Welcome to the Dissertation Collegium · Dissertation Collegium

Welcome to the Dissertation Collegium

Members of the Collegium,

With your admission into the Dissertation Collegium, you pass into a learned society ordered towards recovering the traditional ends of doctoral education: scholarly formation and knowledge generation. The Collegium is grounded in the principle of Bildung (meaning self-cultivation) established by Wilhelm von Humboldt who viewed higher education as a union between 'objective science' and 'subjective education'.

The traditional model of doctoral education was conceived as a sort of intellectual apprenticeship where doctoral candidates benefited from the mentorship of an experienced faculty member and participated in the scholarly life of the university campus. In the contemporary landscape, however, this environment has often been displaced by an archetype we term Compliance-Oriented Doctoral Education (CODE). In this system, the dissertation is frequently treated as an artifact of procedural adherence rather than a demonstration of disciplined enquiry. Under CODE, the conferral of the degree is evidence that candidates were able to endure the process set up by the university.

The Dissertation Collegium is designed to recover the cadence and essence of doctoral education as traditionally conceived. We exist to provide a space where you may navigate the constraints of your university programme while ensuring your work remains governed by rigorous scholarship.

Accordingly, our mission is twofold:

The immediate goal of the Collegium is to support Members in successfully completing and defending the dissertation. This is achieved through mentoring Members in the underlying logic of the dissertation process, providing a space to receive high-touch and frequent feedback, and to cultivate a collegial scholarly environment that is often lacking in many non-traditional programmes.

2. The longer-term goal of the Collegium extends beyond defence and graduation towards scholarly formation. Members remain affiliated with the Collegium beyond graduation, retaining access to the community, its mentors, and its scholarly environment as they move into publication, professional advancement, and post-doctoral praxis. Defence marks not an exit from the Collegium, but a transition within it {\textemdash} from doctoral candidate to contributing scholar.

To realize these ends, our membership is structured around three pillars of support:

Curriculum: Our cursūs provide you with the conceptual understanding required at each phase of the dissertation process through academic lecture, practicum exercises, and curated reading lists.

2. Cadence: The Collegium is structured to restore the rhythm of traditional doctoral formation through regular intellectual exchange and ready access to guidance.

3. Analysis: To ensure analytic decisions remain methodologically legitimate and inferentially disciplined through targeted workshops in qualitative and quantitative analysis.

The Collegium is high-touch by design. Members are expected to engage these goals regularly and with seriousness. We recommend the following pathway for your initial integration:

Begin Cursus I: This cursus provides an introduction to the governing framework of the Collegium and insights into the nature of contemporary doctoral education.

2. Join Office Hours: Access the Calendar to view upcoming weekly Office Hours. These are open sessions designed to help Members sustain momentum on their dissertation work. These are open sessions, so simply need to click on the link and join the session.

3. Schedule Individual Sessions: Book your twice-monthly individual mentoring sessions using the following link: https://calendar.proton.me/bookings#dtRghvSFAGksFgKzJ_i9HYUadG1HYGcVEdDOz8Ozz7w=

4. Engage with Peers: Utilize the online platform to sustain engagement with fellow members. Scholarly formation is a communal act; do not hesitate to share drafts, challenges, and insights.

The Collegium hopes that with your admission you have found an intellectual home where you can thrive and grow as a scholar.

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