thinkPhD

YOU MIGHT BE A GRADUATE STUDENT IF…
…everything reminds you of something in your discipline.
…you have ever discussed academic matters at a sporting event.
…you look forward to summers because you can study more productively without the distraction of classes.
…you regard ibuprofen as a vitamin.
…you consider all papers to be works in progress.
…you find the bibliographies of books more interesting than the actual text.
…you have give up trying to keep your books organized and are now just trying to keep them all in the same general area.
…you have accepted guilt as inherent feature of relaxation.
…you find yourself explaining to children that you’re “in 20th grade.”
…you start referring to things in Latin phrasing, as in “Snow White et al”
…you frequently wonder how long you can live on pasta without getting scurvy.
…you look forward to taking some time off to do laundry.
…you can analyze the significance of appliances you cannot operate.
…you are startled to meet people who neither need nor want to read.
…you have ever brought a scholarly article to a bar.
…you rate coffee shops by the availability of outlets for your laptop.
…you wonder whether APA style allows you to cite talking to yourself as “personal communication.”
…you are constantly looking for a thesis in novels.
…you have difficulty reading anything that doesn’t have footnotes.
…you consider caffeine to be a major food group.
…you’ve ever brought books with you on vacation and actually studied.
…Saturday nights spent studying no longer seem weird.
…the professor doesn’t show up to class and you discuss the readings anyway.
…you can read course books and cook at the same time.
…you hope it snows during Spring Break so you can get more studying in.
…you find taking notes in a park relaxing.
…you find yourself citing sources in conversation.
…you’ve ever sent a personal letter with footnotes.
…your glasses prescription is 3x stronger than it was a year ago and you have carple tunnel syndrome because 90% of your time is in front of the computer or reading.
…8% of your time is spent in class.
…2% of your time is divided among eating, sleeping, shopping, TV, laundry, and socializing.
…you use words that only the people in your classes can understand.
…some of those continuing education classes sound interesting.
…the last time you watched TV, Brenda was still on 90210 and McGuiver was making bombs out of duct tape.
…an exciting trip is when you run errands not related to school.
…you don’t remember the last fiction book you read.
…studying keeps you awake.
…a complete dinner might be a bagel with cream cheese and a diet coke.
…a full night of sleep is 4 hours and a 2 hour nap mid afternoon.
…the last time you worked out, women were wearing little rope headbands and legwarmers.
…if you actually do workout, you have mastered the art of studying while on the bike or stairmaster.
…the food groups are ramen, caffeine, Subway, bagels, and the occasional delivery.
…when you tell people your thesis topic, they blink repeatedly and purse their lips while attempting not to burst out laughing.
…you have an academic/professional text that you think is cool because you got the author to sign it.
…you consider cooking and cleaning your house/apartment leisurely breaks from real work.
…5:00 p.m. Friday means you are now scheduled to work on your paper for the next 48 hours.
…you have every minute of the next four months planned out but have no idea what you are going to do for the rest of your life.
…your friends and family become concerned because although you can now recite, word for word, the most popular theories in your field, you have lost all semblance of common sense.
…you can’t tell which of the last 30 drafts of a paper was the one to submit for a grade.
…you are considering naming your first born child with monikers that spell SPSS.
…sleep is considered an optional recreational activity.
…”The Committee” means some semi-secretive organization designed to keep you in Hades on Earth.
…you understand jokes about grad school. 😉

–copied

My colleague D and I presented at the University of Phoenix Northern Virginia Campus’ Symposium, “Conducting Scholarship in the Workplace/Classroom: Myths, Realities, and Rewards” on Saturday. It was a great experience! We presented some of our work related to a workshop on small business/microbusiness. The Symposium was held in Reston, VA, which is about a two hour drive for us. We enjoyed an inspiring presentation by Dr. Jeremy Moreland, executive dean, regarding faculty scholarship. After the presentation, there were 12 research presentations (ours was one).

This was our first presentation, and we really gained from stepping out from our comfort zone. It was a little nerve wracking not knowing how things would go together (how many people? will they ask questions? will our presentation be appropriate for this audience?). It was a long day but I an sooo glad that we did it. I hope this was one of many such opportunities. D and I enjoy some great collaboration work sessions, and I think they paid off!

