We’ve heard it before: our aging population will begin to put a strain on the health care system.  According to Wanted Analytics, job postings for Registered Nurses grew 46% from May 2010 to May 2011. And the demand is expected to increase.

Yet while demand grows U.S. nursing schools turned away 67,563 qualified applicants from baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs in 2010 due in part to an insufficient number of faculty, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.

The AACN also reported over 10% of full time faculty nursing positions were unfilled. The majority of these positions preferred or required a doctorate. To make matters worse, many of the current faculty are nearing retirement age and there are very few doctorally-prepared nursing faculty to replace them.

A Unique Collaboration to Train Nursing Educators

To address the shortage of prepared faculty, NKU’s Doctor of Education has added an innovative Nurse Educator Track. The program has been created as a collaboration between the College of Education and Human Services and the College of Health Professions. No other school in the area offers this unique perspective on nursing education.

The coursework in within the College of Education and Human Services provides the leadership skills necessary as healthcare organizations transform themselves to meet the challenges ahead. The College of Health Professions provides the cognate courses in nursing education that is so critical in schools, hospitals and other healthcare settings.

“This program combines the student’s previous nursing expertise with the skills of an educator,” states Dr. Ann Keller, program leader. Additional, Dr. Keller points out, the Nurse Educator track allows the doctoral candidate to do research on issues of nursing and health care.

Blended Face-to-Face and Online Courses

A doctoral program is a huge time commitment. Most of the students in the program work full-time while also working toward their degree.  The program has been designed to respond to the demands of the working professional – the nurse educator classes are fully online and the Ed.D. classes are a hybrid model that requires the students to attend face-to-face classes once every 3 to 4 weeks and the balance of the work is online. Most of the face-to-face meetings are held on the weekends.

Why meet face to face? Dr. Paul Wirtz, the Ed.D. program director explains, “Our faculty believe it is important for us to observe and participate with our students through direct interpersonal communications and in a variety of settings. There are many proven benefits to blending both face to face and online participation to the overall learning process.”

Graduates of the Ed.D. Nurse Educator track are prepared for positions as college and nursing school faculty, administrators, staff development within healthcare facilities, and patient education.

Research

The Ed.D. is a practitioner degree. The focus of the degree is to train nursing educator to apply the knowledge and skills developed into a classroom of potential nurses.

NKU’s Ed.D. program utilizes action research methods for their dissertation and projects. The students in the Nurse Educator Track will have the chance to study challenging issues in nursing education. They will be expected to share with their nursing faculty colleagues the implications of their findings with the hope that

For information on the Doctor of Education Nurse Educator track should contact Dr. Ann Keller at (859) 572-5553 or email to kelleran@nku.edu.

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NKU Office of Graduate Programs

NKU Doctoral Program Listings

The Application Process

The Diverse Student Body

The learning associates (what we call our doctoral students) at NKU come from a wide range of occupations. There are individuals who work in higher education, corporate trainers, nonprofit organizations as well as administrators and teachers in the local school systems. In collaboration with  the College of Health Professions the Ed.D. program even has a special cohort designed to address the need for nursing faculty. Ed.D. learning associates, through the electives, are able to customize their education to fit their professional goals.

NKU’s learning associates find that the cohort model is extremely important. The students in the individual cohorts bond together and support each other as they balance work, family life and their doctoral studies.

Civic Engagement and Applied Research

During several semesters, our learning associates participate in collaborative civic engagement projects. These projects provide them with opportunities to identify community needs and to collaborate with community agencies while applying their leadership knowledge and skills to real-world situations.

NKU’s Ed.D. degree focuses on  action research methods for  dissertation. Action research is a process by which the student not only studies  a challenging  issue  that directly affects their workplace, community, or profession, but inform their colleagues about the implications of their findings and work together to define and implement solutions.  Doctoral students collaborate with their professional colleagues in their place of employment and with NKU faculty to identify an action-research dissertation that can positively impact their organization and community. These experiences are critical to develop skills that can be applied on the job.

An Instruction Format Geared to Working Professionals.

To accommodate the working professional, NKU delivers the program through a hybrid instructional format. Students generally meet face to face several times a month. The balance of the coursework is completed online.

