New PhD program approved by Board of Trustees

On Friday, Feb. 16, members of the Coastal Carolina Board of Trustees met and approved of a new degree program, the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Education.

The proposed doctoral program will offer three specialization areas: education leadership; higher education administration; and curriculum, instruction and assessment. The new program is designed to build upon the master’s level education programs currently offered by the Spadoni College.

There are 477 students that are currently enrolled in graduate education programs at Coastal Carolina University. Approximately 90 percent of these students are teachers or administrators in school districts that partner with the Spadoni College, which are Horry, Georgetown, Dillon, Marion and Districts 1-5 of the Florence School System.

In a release put out by the University, Edward Jadallah, dean of the Spadoni College of Education had this to say.

“The basic premise of this Ph.D. program is that contemporary educational methods are multifaceted and require practitioners to apply knowledge from a variety of disciplines.”

Currently, Coastal Carolina offers one Ph.D. program in marine science, which was established in 2014. Degree programs need to be approved by the South Carolina Higher Education Commission and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) before being officially added to the University curriculum. Pending these approvals, the new Ph.D. program will be offered in the fall of 2019.

The Board of Trustees also approved a proposal to establish an honors college at Coastal Carolina, significantly reorganizing the University’s current honors program by making it more competitive and distinctive. The plans for the new honors college were initiated a year ago by Provost Ralph Byington, who charged Coastal’s Honors Council with developing a proposal for a well-defined and innovative program consistent with the University’s commitment to excellence and its vision for student achievement and success.

The Honors College, which will feature many new initiatives, a revised curriculum and increased financial support, is expected to begin in the fall of 2019.