Join Dr. Broderick, Dr. Gillenwater, and Dr. Kamm as we discuss their research about the experiences of online students completing their dissertations at Northcentral University during COVID-19. Through their interviews and surveys with Dissertation Chairs, this research team found relationships, social emotional support, and adapting research methods rose to the surface as essential strategies for working with doctoral candidates during the 2020 pandemic.
Join Dr. Broderick, Dr. Gillenwater, and Dr. Kamm as we discuss their research about the experiences of online students completing their dissertations at Northcentral University during COVID-19. Through their interviews and surveys with Dissertation Chairs, this research team found relationships, social emotional support, and adapting research methods rose to the surface as essential strategies for working with doctoral candidates during the 2020 pandemic.
Amy 0:02
VESC brings you exciting and practical tips for improving your virtual teaching and virtual learning experience. Hello, everyone and welcome to today's podcast. I'm really excited to be here today with three of my colleagues, Dr. Broderick, Dr. Gillenwater, and Dr. Kamm. My colleagues have had a really interesting experience investigating and conducting a study on challenges and opportunities for online doctoral students during COVID-19 perspectives of dissertation chairs, and they presented that study at the OCLC online learning Consortium. Today, they're going to tell us a little bit about themselves and a little bit about the work that they did and their findings in that study. Can we start with you, Dr. Broderick?
Dr. Broderick 0:48
Thanks so much, Dr. Lin. Yes, I'm Maggie Broderick. I'm an associate professor in the ncu School of Education. My work is split between roles, working with doctoral students as a dissertation chair, and also with roles in curriculum and assessment. I'm also the specialization lead for the English language learners specialization. Mostly, I just love that I'm able to work with students directly, but also work behind the scenes and things you might not be thinking about. I live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with my family. Basically, my background is I started out in K 12 education. And I've gradually moved more into higher ed. I just love doing a really wide variety of things and kind of having my hand in a lot of things. So I love finding and I'm energized by finding the connections between the different things I get involved in and synthesizing and creating new ideas, and I love sharing ideas and just creating something new. I'll hand it off to Dr. Kamm.
Dr. Kamm 1:44
Thanks, Maggie. Hi, my name is Brandy cam. I am located in central Florida. I am a professor here at NC U. I primarily work with doctoral students. I'm also a program lead for the Educational Leadership Program. I'm really enjoying working with the students who are you know, they're mostly educators, they're continuing their journey. And they're, you know, working on some great research. So working as a dissertation chair really helps me stay on top of the latest trends and things are going on in education. I started my career in K 12. I started as a teacher, and then administrator, I was a principal and a district office administrator. So I've really enjoyed my transition to higher ed. I've been here at NC u over six years, and I've enjoyed every minute of it. And it's just been a wonderful experience. Dr. Gillenwater
Dr. Gillenwater 2:39
Thanks, Dr. Cam, and Carrie Gillenwater. Here, I am an associate professor at NCU. And School of Education. I've been within cu for several years now. Prior to that, I was a middle school language arts teacher for several years. And I sometimes miss the classroom still, I guess. But I really enjoy when I when I mainly do it. Nc u is a dissertation chair. So I work with students on their dissertations. And really enjoy that, like Dr. Cam said, I enjoy the interaction with students, I get to read about a lot of different things learn about a lot of interesting stuff. And that's, that's fantastic. And it's always great to help people to earn their doctorate. I'm also a specialization lead for the School of Education. And I'm enjoying that role right now and helping to work on syllabi for the School of Education. And my interest are basically my main interest started out and media literacy and education. And I mainly do qualitative research and just enjoying it.
Amy 3:43
Thank you. I really appreciate having all of your expertise and experience on the podcast today. And I can just say that I know I continue to learn from all three of you, in our interactions together at since I've come on board at NCU. I'm excited to hear more about your study. Dr. Broderick, will us start us off with an overview.
