UNCG, WCU partnership provides opportunity to earn doctorate online

UNCG Now

Summer McMurry runs a full-time business she started in Asheville, in addition to being a wife and mother of three children. Pursuing her doctorate, without a nearby program, wasn’t an option for her – until now.
McMurry is one of three doctoral students comprising the first class in a joint doctoral program in speech communication and disorders between UNCG and Western Carolina University. The program is called the Inter-institutional Distance Education Agreement for Learning and Leadership in Communication Sciences and Disorders, or IDEALL CSD, and is unique in that students take classes from faculty at both campuses, mainly online.
“Getting my PhD was something I always wanted to do once I was established and settled,” said McMurry, who established Carolina Pediatric Therapy 15 years ago and now employs about 100 people who serve 18 counties. “There wasn’t a program that I could connect to. But when I found out about IDEALL, it was a good fit for me. Most of what we do in the program is distance learning, so I’m not traveling to either of the campuses very often.”
Both universities benefit from the partnership. For UNCG, having access to Western Carolina faculty essentially doubles the size of the department without increases to its budget. Students who graduate from IDEALL will receive their degrees from UNCG.
“Western has outstanding faculty, but they didn’t have a doctoral program and didn’t want to lose these star faculty members because of that,” said Dr. Celia Hooper, dean of UNCG’s School of Health and Human Sciences. “To establish a program like this, it takes a lot of cooperation between faculties and registrars and administration. We had a lot of enthusiastic people who didn’t give up.”
The partnership touches on two important aspects of the Board of Governors’ strategic plan – access and efficiency. Students like McMurry now have access to a ...

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