The cohort model is the Executive Doctorate’s core pedagogical strategy:  students bring their past experiences and current dilemmas to the classroom and use new frameworks, innovative strategies, and analytic skills to puzzle through these issues anew.  These dialogues spark in the classroom, build during cohort meals, and continue online and offline during the weeks in-between classes.

Executive Doctorate students are established higher education professionals from campuses, associations, organizations, and government.  They reflect the broad diversity of higher education, whether defined by race, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic background, or religious affiliation.    Students travel monthly to Penn not only from the Eastern seaboard, but also from across United States.  We have welcomed students from Alaska to Puerto Rico – as well as international students from Mexico, Costa Rica, and Canada. 

Our admitted student cohorts are purposefully diverse in terms of their professional and institutional backgrounds as well.  Each class brings together senior leaders of two- and four-year campuses, public and private, for-profit and faith-based, historically black and Hispanic serving, elite and open enrollment.  Represented in the room are vice presidents, deans, and other senior managers in the areas of finance, advancement, planning, student affairs, enrollment management, and virtually every segment of the enterprise.  While all students hold at least a master’s degree, some hold terminal degrees in law or other academic fields and are seeking a deeper understanding of issues in education.