Dr. Ladson-Billings will challenge your thinking regarding diversity on a college
campus using Critical Race Theory (CRT). CRT is a tool for understanding diversity that incorporates ideas from feminism, legal studies, philosophy, and other disciplines. One of CRT’s principles is interest convergence: unless it is in the interest of the majority group to advance a minority group, the advancement will not occur.

The college is holding a Graduate Student Roundtable on Thursday, March 15, 2012 at 4:30 PM-6:00 PM, MEP (Math, Education, Psychology Center) 292.

Roundtable space is limited! To confirm your seat, please email tosoltb1@nku.edu

Also on Friday, March 16, 2012 Dr. Ladson-Billings will present: But We Can’t Find Any Qualified _______: Interest Convergence & Campus Diversity.
10:30 AM-12:00 PM (University-wide lecture, UC (University Center) 270)

For an interactive map, visit http://www.nku.edu/campusmaps/map.php

For information about Graduate Programs or individual colleges, visit http://gradschool.nku.edu/

Many believe that a Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) degree is only for teachers and school administrators. They think the curriculum is designed to focus on developing skills as administrators in school systems. This is simply isn’t so.

Individuals with an Ed.D. work as corporate trainers, in human resource departments, in higher and adult education settings, and as administrators in healthcare facilities and nonprofit agencies. An educational leader is also a community leader who identifies areas of need outside as well as inside the workplace. Managers, consultants, as well as teachers and faculty in higher education are all involved in education, whether it is in a classroom or a conference room.

Ed.D. programs in educational leadership, such as the one at Northern Kentucky University, are considered practitioner degrees. The focus of the degree is to train experienced leaders to apply the knowledge and skills they develop through the program in professional settings.  The curriculum is centered on helping the doctoral students develop the resources essential to build and deliver educational and training programs which will result in positive change.

Training Transformational Leaders

Knowledge is power, but knowing how to use that knowledge is even more powerful.

One key to an effective Ed.D. program is a focus on transformational leadership. A transformative leader has the leadership style that inspires others to challenge themselves, to reach for new opportunities, to make shared decisions, and to work for the collective good of the organization.

Learning occurs when a person is motivated. When the faucet leaks and you can’t afford a plumber, you are motivated to learn how to replace the washer. The teacher who can motivate the student to want to learn is an effective educator, and Ed.D. programs provide the doctoral student with these skills.

Professionally Relevant Skills

Some Ed.D. programs  are able to be  customize to fit the individual’s career goals and practical needs.  The doctoral candidate can choose a series of elective courses that help them in their workplace. For example, among NKU’s Ed.D. students are nurses in the Ed.D. Nurse Educator track, training to take on roles as nursing faculty. Additionally, Ed.D. students take electives in  higher education, online learning, communication, business writing, healthcare, technology and environmental education. They will combine this deeper knowledge of their industry with the educational leadership skills to transform their company.

Summary

A Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership can be an ideal program for individuals from many professions and organizations. The common denominator is the desire to gain the skills necessary to motivate and inspire others and to lead the organization or group through a transformation.

For information on the Doctor of Education program, contact Dr. Paul Wirtz, the E.D. program director, or Ms. Michele Dingler, Ed.D. Academic coordinator, at edd@nku.edu.

LINKS:

NKU College of Education and Human Services

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

Office of Graduate Programs

Application Deadlines

The inaugural season will feature three events, beginning with a joint presentation on the criminal defense and ultimately unsuccessful attempt by new and traditional media to prevent the execution of Troy Davis last fall.

Rachel Lyon, chair of the NKU Department of Communication; David Harris, managing director of Harvard Law School’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice; and Dr. Mark McPhail, dean of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater College of Arts and Communication will present their joint research at the NKU Chase College of Law Conference on Law and Informatics on March 1 at 11 a.m. in the Griffin Hall Digitorium.

Davis was executed last September, two decades after being found guilty of murdering a police officer in Savannah, Ga. There was tremendous public outcry over the perceived injustice of his conviction and subsequent death sentence after several eyewitnesses reportedly changed or recanted their testimony. Despite growing public concern that included a petition signed by more than 660,000 people, including President Jimmy Carter, Davis’ conviction was upheld and he was put to death on Sept. 11, 2011.

