Recently published dissertations are available for download

Fall 2025

EdD Newsletter

In This Issue

Program Updates
- Director's Welcome
- Recent Graduates' Career Advancements
- Doctoral Digital Portfolios
Visit at Dr. Kerri Fair's Office
EdD Student Achievements
EdD Publications & Presentations
Upcoming Conferences
Job Board

Director's Welcome

I am very proud to announce that we have admitted 28 new students when resuming every Fall admission in 2025. Congratulations to our new students and I am very excited to get to know you all via the orientation and residency meetings. Coming back from the Fulbright grant in Spring 2025, I have been in contact with many EdD students regarding research ideas, and I am truly thankful for the inspirations from all of you. Our program advocates strongly towards career advancements and research output, and I am looking forward to further collaborations with faculty and students in the coming years.

Our EdD program is continuing to grow in size and reputation. We admitted a second cohort from the EDIN-EDD pipeline initiative. I would like to give a shoutout to our students who reside in Central Asia. Congratuations and I am very excited to have you in our program. This Fall, I have partnered with Dr. Dani Pizella, a faculty member from our School of Education, for a new Board Certified Behavior Analyst Doctoral (BCBA-D) Pathway, which is pending Graduate Council approval. If approved, this new pathway will attract students who aspire to become professors and leaders in the field of applied behavior analysis.

In the Spring, we are planning for a virtual EdD Research Seminar. Please stay tuned for more information. I am delighted to announce that my proposal to present at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Convention in Los Angeles in April 2026 had been accepted. This year, AERA received 13,000+ proposals and so the acceptance is a testimony of the quality and rigor of my research.

Career Advancements

The national graduation rate for doctoral programs is approximately 57% within 10 years[1]. Our EdD program has consistently exceeded this benchmark. For example, our program has achieved a 68–69% graduation rate within 5 years, which is well above the national average, demonstrating its effectiveness in supporting doctoral completion.

Most importantly, our recent graduates have achieved consistent pattern of career advancements. We have updated our official website with the advancement information. For example, Dr. John Link had been promoted from Associate Dean to Dean; Dr. Lanetra Thomas from Principal to Assistant Superintendent; Dr. Chavon Curry from Interim Principal to Principal; Dr. Trezette Dixon from Senior Director to Vice President. We also have two alums who have been hired by research universities as faculty members, Drs. Kerri Fair and Karen Hall. These accomplishments are testimonies of the rigor of our program and the quality of our graduates.

[1] Boston, W. (2024, June 20). PhD completion rates: What percentage of students finish programs “on time”?. Wally Boston. https://wallyboston.com/phd-completion-rates/

Doctoral Digital Portfolios

We have launched an alternative dissertation route, upon conducting market research and having discussions at CPED convenings. Notably, the 2024–25 cohort achieved a 76% graduation rate within only 3 years among students who chose the Doctoral Digital Portfolio (DDP) in place of the traditional dissertation, which had a 50% graduation rate. These outcomes highlight the DDP as an innovative and timely alternative that significantly enhances students’ ability to complete their degrees within a 3-year timeframe. The doctoral digital portfolios allow our graduates to showcase their digital knowhow and research findings via a professional website, with various digitalized representations. This innovative alternative dissertation route had offered our doctoral students a new way to complete the degree and showcase their research success.

Samples of Doctoral Digital Portfolios:

Visit at Dr. Kerri Fair's Office

This Fall, I had the pleasure of visiting Dr. Kerri Fair's faculty office at Washington University in St Louis.

During the visit, Dr. Fair discussed how the EdD coursework, mentorship experiences, and dissertation research shaped her current faculty role at Washington University in St Louis. Dr. Fair expressed gratitude towards all the faculty mentors whom she worked with, especially Drs. Mahfood, Lee-Johnson, and Rodney.

"My experience in the EdD program provided a strong base of research skills and appreciation for educational research in application. Early in my role as a teacher educator, I recognized a disconnect between research and the practice of teaching. The EdD program gave me the tools to bridge theory, research, and practice in a way that I now make approachable for my teacher education students." Dr. Fair said.

EdD Student Achievements

Hannah Rothwell, a second-year EdD student and adjunct professor at Webster Tashkent, recently co-founded OPUS Language School, the first fully English private school in Uzbekistan’s Fergana Region. She serves as the school’s Academic Coordinator, supporting curriculum development and instructional practices. (Instagram: @opus_school) Hannah also presented “Integrating AI into Planning for Project-Based Learning (PBL) Assessments” at the TESOL Conference hosted by Webster Tashkent and will deliver the same presentation for the OPEN Network in Central Asia.
Patcharin Jain, an EdD student and faculty member at Webster University Tashkent. Patcharin's career bridges global business and education. After growing up in Bangkok and Hong Kong, she built a successful corporate career, including serving as Executive Director at Pepsi Inc. Thailand, where she led major organizational change and connected global and local teams. Driven by a belief in education as a pathway to opportunity, she later worked with an NGO at the Mae La Refugee Camp to support underprivileged children’s education. Today, Patcharin applies her international leadership experience to higher education, advancing practical learning, academic governance, and student development.
Damaris Garcia and her mentor, Dr. Amy Pouncy, will present their collaborative work, “5 Servings of Education: We Can’t Have One Without the Others,” at the National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference in Savannah, Georgia, March 1–3, 2026. Their presentation highlights innovative, community-focused strategies in youth advocacy and resilience, reflecting the EdD program’s emphasis on collaboration, applied research, and educational leadership.
Tamara Rodney, EdD doctoral candidate at Webster University, was invited as a panelist at the AGRE Virtual Conference in November 2025, where she presented “Asserting Our Voice: Intersectional Vignettes and Reflexivity in Jamaican Educational Research.” Her presentation challenged Eurocentric research traditions by advocating for Caribbean epistemologies and the use of Intersectional (Auto)biographical Vignettes (IAVs) as transformative reflexivity tools. Drawing on Jamaican identity and Black ways of knowing, Rodney positioned reflexivity as a political and emancipatory act that asserts scholars’ voices rather than reclaiming them.

EdD Publications and Presentations

Publications

Roach, W. N., & Jackson, A. D. (2025). Beyond heteronormativity: Counternarratives of love, kinship, and belonging in

youth literature. English Teaching: Practice & Critique. Advance online publication.

https://doi.org/10.1108/ETPC-04-2025-0077

Dr. Andrea Jackson's co-authored article has been published in this journal.

Dr. Lee-Johnson and EdD students published an article in this journal.

Lee-Johnson, Y.L., Iaiennaro, T., Clay, J., Imomov, O., Boltaeva, R., Zhang, J. (2025) Transforming

dissertations into global & career-advancement-centered doctoral digital portfolios: Interweaving research rigor with social media dissemination. Impacting Education: Journal on Transforming Professional Practice (CPED Journal), 10(3), 45-52. https://doi.org/10.5195/ie.2025.506

Lee-Johnson, Y.L., O’Connor, K., Fuller, J. (in press). Subversive Power of Intersectionality: Counterstory

Analysis of Biracial and Multiracial Microaggressions Among School-age Learners. In T.Y, Austin & M.E. Ebsworth’s (Eds.) Building Antiracist Communities: A Focus on Intersectionalities. Multilingual Matters.

Reyes, J., Lee-Johnson, Y.L. (in press). Pedagogy of the intentionality of listening: Advocating for the voices of

bi- and multilingual learners to be heard. In M. Chung, J. Pollitt, & Yu, G.’s (Eds.) The right to be heard: Listening as a transdisciplinary practice. Routledge.

Presentations