Laura Hills is Now Dr. Laura Hills!
Dr. Laura Hills finally ended her 11-year graduate school odyssey by graduating with her Doctor of Arts in Higher Education from George Mason University on May 15. Here she poses with the statue of George Mason.
May 15, 2010:
“This is a testament to my stubbornness.” So says the just-graduated Dr. Laura Hills of her completing her doctoral degree after 11 years of continuous study. Dr. Hills, who today serves as Blue Pencil Institute’s president, entered graduate school with only a bachelor’s degree under her belt. She could take only one course per term over all of these years of graduate school because that was the maximum load she could manage on top of her busy work schedule and family responsibilities. Slowly but surely, Dr. Hills chipped away at her doctoral degree. But along the way, she earned a master’s degree in English, a graduate certificate in college teaching, a graduate certificate in the Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages. Today, she has graduated with a Doctor of Arts in Higher Education.
Dr. Hills graduated with distinction. She is the winner of the George Mason University Higher Education Program’s Outstanding Doctoral Student Award and the George Mason University Higher Education Program’s Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award. Dr. Hills’ dissertation is entitled Enduring Personal Legacies: The Nature, Antecedents and Support of Generativity in Leadership. It is a case study of community college leaders in later midlife. Says Dr. Hills about graduating, “I am the poster child for lifelong learning. I am thrilled that I finally made it!”
For more information about George Mason University’s Higher Education program, please visit http://highered.gmu.edu.