I recommend not modifying a scale used in your research unless that is your only (or best) option. There are several things you must do if you choose the modify route. All of these things take time and require specific reporting in your dissertation.

If you find that you must modify the scale, you must state how the original instrument was validated and what your modifications are (were). You must conduct a pilot study with the “new and improved” instrument – you cannot assume since the original instrument was OK, your new one is, too. It isn’t. The original scales were valid and reliable as a “whole” not the sum of its parts. Your pilot testers should be “experts” in the field. Do not pick other students or your professors (unless they represent a sample in the population).

Once you have received feedback from your expert panel, you must report what they said, and make changes to your instrument. Depending on their comments, you might need to re-pilot the instrument. Next, use Chronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient or similar test(s). You will report all of these results, and base your reasons to use the “new and improved” instrument on what you found out.

From time to time someone will ask if just changing a word or two is OK. Consult with your chair because it really depends on what words are changing and the context. For example, I used a survey with British spellings of a certain word (“s” in place of a “c”) and this was deemed to be not sufficient alteration. However, I did complete a pilot study. Here is a quote from my dissertation:

“The pilot test was conducted to provide feedback and advance warning about any corrections, deletions, or additions to be made before extending official survey invitations to participants. In addition, the pilot test invited comments about the relevance of questions as related to the research intent. Pre-testing the instrument in this way contributed to ensuring reliability and validity of the instrument relative to the contemporary sample population.”

Today, I received some good news! A colleague and I sent in a proposal for an academic conference and we received our acceptance notice today. The conference is in April so we have some time to pull our presentation together. We have proposed a new Workshop Curriculum, the structure of which is based on Boyer’s model of scholarship. The University of Phoenix encourages faculty to pursue scholarship and research in their academic and professional fields. My friend D and I are putting that model into practice with our proposal. We are both professionals who teach, so we bring lifetimes of work into our teaching.

I ordered my commencement robe today, having finally decided on this one:

Northcentral University Deluxe Doctorate Package with Piping (Black Velvet) $561.00

The price is high but I will use my robe for local commencements as well as the one for NCU. I remember looking at the robes several years ago an wondering if I would EVER get to wear one. Graduation seemed so very far away and so unobtainable. This journey to a PhD has been very difficult but I just kept hanging on through all the ups and downs.

So Husband and I are preparing to go to commencement in AZ, and take in some of the landmarks while we are there such as the Grand Canyon and the Hoover Dam. I am also VERY EXCITED about meeting some of the folks that I have been talking to by phone and email. I have made so many friends through the years and it will be great to sit over a cup of coffee and visit (and NOT talk about courses, TPs, CPs, DP, and DMs)!

I am looking at the commencement robes, and considering which will be best to buy. I plan to buy rather than rent because I attend local commencement ceremonies every year. The robes are expensive but I will use it every year.

If you bought or have seen them in real life, which looks best? Here are the choices: the doctoral robe with black velvet and black piping, with black velvet without black piping, with blue velvet and gold piping, or with blue velvet without piping?

Please feel free to comment after looking at the pictures, even if you have not seen the robes in person!

Here is the link: http://www.artneedle.com/northcentral-university/

I am leaning toward one of the all-black ones with or without piping, but I like the ones with blue velvet, too! I just don’t know which one to pick. I do not like to buy anything so expensive after just looking at photos. I like to see things close up for quality.

Also – if you have a doctoral commencement robe for sale, feel free to post a note and let me (and others) know.

Have you ever thought about how does social change happen? I recommend reading an interesting story called “The 100th Monkey” and below that, “The Hundreth Monkey Revisited.” Is there a short cut to social transformation? Can “one monkey” really make a difference in a society?

Are you willing to be that “one monkey”? Will your education make a difference to all the monkeys around you?

I challenge you to create change for good in your own life and then to show that to others. Let’s make a change in our social fabric. Choose good things today.

