Degree Completion Plan

Carlos M. Young

Northcentral University
BUS-7101-WK1 Assignment: Design A Degree Completion Plan

Abstract

Booker Taliaferro Washington, LL.D., is where it begins. It seems it is where it continues to begin for me
when it comes to the science of learning, and more importantly, the mission of teaching. While I am
not delusional enough to subscribe even mildly to the notion that my lot in my academic life will plumb
the depths of this man’s expanse of applied genius, I am however hopeful enough to begin a journey of
exploration that puts me in the same mental geography as he. It is with this foundation that I begin
again with the prospect in this discussion, and indeed in my Business PhD pursuit, of learning that I
might learn better, as it is my passion, but more importantly, learning that I might teach better, as it is
my mission. And not to teach humanity in a broad sense, although scholarly works are universal by
nature, but to focus on that underserved community that Dr. Washington served: descendants of
chattel enslavement. So that if in my writings, study, and attainment of a PhD, resolution is achieved to
others outside of this group of my focus, I am well pleased to be of that service too. If I fail however, to
help my focus group in all of my pursuits, I will have failed miserably. I will not fail. The following study
details my plan to indeed succeed in my passion for learning, and mission of teaching in pursuit of this
Doctor of Philosophy in Business Administration with a specialization in Financial Management.

Setting a Course for Success

Whether the doctorate degree holder is in fact Booker T. Washington, former enslaved person

of US decent, or myself as a prospective PhD, or any other seeker of this research-based degree, this

path of a purer type of learning through scholarly understanding and discovery of new knowledge was

set many years before in Prussia. The University of Berlin, (Now Humboldt University) was founded in

1809 by Wilhelm von Humboldt as a research University, and was the first ever to confer the degree of

PhD (Ford, 2017). It is comforting to think that this robust pedagogy has withstood revolutions, wars,

enslavement, uprisings, and all manner of civil unrest. So that even until this very second, there is a

guild of learning that causes us all to be united.

I take my first steps toward joining this guild by exploring the path before me in 20 courses, as

prescribed by the regents of Northcentral University’s School of Business. So that I might consume the

task before me in a more palatable fashion, I separate my coursework into five sections: 1) Instigation –

BUS-7101, 2) Foundation – BUS-7110, 7120, and 7130, 3) Specialization – FIN-7012, 7013, 7014, 7015,

and 7018, 4) Elaboration – BUS 7100, 7105, 7106, 7320, 7380, and MGT-7019, and finally 5)

Investigation – CMP-9701B, DIS-9901A, 9902A, 9903A, and lastly DIS-9904A. The planned order of my

1
BUS-7101-WK1 Assignment: Design A Degree Completion Plan

coursework and timeline for start and completion of each is detailed in Table 1. Note that courses are

being planned in parallel after the 6th week for efficiency, while still being reasonable about retention of

the course’s prescribed learnings and my own formulation of new thoughts and innovations.

Section 1, Instigation, has but one course, BUS-7101 – Changing Times: Business Administration

in the 21st Century, and it seeks to explore how new and previous research garnered from a PhD in

business and enables flexibility and expertise in organizations needing to outpace the rapidly changing

landscape of businesses of the 21st century. Section 2, Foundation, has three courses: The Business

Environment (BUS-7110), Business Financial Systems (BUS-7120), and Business Leadership and Strategy

(BUS-7130). While all of these foundational courses will impart scholastic wisdom in my chosen field, I

note the culminating course of this section, BUS-1730, as it provides an overview for not only strategic

thinking, but also strategic planning. BUS-1730 also helps, through a survey of voice of the customer,

and a study of key competitors in an industry, to develop one’s mental acuity for various business types.

Section 3, Specialization, covers financial erudition spanning five courses: Corporate Finance (FIN-7012),

Managing Financial Institutions (FIN-7013), Managing Financial Institutions (FIN-7014), Advanced

Financial Statement Analysis (FIN-7015), and Accounting and Control for Nonprofit Organizations (FIN-

7018). This part of my studies will be of particular interest as my reason for exploring the PhD is to learn

to teach and research better so that I can yield and propagate philanthropy toward a very underserved

population in the USA, that of the African American. And because of this mission, I will be keenly

focusing on FIN-7018 as it delves into the regulatory and ethical fiduciary responsibility of those who

would lead or staff the financial duties of non-profit organizations. As I look forward to developing a

place of learning for African Americans, this course brings me that much closer to walking the road that

