Ph.D.

A former student posted her successful defense of her doctoral dissertation on Face book. She is now a Ph.D. I am very proud of her. Now the provost needs to sign off but that is just a formality. Anyway, that’s how it is supposed to be. I wrote my dissertation a couple years post TBI. It wasn’t written quickly or without problems and challenges. Then came the hassles from the university. I was the first to submit a dissertation online as the new rule stated. The work was too large to email. After a week of so the tech guys finally figured out a way to send the document. Defending my dissertation was a breeze. I was a Ph.D. or should have been. The new provost wanted the abstract, one page out of over 300, rewritten. For nearly three months she kept sending it back saying to rewrite it. She never gave any comments. The people at the university where I worked helped me including some who had worked on several Doctoral committees. My dean said there was something political going on at the university and I was caught in the middle. Finally a woman from the university called to see how I was doing. I told her of how many times I had rewritten the abstract and of all the scholastic people who had helped me. I also informed her that I was having seizures again. She said she would take care of the page and she did. To graduate in September the provost had to sign off by a certain date. The provost was on vacation in Egypt and was scheduled to return the day after the final day. No one else could sign off. I graduated in November.