1. He had only one major publication.
2. It was in Hebrew.
3. It had no references.
4. It wasn’t published in a referreed journal.
5. Some even doubt he wrote it by himself.
6. It may be true that he created the world, but what has he done since then?
7. His cooperative efforts have been quite limited.
8. The scientific community has had a hard time replicating his results.
9. He never applied to the ethics board for permission to use human subjects.
10. When one experiment went awry he tried to cover it up by drowning his subjects.
11. When subjects didn’t behave as predicted, he deleted them from the sample.
12. Some say he had his son teach the class.
13. He expelled his first two students for learning.
14. He rarely came to class, and he just told students to read the book.
15. Although there were only 10 requirements, most of his students failed his tests.
16. His office hours were infrequent and usually held on a mountaintop.

shared from http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~pinto/god.html

A recent article in Bloomberg Businessweek entitled Occupy Our Business Schools (by David L. Ikenberry and Donna Sockell) posed some interesting thoughts about MBA programs. Most programs do not include social accountability studies. Rather, the stress is on finance, marketing, and management with the view that only these add value to our society. Indeed, value is received through products, services, buying, selling, and creating worth, yet there is an obvious lack of focus on the human element. Is “value” simply immediate and ephemeral, and without lasting and significant impact on tomorrow?

Corporate social responsibility includes sustainable actions, i.e., using resources and creating value in society today that does not bankrupt future generations. An easy example is designing a toy that all children want to have, but choosing to use lead paint becuase it is cheaper. The toy manufacturer added value to society (according the MBA model) by creating worth through a product. Yet, parents will SCREAM about the health risks of the new toy. Did the toy manufacturer managers and engineers consider all of the implications to society, including the future implications, of distributing that toy?

Our MBA programs (and BS/BA programs, for that matter) must contain studies about the ethical and social implications of actions today, so that we protect our tomorrows. I don’t think we need separate social responsibility courses. Corporate social responsibility studies must be fully integrated within each course so as to prepare our next generation of business leaders.

That is, if we have a next generation.

To my readers, colleagues, family, and friends:

May have you a blessed Christmas day full of love and laughter! Today is a day to reflect on blessing received this year. May happiness and peace be yours today, tomorrow, and forever!

Happy Holidays,
Cindy

Today, I passed the APICS Certified Supply Chain Professional (CSCP) exam today! I now have four letters to add after my name.

Of course, I am still waiting for those other elusive three letters (PhD)…. 🙂

I work in my company’s supply chain department and the CSCP certification is part of our recommended education and training. The Association for Operations Management (APICS) has several certification programs, including the Certified in Production and Inventory Management (CPIM) program. The CSCP certification is relevant to supply chain operations and decision-making. The test has four content sections: “Supply Chain Management Fundamentals,” “Building a Competitive Infrastructure,” “Managing Customer and Supplier Relationships,” and “Using Information Technology to Enable Supply Chain Management.”

My company paid for a course offered by the local APICS chapter as well as the online APICS CSCP Learning System. Between the classes and studying on my own, I estimate that I spent at least 100 hours preparing for the exam. I took a vacation day from work yesterday and studied most of the day (but I graded some papers, too). I also printed out the CSCP flash cards and studied with co-workers over our lunch breaks.

The test was difficult because it required a conceptual knowledge of the topics, rather than simply memorizing definitions. There were a few questions on the test that about subjects that I do not think were in the textbooks. Overall, I feel like I learned quite a bit about supply chain processes and strategies studying for the exam.

I think those four letters after my name look pretty good…what do you think?

Cynthia J. Wolfe, CSCP

Looking for a holiday gift for you or your favorite PhD-to-be? Look no further! My thinkPhD double-sided mug will motivate and inspire! Click the link and step into my Zazzle store…

thinkPhD Double-sided Mug by thinkPhD
Browse other Thinkphd Mugs

The Scholarly Kitchen is an interesting website you might want to check out. Its mission is to “advance scholarly publishing and communication, and the professional development of its members through education, collaboration, and networking.”

Supported by the Society for Scholarly Publishing, the website showcases recent research and changes in various scholarly fields. However, you will find lots of interesting and non-stuffy stuff on this website. For example, the September 30 entry was a video should some pretty fantastic street dancing (Pumped Up Kicks – Dubstep)!!

If you are stuck right in the middle of your dissertation or your concept paper or any other paper that is DRIVING YOU CRAZY, navigate over to the Scholarly Kitchen for something good to “eat”!

This is a great video – Kathryn Schulz gives an inspiring speach at TED, and reminds us that being wrong is very much part of being human.

I found this little story today and encourage you to read it if you are working on your dissertation….it may put things in perspective!

The Rabbit’s Dissertation by A. Gerstlauer

Enjoy!