The research of Lyon, Harris and McPhail will appear this spring in a Northern Kentucky Law Review article title “Digital Divides, Racial Injustice and the Limits of Social Informatics in the State of Georgia vs. Troy Anthony Davis.” They will also present a free public conversation sponsored by the Northern Kentucky Forum at 6 p.m. on Feb. 29 titled “Making our Voices Heard” at 9th Street Baptist Church in Covington.

The second event in the series will take place on March 15 when Dr. Vincent Waldron presents “Good Work: Communicating the Moral Emotions in Organizational Settings” at 12:15 p.m. in the Griffin Hall Digitorium. Dr. Waldron is professor of communication and associate director of social and behavioral sciences at Arizona State University. His research and teaching focus on communication practices that make relationships satisfying, lasting and good – in the moral sense of the word.

Dr. Waldron is author or co-author of 50 articles/chapters and four recent books, including “Communicating Forgiveness” (Sage, 2008), “Managing Risk in Communication Encounters” (Sage, 2010) and “Communicating Emotion at Work” (Polity, 2011). He has helped to generate $2.8 million in support of community-based research, educational outreach and scholarships for nontraditional students.

The inaugural season will conclude on March 30 with a series of workshops by Steve Buttry on digital reporting and job-finding techniques. Buttry is director of community engagement and social media for Digital First Media and Journal Register Co.

Buttry has provided training and consulting for more than 300 newsrooms, conferences, seminars, universities and journalism organizations in 44 states, eight Canadian provinces and Mexico, Ecuador, Germany, Japan and Siberia. He is a leading innovator in the transformation of news organizations to digital technology, but he also has a strong background in the values and techniques that journalists hold dear.

His workshops, titled “Preparing for Journalism’s Future: A Training Session with Steve Buttry,” are free and open to the public. Session topics will include: Becoming a Digital First Journalist; Reporting with Social Media Tools; Finding a Job in the Digital Age; and Developing Old-School Skills for a New Era. They will run from 9 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. and will take place in the Griffin Hall Digitorium.

“These nationally known speakers highlight the breadth and relevance of informatics, with communication at the core,” said Kevin Kirby, dean of the NKU College of Informatics. “We are excited to have them on campus and in particular in our new informatics center, Griffin Hall.”

Series Recap
March 1, 11 a.m. – The Execution of Troy Davis and the Limits of Social Informatics, Griffin Hall Digitorium
– Rachel Lyon, David Harris, and Dr. Mark McPhail

March 15, 12:15 p.m. – “Good Work: Communicating the Moral Emotions in Organizational Settings,” Griffin Hall Digitorium
– Dr. Vincent Waldron

March 30, 9 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. – “Preparing for Journalism’s Future: A Training Session with Steve Buttry,” Griffin Hall Digitorium
– Steve Buttry

For more information, contact Randy Little at (859) 572-5436 or littler@nku.edu.

NKU College of Informatics Website

The students in Lisa Lokesak’s third grade class at New Haven Elementary learn more than just reading, writing and arithmetic. They graduate to the fourth grade as community servants and fundraisers, poets and event organizers, budding environmentalists and engaged citizens.

As a result, the Kentucky Teacher of the Year Finalist and Toyota Reading Teacher of the Year runner-up is adding 2012 Northern Kentucky Outstanding Teacher Award to her list of accomplishments. Northern Kentucky University, the Cincinnatus Association, the University of Cincinnati and Xavier University will award the C3 Outstanding Teacher Awards Feb. 7 at NKU to honor educators in the region who make an extraordinary impact on their students’ lives.

The Northern Kentucky University graduate began her career after her last child was in elementary school. She returned to college in 1998 and earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education in 2002 and her master’s in 2007. When she began student teaching, she was surprised to learn that many students could not read.

When she joined New Haven Elementary, Lokesak began securing donations from local corporations and Scholastic Books to create the Book Blazer. She drove around lower income areas and distributed books to children and families.

Then, she began hosting Family Literacy Nights at the school with a grant from Cummins Eastern Distribution Center in Walton, Ky. District and Cummins staff served families a hot meal and teachers provided parents information about how they could help their children at home, while the students received literacy intervention. Test scores and parental involvement went up, and the literacy nights began to focus on mathematics, too.

