Doctoral programs combine tradition and innovation. (Education 2002).

In education as well as business, we are often measured by how well we respond to our times. Transition is frequently wrought by need. One of Pepperdine University's academic programs that reflects this concept is the doctoral program in education that celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary this year.

The original Institutional Management (IM) program at the Graduate School of Education and Psychology (GSEP) and its successor have always been designed as a doctorate with core courses along with specific concentrations that meet current needs of students.

In the early days, the IM concentrations focused on elementary and secondary teaching and credentialing; community college or university administration; industry; or community-based organizations.

"The IM program at that time was considered reflective of the times," says Professor Michel Stimac, one of the developers of the program. "Management was a hot topic and certainly applicable to education."

In the late seventies, the doctoral program was in demand, particularly by those pursuing skills for K--12 education. It was not, however, attracting students from business, health, safety, or other areas. "We began to realize that we could attract students with a variety of backgrounds and with evolving differential needs," said Terence R. Cannings, associate dean of education.

The school began to recruit students for specialized areas in the early 1980s. Professor Kay Davis, director of the current Organization Change (OC) concentration, was an IM student at that time. "We now had students who were lifelong, adult-learners involved in health and other businesses," she said. "AS students, we helped faculty to see the richness we brought to learning when the program was stretched beyond the public school environment."

By the early 1990s, this unique type of doctoral program was well known throughout the community.

The program's biggest transition came in 1997. The school dropped the "Institutional Management" term because leadership was now being emphasized more than management in business and education. The program became an Ed.D. with four concentrations: Educational Technology (ET); Organizational Leadership (OL); Organization Change (OC); and Educational Leadership, Administration, and Policy (ELAP).

"We were sensing that we should synthesize our program to meet individual interests," said Professor Chet McCall, who was program director from 1988 to 1998.

Each of the four concentrations by the fall of 2002 will have a different delivery mode, Cannings said. OL will employ a traditional classroom mode; OC will have face-to-face sessions for nine days every second month, with online instruction in between; and ET and ELAP will feature sixty percent face-to-face and forty percent online. OC will conduct part of its program in Monterrey, Mexico, and ET will feature face-to-face sessions at the GSEP London center.

"The ELAP program, reconfigured for the fall of 2002, will be aligned with national administrative and leadership standards training for school administrators," Cannings said.

Faculty and staff are planning a celebration in the spring of 2002. "In twenty-five years, this program really has reflected the diversification of the market," Davis said.

This article was provided by Pepperdine University.