Dr. Broderick 4:05
Sure. Thanks so much. So really thinking of back a bit, you know, think back about a year ago, at the beginning of the pandemic, we really didn't know exactly where things were heading and where we'd be today. And if you really think about it, a lot of people were really concerned about everything from very young children all the way through doctoral students. What's going to happen, how long will this go on? How what will this mean for the future? What will this mean for our variety of students at different levels and all kinds of different contexts. And so, the three of us did notice some calls for research on impacts of the pandemic really pretty early on about a year ago, during the pandemic. And we just started thinking about our own students. Since we're all dissertation chairs. We decided to work together and see if the things we were thinking about were also sort of bubbling up a bit for our colleagues and for others working at that doctoral level, particularly on The dissertations and we were just thinking about the impact of the pandemic. And this time, however long it might have lasted on doctoral students. It was just really important to us. Basically, we just really care about our students as Dr. Kammen, Dr. gillenwater had mentioned and we were just thinking about them and and how we're trying to help them in our role. So we brainstorm together and got some great help from Dr. Ashley Babcock, the Associate Dean from the School of Education to get started. And of course, we worked with the ncu IRB to get everything together. And we wrote some interview questions. Most importantly, our colleagues were so willing to help by being interviewed. And we did conduct 12 very rich interviews with dissertation chairs from the ncu School of Education. Carrie, and Brandy can tell you a bit more specifics about our our literature, our methodology, our findings, so I'm, I'll pass it off to Brandy.
Dr. Kamm 5:50
Thanks, Maggie. Yes, so we conducted a qualitative phenomenological study, where we interviewed dissertation chairs using a semi structured interview, there were 13, open ended questions where we were really exploring the chairs, you know, experiences with the students during this this pandemic. It was, the interviews were conducted online via zoom platform, the three of us divided the interviews equally, then we analyze the data. And then we cross referenced the transcripts of the interviews, to have a thick, rich, rich analysis of all the interview data, we came across some very interesting themes during that process. But one thing that we did find was that across all of the chairs, the three of us did know that the findings were consistent with what we found amongst all of the different participants. And so that was very interesting. We found some really great information that kind of, you know, corroborated with our own experiences as well. So we found that to be interesting. Carrie, I'll pass it over to you if you want to start talking about some of the findings.
Dr. Gillenwater 7:14
Sure, thank you, Dr. Kamm. So we have some themes that developed one, from the findings was productivity, actually increased productivity of students, just the participants discussed ideas about persistence, flexibility, and even difficulties around that, for example, some dissertation chairs saw that their students were much more productive, while some saw a very fast drop off in productivity. So the persistence, the flexibility, and, and etc, were very needed by the chairs to help the students I mean, already, we as chairs are quite flexible and helpful, but there was definitely a ramp up and that also communication, and connection with that communication was very important. Establishing different ways to communicate, the conversations tended to actually get into discussions about students and their personal situations, which, you know, sometimes that does happen anyway. But the chairs had found that they, they tended to really want to really connect and have more personal discussions, not just about their work, but about their lives, what's going on, what's happening with them, in their family, their friends, etc. So then we, the findings moved into resources, discussion about what resources are available to chairs and to the students. at NC u, we have the Academic Success Center, that we call it the ASC, which helps with all kinds of things or writing research. It provides all kinds of information on how to do those things, as well as a lot of other stuff. There writing coaches and advisors, of course, so really, the conversation around that wasn't so much about the resources because those resources have always been there. But it became more of a conversation about how the chairs really began to see those resources, the people running those areas and working in those areas, as part of the team to support the student. And not saying that that hasn't been the case. But it just everybody kind of came together for the student kind of rallied around the student or students you know, and then there we discussed the impacts of COVID. There was lots of discussion about changes to how students collected their data and had to recruit many students or teachers They had to overnight shift gears into learning how to work online by zoom with their own students, and how to deal with that. And so those situations of being able to go in and collect data, a lot of students do qualitative studies, for example, the ability to go in and interview and sit down, observe and those kinds of things were pretty dashed. Zoom became a very quick tool to be able to conduct studies and the IRB was, again, another team team player, the IRB was heavily involved in not only helping students to think, how to approach their studies, but helping faculty helping the dissertation chairs, and how to help their own students figure out what to do. There's also, again, I mentioned earlier, the situation with discussions around personal experiences, problems, struggles, even more so than you know, with regard to their their dissertation research, there's a lot of financial and household turmoil, people, students losing family members, and that kind of thing. But I would like to say one of the most interesting findings, and my view was that some of the chairs expressed the sentiment that you know, while we are caring for our students, and we are doing our best to help them to be successful, and to get through this, these tough situations, we ourselves are also struggling and, and need some support, too. And so that was an interesting finding. There was a few more a few additional themes, but I think that kind of covers the big ones. Anything else? Dr. Brunner or Dr. Kim?
Dr. Broderick 11:47
I think you said it really well. Dr. Gillenwater. Thank you, I was thinking about what you said. And I think about it as some sort of pivoting like, students had to pivot rather quickly. And the chair had to be there to make sure they didn't, you know, fall, because if they had to suddenly change from Plan A to plan B. And then like you also said that shared experience of trauma. I mean, some of these folks, were going through the same things their students were going through. So that's exactly it. We're all going through I shared trauma during COVID-19. And that came through so clearly.
