Dave Lingerfelt, a mid-career professional and department leader, shares how Rockhurst University’s 2-year Online Ed.D. program helped him transition from engineering and computer programming to higher education leadership without putting his life on hold. He credits the flexible online format, supportive cohort model, and strong quantitative research focus for his success.

Graduating with a publishable doctoral capstone, Dave is now pursuing new career pathways, including a tenure-track position.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

My pathway did not start off on this track. I was a computer programmer, an engineer by trade. Like most people in the program, mid-career, I sat down with my immediate family, and I said, 'This is something I really want to do. This is why it's important to me. This is not permanent. It's a two-year thing.' The duration of two years was definitely a strong selling point, and that enabled me to have the flexibility to still continue to have a job, continue to be a dad and be a husband, which were all important to me.

I absolutely love the cohort model that this program put together because even though we were all online students, we all got to know each other in the online realm, and we felt the workload, while it was certainly challenging, it was also manageable. Very clear pace. We knew when the classes were going to be. We knew how long each class was going to be. We were given a very comprehensive curriculum map before classes even started. Each class just kind of stair-stepped onto the next one, continuing to grow those quantitative skills that by the time we got to the last semester, we all felt very well positioned to complete this.

I've talked to other colleagues that have completed large dissertation defenses, and you hear all of the horror stories. My big objective was learning how to be a better researcher and be able to analyze data in a more complete fashion. One thing I really liked about the program was the emphasis it put on the quantitative side of the research. Going the capstone route, not only was it more realistic and fit with industry a little bit better, you also come away with something very tangible. So, as I complete the program, I have a research article that is already being considered for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

I currently lead a department at my university now, and I took this program as an opportunity to expand my skill sets. In the more intermediate term, this allows me to actually seek a tenure track position and obtain tenure with the university. The program did a great job of opening up a lot of pathways for me. I did not have to put my life on hold, which was very important to me.