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.