Amy 12:17
Yeah, thank you. I have some questions. I was listening really carefully to some of the findings that you were mentioning. And one of my questions was around, you mentioned flexibility and the need to be increasingly flexible. And I know, the faculty at ncu are very flexible. Were there any examples of how that flexibility needed to be extended? Beyond? You know, the usual?
Dr. Broderick 12:44
Yeah, yeah, I can think of one participant in particular, though, this was also sort of echoed by other participants, but one participant in particular said, you know, before the situation, I would, you know, just, if I got a phone call or a text from a student, Friday night, or over the weekend, I would just not answer it. You know, I'm, I'm at home, I'm with my husband. You know, I'm, that's what those are words. And you know, and I just want to have some time to myself, I'll get to them on Monday, as she said that after COVID began to stretch on that she just, she's just stopped doing that. She just started answering every text would answer the phone, you know, 10 o'clock Friday night, or whatever, much to the chagrin of her husband, she was she mentioned, that kind of thing. So yeah, those are those are examples of that flexibility. I wanted to add something though, as a chair, myself, and maybe Dr. Kammen, Dr. Broderick can testify as well, is that one of the things that got me interested in this was, I was just curious as to what ncu how we had to react, given that we were already an online university, some of the a lot of the literature is about universities that are brick and mortar having to suddenly shift to online, and the struggles that they have, and and with that, and, you know, which are myriad, whereas the struggles that we faced were not we didn't face any situations with, you know, a learning management system needing to come online and those kinds of things that other people are grappling with. But it was very interesting to me, as I conducted the interviews, and as we reviewed the data and began to formulate themes around it, is that, yes, you know, we ourselves had to even change the way we had to be. And we considered I mean, I think, from the interviews, definitely, that we were already like you I think you said Dr. Lan, we are already flexible. We were already doing a lot of these things, but just they what's the word? I'm looking for? I want to say ramped up, but they just became magnified, I guess, you know, like, they just kind of exploded, we had to do a lot of extra things that we, we were already doing extra things on top of. So
Dr. Kamm 15:14
I think that's a great point, Carrie, in terms of, you know, the infrastructure of NCU, and the, you know, the LMS, and the things that we had in place, you know, those types of things didn't really require a transition from the chairs. But the social emotional component is where I think we really learned a lot that as chairs, because we have such a tight connection with them. And, and because we work with them for so long. It's in times like this, that they really needed us to, to play a bigger role in supporting them in being their cheerleader, and being their coach and helping to guide them. And I think that was sort of the big takeaway here. They did increase productivity that was kind of set across the board for a majority of the students. And so I think some of that flexibility came in, you know, typically, maybe having one submission, per student per week, turned into multiple. And so a lot of the chairs said, You know, I didn't want to turn them off from their productivity. So rather than making them wait for the next week, I, you know, reviewed it, I gave them more feedback. So I think that was another takeaway is how do we adjust to their workflow? You know, if they're in a groove, and they're writing, and they're using the Academic Success Center, and they're really being productive? How do we support that and help them continue that versus, you know, the traditional, well, you need to submit something every week, you know, we found there was sort of this change in how the students looked at this extra time that they had, and how they wanted to take advantage of the things that were already in place in NC u, but that maybe they didn't have the time to do. And so I think that that social emotional connection of meeting them where they were meeting their pace, listening, being that open, you know, you're for them. And I think this extends beyond the pandemic, I think we learned something beyond that, right, that our students are going through a lot, just in their everyday lives, you know, they're gonna not not have kids after the pandemic is over and not have jobs and not have family crises, those things will continue to exist. And we've now learned that we need to be that extra layer of support to say, Hey, I'm here, how's it going? You know, how are they? And I think that extra component? Because we're an online university, that's our connection. You know, a lot of people say, how do you make those connections in an online world? I think that's it, right? It's the fact that we talk to our students continually. We are engaged with them, we listen to them. And I think this just taught us more about how important that piece is.
Amy 18:10
Yeah, that's such. That's a really great point. Randy, I heard a lot of social emotional themes throughout the findings that you were sharing. And, you know, even the point about realizing that all of the resource providers at NC u are part of one team. Right, and being able to utilize that team to help students. I guess I'm wondering, what about you mentioned the we are, we're struggling to I think was the sentiment that you point at pointed out Carrie was one of the findings you found interesting that we as the educators are struggling to so going back to that, SEO, that social emotional piece. So what educators do what what online? professors do when they're finding that they're struggling to? Do people talk about ways that they took care of themselves so that they would be able to be present for their students and not get burnt out?
