WWU DBA Journey

[alfredor]

Friday marks the end of my first term. I'm happy to most likely get an A. I still have three assignments to turn in, so we shall see. The next term will include a methods class which is open to all online doctoral students. Hopefully, the shift in dynamics won't throw me off.

Hi @withrown -- checking in to see how this is going for you. Are you going to stay in the program?

I was accepted. But communication with faculty and staff has been hit or miss. Were you able to transfer in any credit? If so, who did you speak with to get a transcript review?

Thanks in advance for your time.

[RingofBarahir]

I'm also interested in this. I'm not immediately looking to get into a doctoral program, but it's something I'm considering in the next few years. 

Small mistakes on WWU's site have given me pause -- referring to the DBA program as a Ph.D. program, misspellings, lack of an easy-to-find program breakdown. I'm sure some of this comes from it being a relatively new program but it gives me a little concern. 

They also list a Ph.D. in Organizational Leadership, but then elsewhere they say they have a Ph.D. in Ethical Leadership. I'm not sure if this is a misnaming of the same program or the latter is in-person rather than online. I'm just not sure and the website isn't super polished.

[freeloader]

Yeah, I haven’t been super impressed with their website or with the couple of people I have spoken to/emailed. I have gotten multiple calls/emails about applying and asking if I have questions. I then respond with what I think are fairly basic questions about transfer credits, timelines, etc, and am told they are still figuring those things out or something similar. That’s fair, but do you honestly expect me to apply and enroll at your school without having any sense of what courses I will need to take, how long the program will take, and how much it will cost? And it has never been phrased as “we can’t do informal evaluations, you need to apply for us to do the evaluation of your transcripts”. That’s kind of annoying but also totally understandable. This feels very much like “we are making it up as we go along and we have already admitted students/are teaching the program, but still haven’t figured out basic administrative matters”. That’s going to be a hard pass for me, then.

[withrown]

Hey Y'all,

I'm going to stick with it since I reevaluated my credits. I was able to argue up to the maximum allowable transfer credits. From what I gather, this is completely a guess, the old program coordinator/designer was fired/quit. So, they have ad-hoc redesigned the entire program based on their opinion that it was programmed too heavily, and they added a chunk of special topics classes to give themselves a break. Also this school is tiny, like tiny tiny. I think much of the delays come down to a lack of staff. This fall is the first cycle of 5 week classes so the faculty are still trying to balance the classes effectively.

I'm in a qualitative methods class, and it is really good. However, the methods classes are taught by the School of Education faculty, and I'm the only student who isn't working on a K-12 project.

Like I said, I will stick with this program. Because it is so new, I get to shape how it looks through feedback surveys, and you can't beat being finished by this time next year. This may not be a good fit for many other forum members. currently, I can see them having all the kinks out by spring semester.

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Friday marks the end of my first term. I'm happy to most likely get an A. I still have three assignments to turn in, so we shall see. The next term will include a methods class which is open to all online doctoral students. Hopefully, the shift in dynamics won't throw me off.

Hi @withrown -- checking in to see how this is going for you. Are you going to stay in the program?

I was accepted. But communication with faculty and staff has been hit or miss. Were you able to transfer in any credit? If so, who did you speak with to get a transcript review?

Thanks in advance for your time.

Dr. O'callaghan is who did my eval but she is also the excutive dean so has all the admin stuff to do too. If your in the continenatl US and have cheap long distance you could call admissions. I had a few phone calls with admissions at the begining.

[ss20ts]

Do you have a degree plan for this program? Curious what it looks like and how transfer credit works. I will have 2 master's degree come November including an MBA.

[jg_nuy]

Course list: https://www.williamwoods.edu/academics/o...e/dba.html

Catalog: https://williamwoods.smartcatalogiq.com/...ation-dba/

Transfer Credit: https://williamwoods.smartcatalogiq.com/...er-credit/
Only graduate level course work with grades of B or higher may be accepted as applicable to doctoral degrees granted by William Woods University.
Only graduate work completed at another institution before initial admission to a doctoral program at William Woods University may be considered for transfer.
To earn a doctoral degree from William Woods University, a student must earn a minimum of 30 credit hours at William Woods University.

[withrown]

Do you have a degree plan for this program? Curious what it looks like and how transfer credit works. I will have 2 master's degree come November including an MBA.

This is the updated degree plan I'm on. Not sure if this will change.


BUS 735 Advanced Financial Management 
BUS 745 Applied Economics
BUS 750 Marketing and Social Media Strategy
LDR 720 Ethical Leading 
LDR 760 Interpersonal Dynamics
BUS 715 Decision Making and Analytics
LDR 745 Management Concepts for Leaders 
BUS 751 Strategy and Execution 
LDR 780 Special Topics
LDR 780 Special Topics 
LDR 780 Special Topics 
RSH 715 Research Methods 
RSH 720 Quantitative Analysis
RSH 740 Exploration of Qualitative Research
DIS 780 Dissertation I
DIS 781 Dissertation II
DIS 790 Dissertation III
DIS 791 Dissertation Continuatin

With an MBA you should get some transfer credit but apply and see how it works out.

[ss20ts]

Any word on what the Special Topics courses will be?

[withrown]

Any word on what the Special Topics courses will be?

For WWU the special topic course is whatever you want to research sorta like a pre dissertation course. From what was explained to me they want to give you time to come up with a disertation idea instead having a program where your grinding through and then you have 4 months to complete a dissertation.

[ss20ts]

Any word on what the Special Topics courses will be?

For WWU the special topic course is whatever you want to research sorta like a pre dissertation course. From what was explained to me they want to give you time to come up with a disertation idea instead having a program where your grinding through and then you have 4 months to complete a dissertation.

That's pretty cool. I have already been trying to think of ideas for topics for a dissertation, but I really am looking for a capstone or project based final assessment. I really don't want to write a dissertation. I'm fine with writing journal articles which looks like an option for the dissertation requirement at WWU.