Curriculum Design

The doctoral program consists of 65 total credit hours (50 hours of course work and 15 hours of dissertation). The program will be offered in an on-campus as well as an online version. The online option will use a combination of on-campus one-week summer intensives, Internet course work throughout the academic year, Web-based conferencing (synchronous and asynchronous) on a regular basis and e-mentoring for research and career advisement/development. Local research mentoring may be arranged, as appropriate; however, the primary research advisor for each student will be one of the KU SON faculty members who teach in the doctoral program and who is approved for dissertation chair privileges. If the student is participating in research that can only be conducted on campus, the student is advised that they will need to be on-campus for that experience. Appropriate courses in statistics and in the student's minor area of study may be completed at other universities near the student's home and applied to meet the requirements of the Ph.D. program. These courses must be approved in advance by the student's Academic Advisory Committee.

The initial summer intensive provides all students (classroom based and online) an orientation to doctoral education, allows a match with an academic and research advisor and a structured opportunity to bond with fellow students and doctoral faculty. During the subsequent summer sessions at the end of year 01 and year 02, students will be immersed in coursework and synthesis workshops with faculty advisors/mentors and fellow students. Each of these workshops will end with a qualifying exam that will evaluate student's depth of knowledge and skill development. Student's who do not pass this qualifying exam will not be able to progress to the next level of doctoral study.

The SON PhD program and course work is heavily focused on research skill building through didactic coursework, seminar learning and application experiences. The oral comprehensive exam will be conducted at the time of the dissertation proposal defense. The Graduate School requires that students also demonstrate competency in a foreign language and/or research skill.

Doctoral study requires considerable time and concentrated effort. While there are advantages to full time school attendance, there are situations for which part time school attendance is preferable. If you intend to remain in a full time work position which requires more than full time effort, the part time study option is preferable. Even in a full time position for which the work is concentrated in a 40 hour week, you should consider carefully how the requirements of school and work can be accommodated for a successful outcome.

Sample Program for the Full-time Student

Example of Sequence for the Part-time Post MS Student