Dr. Booker T. Washington travailed as he fashioned Tuskegee University, then Tuskegee Normal School,

using even the harsh lessons of his enslavement to evoke learning. (Grant 2020) Section 4, Elaboration,

continues the study that Section 2 began with a wide range of business scholarship spanning six courses:

2
BUS-7101-WK1 Assignment: Design A Degree Completion Plan

Scholarly Literature Review (BUS-7100), Statistics I (BUS-7105), Statistics II (BUS-7106), Two Courses on

Qualitative Research Design and Methodology (BUS 7320 & 7380), and Pre-Candidacy Prospectus (CMP-

9701B). All of the courses in Section 4 will round out my business acumen, and BUS 7320 & 7380 will

point all of my acquired knowledge in the program and add to it qualitative methods of observing

human behavior like ethnography, all moving me even closer to research mastery. And lastly, Section 5,

Investigation, has four courses: Components of the Dissertation (DIS-9901A), The Dissertation Proposal

(DIS-9902A), Institutional Review Board (IRB) and Data Collection (DIS-9903A) and finally, The

Dissertation Manuscript and Defense (DIS-9904A). I am eagerly anticipating DIS-9904A, and already,

however wafer thinly synthesized in my mind’s eye now, am hazily seeing my successful oral defense,

and manuscript presented and approved by an august review committee. It will certainly be a crowning

achievement for all of my scholastic rigor.

Academic Goals and Threats to Their Achievement

SMART Goals are certainly de rigueur in industry (SAGE Publications 2016). SMART being an

acronym to help one remember the tenets of good goal setting. Spelled out, the SMART Goals stand for

Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timebound. While we all seek to achieve our goals at

our first attempt, to reduce the probability of failure, it is necessary to plan for threats that might

prevent attainment of these goals. I will list goals over the short-term of my tenure at NCU, using an 8-

week interval as a range for short-term goals. Long-Term goals are required as well. Using the shorter

duration goals as a feeding stock, I will build a list of long-term targets that will assist in achieving my

mission of teaching underserved communities. The duration of these goals will be anywhere from 8

weeks to a number of years. For all of these goals, we will discuss probable distractions to their

completion, and support required to push through obstacles.

Short-Term goals toward completing my degree include: (a) completing a list of courses to

complete within a given year by week 2 of my initial course, (b) identification of small celebratory

3
BUS-7101-WK1 Assignment: Design A Degree Completion Plan

reward upon completion of each short term goal, to be awarded upon completion of each course, and

finally, (c) developing a list of three beneficiaries of the current course’s material by the 5th week of each

course. Long-Term goals include: (a) completing an extensive timeline of all 20 courses including the

date of start and finish, to be completed by the end of my first course, (b) researching all of Dr.

Washington’s pedagogies, and (c) devising a modern application of the same, and completing it before

Section 5 of my coursework. In addition, I will (d) identify one audacious gift for completing my PhD,

and have the gift singled out by the completion of my first course. Another long-term goal is to (e)

determine three non-profit organizations that would benefit from the knowledge and research acquired

during my years of study. And lastly, (f) I am determined to debunk this thought that the terms African

American and diversity are synonymous, a life’s work, that will have its epicenter of research during my

tenure here at NCU (PR Newswire 2017).

The rigors of this program, like those across many academic fields from education, business, and

science have an attrition rate of 36-51% (Young et. al. 2019). So, it is clear that even the most well-

intentioned goal setting scholars can find themselves coming up short. To avoid this, I will avoid one of

the key inhibitors to the success of a PhD candidate, and that is poor mentorship from an academic

advisor. I will therefore assure that I am in close proximity with my academic advisors, such that we

have simpatico personality, educational, and philanthropic drive. I will also seek to keenly understand

the dissertation process, avail myself to those areas of study facilitating its success, and learn the best

questions to ask my academic advisors (Couston & Pignatel 2018). Being overwhelmed can be a

dilemma for me as well. To combat this, it helps for me to have those short and long-term goals listed,

and to have them posted in my office, checking off completion of assignments, and coursework as I go.

Another plausible distraction is in not balancing family-work-education life balance. It will not be easy,

but I have experience from my MBA program, and have found that it is best when I solicit the very

capable support of my wife, learned and understanding in her own right, who wants every good thing

4
BUS-7101-WK1 Assignment: Design A Degree Completion Plan

for me. Another enabler of success by way of support is to keep my Sundays free for Spiritual edification

and familial fellowship.

