Last evening we had our penultimate EDDE 806 session for this season. On tap for the evening we had Neera's presentation (originally of Cohort 6, but now firmly "one of our own" in cohort 7), and a presentation by Stephanie.

One question that came to mind, outside of the context of these presentations, was how long do EdD students stick around in 806 after they have met the requirements of the course?  If they don't come back, why is that?  If they do return, why do they return, and what influences their regularity of participation?  I guess this could be a dissertation topic in and of itself, but it's a question that came to mind as I saw some very familiar names in the guest list on Adobe connect last night, and noticed the absence of other names that I've seen over the last year or so of my 'informal' 806 participation.  Of course, a dissertation topic like this would most likely add 2-3 years to my studies, and that doesn't seem like an appealing prospect :p

For the presentations of the evening, Neera presented on her proposed study, titled Succession planning in higher education: condition for sustainable growth and operational resilience, and Stephanie's proposed research topic is titled Developing routine practices for health system navigation in Canada.  Neera is focusing succession planning, with a focus on Polytechnics (with potential study participants coming from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and British Columbia.  I was surprised that there are Community Colleges in Canada - I tend to think of community colleges as a US term.  Looking little community college might be one of many terms that refers to the same type of institution in Canada.

In any case,  I think that Neera made an interesting point, and something that I've seen at my own institution: In higher education it often seems that hiring new people at the institution, or replacements for key positions, takes a lot of time.  That ends up potentially costing the institution money because there isn't someone in the position to take care of the critical needs for that institution; and if someone is hired but the search fails (bad fit for example) it's still money down the drain.  Hence a good succession plan (implemented well) would conceivably benefit the institution.

For Stephanie's presentation, since I am not in the healthcare field, I am a little less able to say something other than it's a cool project :-) I don't want to just summarize her presentation though.  The thing that struck me, both with Stephanie's presentation and Neera's (and other presentations I've seen over the years) is that most dissertations and dissertation proposals seem to be either Qualitative in nature or Mixed Methods, but I have yet to see a strictly Quantitative approach just yet.  I wonder if others have seen those in their experiences in EDDE 806.