McKay School of Education > News > EIME PhD Program Celebrates a Successful First Year
EIME PhD Program Celebrates a Successful First Year
Dean Richard Young welcomed incoming and returning PhD students of the Educational Inquiry, Measurement, and Evaluation (EIME) program at the group’s opening social held the first week of fall semester. “I hope this program is all that you hoped it would be,” he said. “Unless you hoped it would be easy.” He went on to explain that the EIME doctoral program is designed to be rigorous enough to produce competitive graduates who are highly skilled in research; know how to ask hard, important questions; and are able to find answers to those questions in order to improve education.
Going into its second year, the McKay School’s EIME program is growing and evolving. Three new courses are being added, two of which begin this fall, one taught by Robert Bullough and one by Andy Gibbons. Additionally, a literature review is scheduled for the third Tuesday of each month as part of the EIME seminar series, and an opportunity is being provided for students to participate in a reading evaluation and analysis with the Alpine School District.
EIME seminars, held every Tuesday at noon in room 185 of the McKay Building, are designed to introduce students to ongoing research and research opportunities. Seminar presenters are invited from the McKay School, other BYU colleges, local school districts, state offices, and other organizations.
Three new students joined the EIME program this academic year: Kimberly Davison, Moses Khombe, and Holt Zaugg. Kimberly Davison, who graduated from BYU in 1988 with her master’s degree in statistics, taught statistics courses at BYU and other universities in Utah before deciding to pursue a PhD in education. “Because the EIME program is so quantitative, that made it a good fit for me,” Davison said.
Moses Khombe, from Malawi, Africa, is a recent graduate of the Master’s of Public Administration program at BYU. “I want to be a policy analyst and a policy maker in parliament or outside of parliament, putting an emphasis on education,” Khombe said. He is now working as a research assistant with Dr. Geo-JaJa, a renowned scholar in international education issues.
Holt Zaugg graduated with a master’s degree from the Department of Instructional Psychology and Technology in 1995. He is returning to BYU after working in the school districts of Alberta Canada with teacher development.
Returning to the EIME program this year are Dan Allen, Steven Anderson, Nari Carter, and Tim Walker. As the first students in the EIME program, these four have been helping to shape the program as it continues to grow and improve.
Dr. Richard Sudweeks, director of the EIME doctoral program, is looking forward to this academic year. As he spoke with the students at the opening social, he encouraged them to present their research at professional conferences. He invited all the students to attend the Northern Rocky Mountain Educational Research Association (NRMERA) conference in Jackson, Wyoming in October. Carter will present her research at this year’s conference, and Sudweeks expressed his hope that all the EIME students would submit proposals to present at next year’s conference.
12 October 2009