At the close of my second residency as a student in the Doctorate of Management program, just three weeks since the first, I barely see the person I was then. The train has left the station. Bon voyage, I say to myself!
So what is different? For one, my language is changing. Now, I can see what a theory looks like and understand its value. A simple statement perhaps yet now I know how to find them. They are gold.
I feel like a gardener at harvest time, perhaps in the spirit of Andy Van de Ven's Engaged Scholarship. Every conversation with faculty and upper class students is a "listen for" precious theories about the world that these colleagues find dear to their hearts that might be relevant to my research topic, asking who is that researcher who developed the theory and what is the title of their work. Everything I read, same thing.
For another, my cohort class, my peers who are on the same train, is helping me feel at home with being myself and I am learning how to appreciate them as they go through their journey. I am coming to believe that we are providing each other a psychologically safe space as we venture into new territory.
To the group of students from the non-profit/public sector, our gathering continues to feel special to me. Our language and values are a bit different than for-profit management and this venue provides me with additional touch points with experienced gardeners in the program.
All the support staff from the computer technicians, to the library staff, and the program staff seem to cater to every need as if they can anticipate and respond in the subtlest of ways, like what I would image it would be like riding in the train's first-class cabin. I greatly appreciate their service.
The train has indeed left the station.
Adrian (Zeke) Wolfberg, D.M. Class of 2013, 11 September 2010
Adrian (Zeke) Wolfberg is a Supervisory Intelligence Officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington, D.C. He is interested in exploring what creates the underlying orientation (the propensity) in the individual mental and organizational collective consciousness that allows us to be responsive to situations, make shifts to see things differently, to synthesize, to be mindful of what is going on.