Dr. Broderick 19:10
Yeah, you know, there were a couple of people. One person I think of maybe Dr. Kamm, Tiger brother can can agree, I don't know, but I felt like there was a bit of an implication and one and one person in particular said, as an example, who said, You know, I just kind of continued to do what I was doing any way, which was like, included a lot of stuff. We've already talked about the flexibility to contact communication, that kind of stuff. And she argued that the reason she did it was because she felt like that, that gave the students a sense of normalcy, right, that she didn't change she had died can just continue to do what she had done. And so for her, that actually manifested as well and her, you know, protecting on time and ensuring that she was doing what she needed to do and be there for students, but also ensuring that she was there for herself and her own family. And some of that was expressed again, I gave an example earlier, where people, you know, just kind of amplified is what I meant to say earlier, you know, amplified what they were doing answering the phone later, texting, later, having meetings, many more meetings and things like that. But there were, you know, again, there were concerns expressed about our own well being our own social emotional status. And so, really, some of the participants, they just handled that on a personal level. Dr. Kamm brandy mentioned, like, you know, we, we saw an increase in people uploading more a week, and there was definitely a desire to help people because they we knew, and we're still in this situation, students are, their funds are really running low, you know, people are really taxed pretty hard right now, economically. And so I, for one, have seen many more students contacting me saying I can't do another course I can't afford it, you know, and so you kind of take on the extra, maybe one to rescue, obviously, one, but maybe two or three extra submissions a week, if you know, they're coming toward the end. But going back to sort of our own well being in North Central, especially in the early days, and I think they still are doing it, establish some groups like the effectively like group therapy sessions, because we have people in another school who do like health, and psychology and stuff like that. So they established some group. therapy sessions are just group chatting sessions, basically, for employees, they were open to students, too, but they also had them for employees. Now, nobody, nobody really mentioned that in our study. But again, I think it does hark back to an idea of there are many resources at the university. And they're, you know, two, and we're together in this kind of idea. And we're a team. And all those resources tend to be, I guess, what they call student facing or focused on students. But there are resources for us as faculty as well.
Amy 22:23
This is very true. This is I just think this is says a lot about how much all of you care about your students. And I know that it's just a theme that permeates our work at NCU, it's something that makes me want to stay with what the university is there anything else that you want to add to your experience with this study, or being an online? Professor at NCU?
Dr. Kamm 22:52
I can add one more thing to what Dr. Gillenwater just said, actually, Dr. Lin, I just was thinking that some of the participants did know that the students were checking in on the chairs, which I found really compelling. The chairs would say, how are you? And then the students would tell them how they were doing? And they'd say, Well, actually, I understand I'm also going through the same and then the students would sometimes say, Oh, you said you were struggling to the chair, how are you today? So I found that really lovely that the risk reciprocity, I suppose, over the relationship, they would say like some of the chairs did have COVID-19, or lost family members and loved ones to COVID-19. And they would relay that to the students, you know, in an ongoing reciprocal fashion. And then the students would say, Oh, I, you know, I remember you said this to me, and how are you feeling today, and there was an ongoing dialogue back and forth. So it wasn't one sided. So I found that rather compelling.
Amy 23:44
I'm so glad you mentioned that. That's a that is a compelling point. Any other thoughts?
Dr. Broderick 23:50
Can I add something? One thing that I really thought was interesting, personally, it was that delving into the literature, and there's quite a considerable amount of literature actually, on the COVID situation. You know, I saw a commonality across it. And then a era the American Educational Research Association released a paper about, well, the title of its voices from the field, the impact of COVID-19 on early career scholars and doctoral students. And I was just and then it says, focus group study report is just fascinating to me. Wow, look at this, like, that's similar to what we were doing, you know, because the focus while it was like we talked to chairs was on the doctoral students and, but what I really found compelling was that a lot of these studies are qualitative studies. Right? They and I feel like that actually reflects the SEO idea and the the well being idea because qualitative is intended to get in depth to understand a phenomenon and explore it further, right. And so you know, sure you can distribute a survey For 1000s and 1000s, of people, but each of these studies wasn't concerned really about that. I think we understand the global picture really, you know, from a broad perspective. And so they each study was delving deeply into people's, how they were functioning, how they were dealing with it, how it was affecting their studies, how it was affecting faculty, staff, you know, students as well. So it was just very, very interesting to see qualitative kind of really run lead, lead the studies here in regard to the COVID pandemic.
