I haven’t written a post in over 2 months — shame on me!!

I’ve often thought about writing a post but then was reminded of that looming deadline I have approaching.  In less than 3 weeks I will defend my dissertation and if all goes well, I will become a Ph.D!!  It has been a long road to get here but a wonderful one.  I am so thankful for my amazing professors and mentors I have encountered along the way.  All four years have led up to this moment — where I will defend my dissertation study and then be sent out into the world.

Words cannot express how grateful I am for this experience and how my PhD program has prepared me for my future endeavors.   If you or anyone you know is interested in pursuing a Ph.D. with a specialization in nonprofit and philanthropic studies, please have them contact me. I’d be happy to share with them about my experience and the various programs that offer a similar type of experience!  Each year that I’ve been in the program I’ve written about my experiences:

• Confessions of a first year doctoral student
• Confessions of a second year doctoral student
  • Learning to write all over again…
  • Advice for PhD students: preparing for a career in academia
  • Being a Nonprofit Researcher in the 21st Century
• Confessions of a Third Year Doctoral Student: Interpersonal Skills Matter the Most
• Confessions of a Forth Year Doctoral Student: Persistence Pays Off
  • Choosing a Dissertation Topic
  • So you want to teach at the university level…here are some strategies I’ve learned

A lot of exciting things have happened in the past couple of months including, my first peer reviewed article was published in the Journal of Public Affairs Education!  It is titled: How We Could Measure Community Impact of Nonprofit Graduate Students’ Service-Learning Projects: Lessons from the Literature.

I love this work and I am really excited to see where it takes me next.  I’ve been interviewing for faculty jobs in nonprofit-focused master’s degree programs — so we’ll see!!

On another note,  I organized the social media team for the BenchMark 3.5 conference: The 4th Conference on Nonprofit and Philanthropic Studies.  BenchMark 3.5 was designed to consider the development of nonprofit/nongovernmental management, voluntarism, social entrepreneurship, and philanthropy as a field of study in higher education.  I am so thankful for the team, which was primarily made up of graduate students from DePaul University.  The social media team wrote over 30 blog posts from the conference – I’m still putting them up on the conference blog!  The social media team also took numerous videos throughout the conference, which are also posted on the blog, and they tweeted the conference using the hash tag #benchmark3  If you are interested in learning more about the field of nonprofit management and philanthropy as a field of study in higher education please check out the conference coverage!!