Pinned
Apr '25 •
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: 1. 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.
1d •
Thoughts on Research Design and Methodology
Greetings Members, I wanted to provide some thoughts on how to approach writing your methodology chapter or section. If you have followed some of my posts from earlier in the summer, I discussed how any methodology chapters will involve three layers of discussion: Philosophical Paradigm This is the most abstract element of the methodology chapter and is grounded a great deal in philosophy of science. It is here where various research paradigms such as positivism, post-positivism, constructivism, pragmatism, and interpretivism come in. These are not merely lofty, nerdy, pedantic (pick your favourite adjective) elements that force you to do extra reading — they serve legitimate and practical purposes for your study. Each research paradigm will provide you a framework for understanding the epistemology (what counts as knowledge and how you obtain knowledge), ontology (the nature of reality), and axiology (what counts as evidence) for your study. Research Design Proper Having established a research paradigm to govern your study, you can then turn to research design. At the most basic level, this involves making a decision whether you will take a qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods approach. But, beyond those high level labels, you will then have to assess and evaluate a specific tradition within each mode of research. Let's take qualitative as an example. Under qualitative research, there are many designs: case study, phenomenology, grounded theory, etc. These are not convenient labels that you apply to a study characterized by interviews and thematic analysis, but represent entire research traditions that give your study both architecture and lineage. Methodology Proper Here you might ask what is the difference between research design and methodology. The answer is simple — a research design is a framework and the methodology is the practical enactment of your study. Although a dissertation chapter might be labelled "Methodology: overall, methodology specifically refers to the procedures and protocols you will follow to collect data, recruit participants, organize your data, and then analyze it. This is the most concrete element of your study, but if you begin with establishing a research paradigm, understand the architecture and lineage imported by your chosen research design, then the practical elements of your study will emerge with greater clarity.
3d •
Office Hours
Hello members! How's it going? Office hours for this week have been posted in the calendar as follows: Saturday 6:00 PM EST Please let us know if you intend to attend and what you would like to discuss. As usual, everyone is welcome. Have a great week!
10d •
Office Hours
Hello members! I trust that you are well. Office hours for this week have been posted in the calendar as follows: Saturday 6:00 PM EST Please let us know if you intend to attend and what you would like to discuss. As usual, everyone is welcome. Have a great week!
18d •
Office Hours for the Summer
Dear Members, I hope everyone is doing well. I want to check in with everyone to make sure that summer office hours are being offered at an appropriate time for everyone. I am very flexible as to the schedule, so I ask you to respond to the following poll. Don't forget, as well, to take advantage of the twice-monthly individual sessions (calendar link in the pinned comment at the top of the Community). -Ryan
Poll
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Forming doctoral scholars who generate knowledge for their field
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