Amy 25:35
That's a great point. It's a really great point, and a shift, right. Anything else, any other ideas that you want to mention that I think would be beneficial to our audience to hear?
Dr. Gillenwater 25:47
I think one thing that was very interesting for me and doing the interviews that I heard from all of the participants was in regards to communication. They mentioned, you know, conversations that used to take maybe 20 minutes discussing the research, we're now double that right, every student, because the first 20 minutes of every call was well, how are you? And to Maggie's point, it was the chair checking in on the student and the student checking in on the chair. You know, I had one chair who mentioned that she had like a 20 minute conversation with the student about like her chickens. And she was, yeah, she wants to show her pictures. And she, and she knows, she said, you know, in the beginning, I thought, wow, I'm so busy. And then she thought, No, this is important. I don't know when the last time this student saw someone, or spoke to someone that you know, yes, I want to see your chickens. I want to hear about it. How can I help you have a connection today? And that's just that that theme just ran through? What all the participants said is that they just they realized that they needed to spend that time to just let this student check in, talk about their day, share their frustrations, whether they were academic related or not. I'm sort of decompress, rather than saying, I know you're going through a lot. Now let's talk about your research. Right, they said that just didn't feel like they were making a connection with their student in doing that, that they really wanted to allow that decompression piece. And I just think, you know, wow, that we learn a lot from that. And I think that goes deeper and further than, you know, just the pandemic.
Amy 27:35
I couldn't agree more. I you mentioned that you were a former administrator, Brandy. And, as was I and in the K 12. environment. And I feel like the meetings that went best, were always when we started by checking in with each other, you know, and that's pre COVID. Right? So just checking in and recognizing each other's humanity. Sounds like in your study, as you've all mentioned, that that was a benefit to both the chair and the student.
Dr. Kamm 28:04
Yeah. And I don't know if Maggie and Carrie would agree. But I would say in our own faculty meetings, you know, Kerry mentioned about, you know, the chairs were struggling, that the beginnings of most of our faculty meetings over the last year have been sort of people checking in and talking about something personal. And our own administrators have sort of allowed that decompression time, you know, we have lengthy agendas and things we need to get to, but they have allowed sort of that couple of minutes to somebody shared a story or talked about something they went through, and just the faculty sort of trying to make those connections with one another that I didn't ever recognize prior to this.
Amy 28:45
Hmm, yeah, that's true. That's true. I have noticed that as well. Maggie, any other thoughts that you want to add?
Dr. Kamm 28:51
Oh, no, I think we've really covered it. So well. I mean, just overall, thinking about that relationship is so important. And I think that's what we're talking about today. Yeah, the literature brings it up in a lot of ways, but it just richly illustrates that in a real way to think about that relationship between the chair and the student, as the glue that holds everything together.
Amy 29:10
I am so appreciative of having you all here to talk about this study. And I think it was a really important study that you conducted. And I am going to close our podcast by asking our routine vesc question around Virtual Education. So if you could each just fill in the blank with I used to think Virtual Education or online learning was, but now I think it is...
Dr. Kamm 29:42
I can I can answer that one. Well, I've taught online for about 12 years now it's gone by kind of quickly, I have to admit, I used to think virtual teaching and learning were a bit more transactional and impersonal when I started to be honest. It's a long time ago. But some previous places where I taught online, they really emphasize Things like being self paced and, and the convenience of online learning. And it really is it's convenient. But honestly, where I used to teach previously years ago, some courses were really quick, like five or six weeks long. And they had a large number of students in the course. And it just seemed a bit transactional, and the personal relationship was missing. And that just sort of was how it was. Convenient, yes, but personal No. Now I think virtual teaching and learning is capable of being highly personal, it really just depends on your attitude and how you choose to do it. And especially that comes from the higher up the top top down. ncu stresses teaching through engagement. And the dissertation chair can embody that so beautifully if we allow ourselves the time. Our study that we talked about today focuses on that relationship between the doctoral student and the chair, and it can get them through all sorts of hurdles. And it's not just the pandemic. Like Brandi said earlier, it's it's everything that students go through. And they're human beings. And so where are we? So it's a special relationship and highly personal for the student and the teacher.
Amy
Thank you, Dr. Kamm, Dr. Gillenwater?
