THE PURSUIT OF A PHD AS A VIRTUAL PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITY: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL DRAMATURGY OF ONE COHORT'S EXPERIENCE

Education can be a lonely business. Teachers and administratorsare often separated from other adult professionals in isolatedclassrooms, offices, and administration buildings. Geographicremoteness only exacerbates personal seclusion, preventingcollaboration concerning how to foster student learning and wellbeing.Bringing a disparate group of potentially isolated educational leaderstogether, in 2005 the Educational Administration Department (EAD) atCentral University in the United States created a local/distance (mixed)PhD cohort. Pathways, a special unit embedded within EAD,spearheaded the plan; infused the curriculum with collaborativecommunity literature; intended to enhance student administrativeexpertise; and, if desired, prepared students for the college professorate.I was a cohort member, and my co-author taught four research coursesscattered throughout the program. Classes are over now, and 13 out of14 original members are defending prospecti and dissertations.For the most part Pathways realized its expectations, and thegroup became a professional learning community (PLC). This studyproduced three thematic lenses through which to see the cohort'sevolution: job-related challenges, technology struggles, and interpersonalrelationships. This methodology centers on a phenomenologicaldramaturgy. Cooley (1922) and Mead (1934/1967) guided our view of thephenomenon as the cohort's historical group development toward eachindividual's evolving professional- and self-perceptions within acommunity context. We present the findings in a four-act play(Goffman,1959). Our special attention to students speaks to future virtualand local doctoral cohort developers and those who theorize aboutsuccessful doctoral education. Being a good educator means payingattention to details--in this case, the ever-changing social selfconstructionsthat can make or break a student's experience