This is a little off topic, but I have been following the story of Glenn Poshard's troubles at Southern Illinois University regarding possible plagiarism in his doctoral dissertation. Just a quick recap, the past Chancellor of Southern Illinois, Walter Wendler, faced plagiarism charges for his future plans for the university, Southern at 150 (which looked a lot like Texas A & M's Vision 2020), which eventually lead to him accepting a demotion. In the wake of that scandal, now, President Poshard himself faces plagiarism charges for the dissertation he wrote for his Ed.D. in Higher Education Administration in 1984. According to many, there is substantial plagiarism within the document and many feel he should resign, including a recent call by the Chicago Tribune.

Anyway, I will not weigh in on the controversy, but it does serve as an extremely good example of what can go wrong when inadequate dissertations are approved by educational leadership departments. In my experience, even very good educational leadership departments, of which I regard SIU as one, are approving sub-par dissertations with little oversight (having edited a dissertation that was approved at SIU, I know this to be the case personally). Many departments are faced with a limited number of professors qualified to serve or chair doctoral committees and a slew of students who need advisement. The result is a lack of oversight on these dissertations leading to numerous problems down the road, such as the one involving former Congressman Poshard. As a result, some educational leadership departments are considering or have already done away with the dissertation requirement for the Ed.D. I think getting rid of the dissertation is worth considering, however, it needs to be substituted with a requirement worthy of final project status for a doctoral degree. It is something we need to be talking and thinking about as an educational leadership field.


Here are some links in case anyone else is interested.

Poshard defends himself here.
Chronicle of Higher Education story here.
Story regarding the Educational Leadership Department's refusal to review the dissertation.
The Capitol Fax Blog Comments Section here.