Dr. Gillenwater 31:09
Sure, I'll go next. So in a line with what Maggie said, I have taught online for many, many years. And I would say that when I began, I also felt it was a bit impersonal, right? Sometimes there were not a lot of interaction between the faculty member and the student in in the original sort of models of online education. And now what I found is it's individualized, you know, we talk about differentiating instruction for K 12. I think online education, and higher ed is our version of that. And that education for students online becomes very personal, and that we meet the students where they where they need to be met, we find out their strengths and weaknesses. We adapt. And we work with them individually. And so I would say it's a very individualized approach to education. Thank you.
Dr. Broderick 32:10
Yeah, I would I agree with Dr. Broderick conductor camera. I'm being a little jokey here. But our son was watching the old Muppets movie from the 1980s recently, and Kermit and Fozzie Fonzie, the bear in a car, and Fozzie swerving all over the place. And Kermit says, Where did you get your driver's license? And Fonzie said, a correspondence course, and I just kind of it just made me think like, you know, back a long time ago, you went online teaching was sort of starting Yeah, I think that's kind of even how I might have considered virtual teaching and learning, you know, it's just kind of like, you know, pay to play back back in the early 2000s. I was working and, and it, and, you know, there were all these badges and certifications people would get. And they would just go online and take these tests, and you can take them, like a million times and cheat on them and everything, and then they got their certifications. And, you know, so I coming into it, well, not coming into it, but before it really kind of got to understand it better, I kind of thought virtual teaching and learning was, you know, really just second class, maybe maybe even lower. And, you know, but as I kind of grew up, I feel like matured, and, you know, began to, I think getting into the doctoral program at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where things became more individualized, you know, I began and I and we started working with students on you know, the old LMS is like Blackboard and things like that. And I began to see the value. And those interactions, especially as technology speak, just become so pervasive, especially with younger, younger people. And so, and then starting with ncu, I would agree at first, you know, it was a little impersonal, because we didn't have some of the amazing tools that we have now. Just the people have now like, zoom, FaceTime, we used goto meeting for defenses and stuff. But you know, I remember early on, like, a student would get on the defense, and I'd realized I'd never seen them, like, like, you would kind of say, I hope this is the right person. They're not. But but it's just amazing. And the thing that I have always loved about ncu is been I'm just gonna echo it. The now I think virtual teaching and learning is a fantastic method of learning and unnecessary way of learning. Because ncu has a one to one model and the teaching through engagement, which are, you know, just in themselves provide that extra level, really just extra levels. engagement and working with students getting to know them. And then you throw on tools like zoom and everything else. Texting. I mean, I didn't mention this, but I live in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, I can FaceTime I just had a meeting the other night with a student in Hawaii. You know, it was morning for him and nighttime. For me. It's just incredible the connections you can make nowadays. And I think as chairs we fully utilize those. But I think really back to the point again, a bit rambling is that I think that, if anything to be honest, COVID has showed us that we have to rethink how to do things. I mean, you consider my education and undergrad at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, in the early mid 90s, I racked up 10s of 1000s of dollars in student loan debt, you know, and I To be honest, reflecting back, I don't feel like I got my money's worth, though I was with a professor. And honestly, most of my professors were kind of absent, it was mostly you teaching assistants and stuff like that. And we've seen that shift in higher education in the brick and mortar in particular, where, you know, it's shifted to model of part time employees who are stressed out to the max, they're saddled with debt themselves. We're not we know the old joke about where the real professors off doing research, you know, and, and so to me, like online learning, virtual teaching and learning, particularly at NCU. It just overcomes some of those things. I feel like we as students, and people have sort of taken, taken for granted didn't really think about when we went through the traditional methods. And the recently there was a study done at North Central comparing dissertation quality across universities, Can people were competitive with people we could you say we even look up to, and the standards or our dissertations and the product that we put out I hate to say product, but the the dissertations that are put out are on par if not better, and several cases to what you might consider a traditional brick and mortar, you know, high level institution. So I just, I my view is taken on 180.
Dr. Kamm 37:30
Yeah. And I'm glad that you brought that up. That is a really important point. And I continue to learn and grow here as an educator, myself, and from all of you and the work that we've had the opportunity to do together. And you know, a couple words that you all said connection necessary as some of the ideas about online learning, and I couldn't agree more. So thank you so, so much for being here with me today and sharing your expertise and your experience in this work and with this study. I look forward to having you on the show again. Thank you. Thanks so much. Thanks, Amy.
Amy
Thanks for joining us on VESC This is Dr. Amy Lynn. Remember, learning is right at your fingertips.