Post-Graduation Career Goals

Looking ahead to my career after graduation, it is striking how different my goals are as

compared to those I attached to attainment of my previous degrees. Each came with them the hopes of

mostly personal economic and career advancement. This time is different altogether. Having attained

wealth and a rewarding career, I can now turn my focus on much more benevolent pursuits. To this

end, as ascribed by Dr. Washington, mine is a future of uncommon kindness, turning research into

practical wealth building vocations (Grant 2020). Before completing this field of study, I will explore the

vast knowledge bank of enslavement of the African American, and how this and other systemic

institutions of terror contribute to the economic condition we find ourselves in even today. For

example, the median net worth of African Americans today is $17,600 vs. $171,000 for whites (Dettling

et. al. 2017). With this foundation of research, I will then partner with, or form my own non-profit

organizations, tasked with soliciting the US government for financial reparations to the African

American, while simultaneously teaching them how to research, partner with or develop the same type

of organizations for change. Because my specialization is finance, I will keenly prepare myself to thrive

in the language and modalities of capitalism. It is my belief, and I look forward to research to arrive at a

scholastically proven disposition, that education alone, even to the highest degree a university can

confer, will not save the African American. At this stage in my academic pursuit, I don’t yet have the

answers, rather, questions abound. For instance, why, even after having gained a PhD, do African

Americans still find themselves unemployable at majority institutions (Felder 2015)? And why, when

formulating research touting the job acquisition success of minorities with a PhD, do researchers not

breakout African Americans to show the quality of their employment when compared with their

similarly situated peers (PR Newswire 2017)?

5
BUS-7101-WK1 Assignment: Design A Degree Completion Plan

Attaining a PhD in Business Administration, with a specialization in Financial Management, will

put me in good stead to develop these non-profit organizations I spoke of, making them profitable

enough to serve their unique community. Every five years I will take inventory of how many African

Americans have been helped, and in turn how many are they helping, as an indicator of success. The

engine behind these future organizations will be the methods of research learned during my time here.

Upon degree completion, I will produce two books or scholarly research articles per year detailing these

philanthropic pursuits.

It is important to now discuss the global nature of business, and therefore the universal nature

of the Business PhD. The rapid globalization of industry, coupled with the under-representation of PhDs

can cause economic and innovative shortages world-wide (Couston & Pignatel 2018). In fact, how much

better would the world be by way of productivity, should we apply our education globally? Studies have

shown increases in productivity by as much as 7% per year of education attained (Couston & Pignatel

2018). Still, closer to my own mission for attaining my degree, my focus is on US inner cities like my

home of New Orleans, Louisiana. An appeal of scholarly work, research, and application is that it can be

universally applicable, and I would be extremely pleased to find that my work is being used to

benchmark non-profit organizations globally. In truth however, the problems of economic despair are

so great here in the United States for the African American, that a global aim is beyond my own scope at

present. Goals should be vast, but attainable and timebound, so I am happy to focus my academic and

future non-profit career to the US-based scope I have detailed herein. In fact, it has become my life’s

mission. I will succeed.

6
BUS-7101-WK1 Assignment: Design A Degree Completion Plan

References

Couston, A., & Pignatel, I. (2018). PhDs in business, Nonsense or opportunity for both. Global Business

and Organizational Excellence, 37(2), 49-52.

Dettling, L. J., Hsu, J. W., Hacobs, L., Moore, K, Llanes, E., & Thompson, J. P. (2017). Recent Trends in . . .

. Wealth Holdings by Race and Ethnicity, The Federal Reserve, 2016 Survey.

Felder, P. P. (2015). Edward A. Bouchet: A Model for Understanding African Americans and Their

Doctoral Experience. Journal of African American Studies, 19, 3-15.

Ford, M. (2017). The Functions of Higher Education. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 76(3),

566-570.

Grant, B. (1996). To Would-Be Teachers, A Message from Booker T. Washington, Journal of Character

Education, 16(1), 97-100.

PR Newswire. (2017). 100% of its new PhDs in business disciplines found professor jobs in 2016. The PhD

Project reports.

SAGE Publications Ltd (Producer). (2016). Personal Development Plan [Video File].

Young, S. N., Vanwye, W.R., Schafer, M.A., Robertson, T. A., & Poore, A. V. (2019). Factors affecting PhD

student success. International Journal of Exercise Science, 12(1), 34-42.

7
BUS-7101-WK1 Assignment: Design A Degree Completion Plan

Table 1