“She knows how to take students to higher cognitive levels of learning regardless of their academic performance level,” said New Haven Principal Nancy Duley in her recommendation letter.

In her classroom, she began Classroom Coffeehouse Poetry Readings to showcase student poetry and an annual classroom play. The students plan the events, send out invitations and create props and costumes.

“These events create a level of comfort and familiarity with the classroom and me,” Lokesak wrote in her award application essay. “This comfort level carries over to the more formal conference setting and sets a tone for positive interaction between school and home. Student benefit from having the parents involved because the parents are aware of what the students are learning as well as classroom and homework expectations.”

With another Cummins grant, she created a community garden and outdoor classroom at school to teach her children about environmental education. She implemented a daily newspaper reading program in class, and when a local museum’s air conditioning units were stolen, she and her class set out to raise money to replace the units. They collected money and shoes for people in Niger and helped Big Bone State Park acquire National Historic Landmark status. The students also raised money for a plaque with the new park name and encouraged a parent who owned a nursery to donate a tree.

These projects, which were student-led, taught students empathy, how to help others and cultural awareness, Lokesak said.

“The impact on my students was overwhelming,” Lokesak wrote. “In (my students’) reflective paragraphs, without exception, the students all remarked that this experience had shown them that it does not matter how old you are, every person can make a difference.”

Dr. Lynne A. Smith, a NKU professor who mentored Lokesak, said Lokesak’s many honors speak for the quality of her teaching. She goes beyond the classroom to meet the needs of her students and their families.

“I currently work with a teacher whose children had Lisa for a teacher; as a relatively new teacher, this mother cannot say enough about the experiences her children had in Lisa’s room and often speaks of Lisa as being the ideal teacher she would like to become,” Smith wrote in her recommendation letter.

Though her classroom activities keep her busy, Lokesak continues to improve herself. She attends many professional development classes and asked a local dyslexia expert if she could shadow her for a day.

“For me, the most important thing I can do to provide my students with a rich, innovative, fun and caring environment is to continue to grow as a learner myself,” Lokesak wrote. “I seek out the best mentors, align myself with the most enthusiastic colleagues and constantly search for effective methods of presenting information.”

NKU College of Education and Human Services

[Check out the Video]

Law & Informatics provides a regulatory and contractual framework for the exploitation of information and the use of information systems. This includes email, social media, RFID-enabled devices and tagged goods, personal health information, financial data and many other fields. As these increasingly become the standard way for us to communicate, to do business, and to participate in government, government, business and public advocates all the need for a better understanding of these systems and better regulations regarding the ownership and use of these data.

From the College of Informatics:

“The term informatics embraces the modern concept of information in all its aspects: information management, infrastructure, processing, presentation, dissemination, design, and analysis. It is deeply integrative in approach. In practice, it ranges from the development of information technologies in the service of specific fields, to broader scholarly investigations of the representation, processing and communication of information in its full social context.

Informatics is the application of theories and technologies of information to other fields. It deals with the art, science and engineering of information and communication in its broadest social context, and in its most focused technical details.” ~ NKU College of Informatics

The newly formed Law & Informatics Institute will partner with NKU’s state-of-the-art College of Informatics to explore these issues, providing independent research into better public policy, more uniform business transactions, and appropriate legal protections for individuals and industry.

At the core of the Law & Informatics Institute is a traditional intellectual property program developing students understanding of copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret law, and publicity rights. In addition is a fundamental understanding of the current state of data privacy and security laws at the state and federal level.

Beyond the core areas of understanding, students, lawyers and professionals in the informatics fields, will be exposed to the application of these concepts in various industries, such as entertainment, manufacturing, finance and health care. Partnerships will be developed to provide students externship opportunities and give industry the opportunity to bring the legal tools of law & informatics into their firms and businesses.

Most importantly, students will partner with academics and industry leaders in original research on the critical changes necessary to law and industry practice essential to developing a healthy balance for promoting both privacy and the convenience promised by these new technologies.

