Adult & Continuing Education

Adult Education Doctoral Program

Description: The ACE Doctoral Program, offered within the College of Arts and Sciences, provides a forum for critical reflection on adult education practice. The future of our economy, and of democracy itself, rests on an informed and critical populace. Weekend and residential sessions, together with web-based support provide the resources for educators of adults--teachers, organizers, trainers and "grass-roots" activists who, through their work, seek to contribute to the emergence of a productive society grounded in equity and justice.

Doc6 2006-2009

Benefits: The ACE Doctoral Program aims to prepare future leaders in the field of adult and continuing education. By creating an educational forum that merges theory and everyday practice, the program gives candidates an opportunity to use their own experience to clarify and challenge assumptions that underlie adult education, while transforming their own practice.

Features: The ACE doctoral program offers these unique features, which have made it attractive to those whose professional and career commitments make participation in a traditional doctoral program impossible.

Completing your Ed.D. at National-Louis University does not mean a major interruption of your day-to-day work. Classes are scheduled on eight weekends during the year, plus a two-week Institute during the summer. This enables students from throughout the United States and Canada to travel to Chicago for classes and maintain their current work and family responsibilities at home.
The entire program-class work and dissertation-can be completed in three years. This is accomplished by interweaving course work with each student's doctoral research.
The curriculum is centered on adult education as a means of fostering informed decision-making and building democracy, whether in the work place, university, or community. This is accomplished, in part, through student governance-a process by which students help shape the curriculum and program.
The Internet is used to maintain momentum of class-time discussions and share written work with the entire group during the time between residential sessions.
Classes are team-taught, permitting faculty to model critical discourse and emphasize differing understandings in the social construction of knowledge. Classes use collegial, critical conversation and peer as well as faculty led discussion as a prime teaching method.

Faculty: The faculty of this program are internationally known scholars whose publications are used widely in graduate programs of adult education:

Stephen Brookfield is a visiting faculty member, coming from the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. He has a Ph.D. in Adult Education from the University of Leicester, England, and achieved international renown for his contributions to the field in the areas of adult learning and educational practice.
Scipio A.J. Colin III came to National-Louis University from North Carolina State University. She received an Ed.D. in Adult and Continuing Education from Northern Illinois University. She has published extensively concerning Africentric perspectives within the field of adult education.
Tom Heaney earned his Ph.D. in Adult Education from the Union Institute. His research is focused on the relationship between education and the ability of low-income and marginalized adults to change the conditions of their communities.
Randee Lipson Lawrence earned an Ed.D. in Adult and Continuing Education at Northern Illinois University. Her research has contributed significantly to understandings of collaborative learning and other ways of knowing.
Elizabeth Peterson joined the university from Clemson University in South Carolina where she directed research related to adult literacy. Her Ed.D. in Adult and Continuing Education was received from Northern Illinois University.
Laura Bauer received an Ed.D. from the National College of Education and has extensive experience as a researcher and practitioner in adult developmental education.

Contact: Tom Heaney, Program Director THeaney@nl.edu.

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