of doctoral study lies in the process of becoming an expert, a researcher, and a scholar. That is the achievement that endures for life. What is changing is the name and broader institutional identity under which this work is carried forward. What is not changing is the structure of the program. Office hours and one-on-one sessions will continue as normal. Your access to me, Brenda, and your peers will remain the same. In the coming weeks and months, you will begin to see program materials updated accordingly, and our LinkedIn presence will gradually reflect this new branding as well. Thank you for being part of this community, for helping shape what it is becoming, and for participating in a larger vision for doctoral education. Yours academically, Ryan

Dear all, We will host our next Doctoral Colloquium this Saturday the 21st at 2:00 PM EST. The topic will be "On Institutional Navigation" and we will discuss the nature of how programs set up dissertation requirements and the nature of chair/committee feedback. Here is the LinkedIn event link: https://www.linkedin.com/events/7429541092246573056?viewAsMember=true. Do like and share the event on LinkedIn to help spread the word. The Zoom link is provided in the Skool Calendar.

Hey Guys, forgive me for disappearing. As you know, when that happens, we either have no power or no internet. We have Starlink, but it is not a great system during thunderstorms. This is a major weakness for someone who lives in an area with a "rainy season." We just had a second system installed for rainy weather. It is not as fast as Starlink, nor can we have as many computers watching videos at once, but it will still work when Starlink goes down. I am going to spend today and tomorrow catching up on my academic and professional work. I won't be proactive here, but I will be here if you need anything. Again, I apologize for disappearing. It happens when you live in the middle of nowhere, South America.

Hi, everyone! My name is Lakievia "Lucky" Johnson. Feel free to call me Lakievia or Lucky because I answer to both (use the name easier for you to say and remember). Thanks for having me in the community. I am a doctoral candidate at Liberty University, and I am finishing the Doctor of Strategic Leadership degree. In my program, there are four courses we have to take as doctoral candidates: BMAL887, BMAL888, BMAL889, and BMAL890, which are all semester long courses, and I just started BMAL888 this month. In this course, one of the biggest tasks to complete is the literature review, so I am working on that now. I look forward to being a resource, collecting resources, and learning, growing, and connecting with all of you. Much Success!

Please excuse the burst of posts, but I want to share an update. Over the course of this semester, I’ll be revamping our modules. Nothing currently available is going away. The existing modules will remain live and fully accessible. That said, after nearly a year of writing and refining my approach to doctoral research, it’s time to produce a clearer, tighter 2.0 version of the curriculum. Tentatively, the new structure will consist of nine modules, each with a streamlined layout: Lecture → Practicum → Reading List Here’s the working module sequence: Module 1: On Doctoral Education and Research Module 2: On Navigating Institutional Requirements Module 3: On Topic Development Module 4: On the Literature Review Module 5: On Research Design and Methodology Module 6: On Ethics and Implementation Module 7: On Data Analysis and Interpretation Module 8: On Defense and Graduation Module 9: On Post-Doctoral Praxis (i.e., publishing, career advancement, etc.) One additional note: this has already been part of our broader offering, but as more of you move into data collection, I’ll begin hosting monthly-ish data analysis workshops (qualitative and quantitative). I’ll also likely invite guest scholars to lead some of these sessions. More to come, but I’m excited about where this is heading as we continue building this community into something closer to a doctoral guild than a typical “program.”