More Information:

NKU Chase Law and Informatics Institute

NKU Office of Graduate Programs

Joint Degree Programs

JD/MHI Program

JD/MBI Program

JD/MBA Program

NKU Chase Law and Informatics Blog

We rely on search engines and social networks to guide us in many of life’s decisions, from what smart phone to buy to where to get your brakes checked to which restaurant to hit for happy hour. But some decisions call for more than a Google search—and selecting an M.B.A. concentration might be one of them.

While choosing a degree focus is not required in all MBA programs, focusing on finance versus marketing, for example, can shape the trajectory of your career, business school officials say.

[Find out about Northern Kentucky University's cutting edge MBA program]

Combining your degree focus with internships and clubs in the same vein can bolster your résumé, says Mark Friedfeld, assistant director of the M.B.A. career management team at the University of California—Berkeley.

Since choosing a specialty can be a point of anxiety, business school deans, students, and career advisers offer the following tips for selecting a degree focus:

1. Do your homework: Researching your dream company before you start your M.B.A. can help provide clarity and direction, says Kevin Lieberum, a first-year M.B.A. student at Washington University.

Lieberum’s goal is to work in the automotive industry, he says. Before starting at Washington, he sought out representatives from major car manufacturers at career fairs to discuss his interests and what role he could play within their companies. These conversations helped him decide on a finance concentration, he says.

And once you arrive on campus, take advantage of guest speakers and industry seminars, recommends Joe Fox, associate dean for the M.B.A. program at Washington.

“You really develop a greater appreciation for that general area, some of the specific companies that compete in that area, who the people are, why they got into that area, and what their career’s been like,” he says.

Listening to speakers talk about their work experience also helps students understand the issues facing the industry, and what day-to-day life can be like in a certain role, Fox says.

2. Look to the past: The majority of business school students have some prior work experience, business school officials say. Analyzing what you liked—and disliked—about your pre-M.B.A. employment can help you hone in on a concentration, says Friedfeld of the Haas School of Business.

Points of pride in previous jobs can often shine a light onto what roles will give you satisfaction in the future, he says.

“A student said, ‘I’m really, really proud that all the junior members of my team were up for promotions earlier than the average time.’ That can be a light-bulb moment,” Friedfeld says. “Obviously, you want to be in a role where development is a big part of your job.”

3. Be bold: Students unsure of their direction often hesitate explore opportunities and pathways, says Fox from Olin Business School.

“They say, ‘Oh, I’m not sure what I want to do yet; I can’t network with anyone,’” he says. “Well, by not networking with anyone, you almost guarantee you’re not going to get the insight that you need.”

Instead of shying away from opportunities, students should be aggressive and proactively seek out recruiters, faculty members, and other university resources at their disposal, Fox adds.

[Northern Kentucky University MBA unique teaching style helps you explore your own future]

4. Embrace change: Nothing is set in stone, Fox notes.

Internships are a great way to test the waters in a new role or industry. If it isn’t a good fit, students can still change course without losing much ground, he says. “They work in this field for a summer and say, ‘Oh no, that’s not for me,’” Fox says. “They still have a full year to redirect themselves.”

It’s even OK to change directions after graduation, says Lieberum, an Olin M.B.A. student.

“Focusing on one thing doesn’t mean you’re locked into that for the rest of your life,” Lieberum says. “There is room to grow both within a concentration, and laterally into other functions as your experience, knowledge, and interests grow.”

5. Follow your passion: Let your natural interests guide you and the concentration will fall into place, says Peggy Bishop Lane, deputy vice dean of the graduate division at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

If the degree focus areas available within your M.B.A. program don’t match up with your passions, carve out your own path, Bishop Lane says.

For Lieberum, who recently accepted a finance internship with General Motors, following his interests was the key to choosing his concentration.

“Having a passion and an excitement about a company and an industry… is more important than any of the other considerations.”

[Learn More about Northern Kentucky University's MBA here: http://gradschool.nku.edu/reimagedmba]

Masters of Public History student, Richard Challis is making big news with his thesis. Why? Well, one quick glance at the topic will tell you: “Kentucky’s Stepchild: Northern Kentucky: The Effects of Corruption on Local, State, and Federal Officials by Organized Crime”.

By “Organized Crime”, Challis means gangster crime and the numbers racket! As part of this project, he needs people to interview who lived and worked in Newport at that time–during the 1960s.

If you can help him, please contact him at richardchallis6@gmail.com