School Field Trips

Both kids had field trips at the end of the year on the SAME day. Hayden's class visited a local pizza place, Dion's, and Taryne's class visited Amigo's (local grocery store), a local bank, and the local bus system. Both grades met up at a local park for lunch and to play.

I feel like the above 3 pictures are from the Brady Bunch!

~C

Graduation

Well, I did it. I graduated with a Ph.D. and I still can't believe I did that. I know I would not have been able to do this without the support of Kyle, Taryne, Hayden and all my friends and family.

Me and my advisor, Dr. Rob Hardin before the ceremony

Me and My friend Tyler Standifird, he graduated with a PhD in Biomechanics

Dr. Joy DeSensi, basically one of the original scholars in sport
and one of the founders of our national organization.

Just love these two!

What's next? I got a job as an assistant professor at Ohio Dominican University in Columbus, OH beginning this fall. We will be moving there this summer and we are all looking forward to the things ahead!

Officially ABD

You are probably wondering what the heck "ABD" is, right? Well that s my new "title" along with Ph.D. Candidate. I have officially passed my proposal defense (the meeting where I present my idea, research questions, method). I have "promoted" to Ph.D. Candidate from Ph.D. Student.

So, ABD means "all but dissertation". All coursework for the doctor of philosophy degree has been completed, I have passed my comprehensive exams and everyone on my committee believes I am ready (and prepared) to move on to the data collection phase. I want to thank you (those few that read this) for your patience and understanding with my lack of posts over the last 2 years. It has been very stressful and the time is often not there to even take 5 minutes to write down ideas or share pictures.

Currently I am working to finalize my survey (I chose survey over interviews because I have no desire to transcribe hours upon hours of recorded interviews and then code them and find meanings) and submit it for IRB (Institutional Review Board) approval. Once approved, I am cleared to collect data for my dissertation.

In case you are wondering, my dissertation is over what motivations people have to attend college football games with an RV. My research areas are in sport tourism, marketing and intercollegiate athletics. There is very little information out there on "who" the people are that travel to college sporting events with an RV. So to collect data, I will be doing paper and pencil surveys to those in the RV parking designated areas on college campuses on game weekends. Yes, I will be coming to TAMU and I am so excited to see Kyle Field in person. (squeal!!)

If all goes well, I will have collected all my data by end of October or the beginning of November at the very latest. I will then only have chapters 4 and 5 left to write and should have that completed sometime in December. The goal is to defend my dissertation in late February but no later than the first week of March. Once I defend (and my committee tells me I passed, which happens the same day as the defense) then I am a "Dr." but will not actually graduate until May.

So that is basically my next few months in a nutshell. Anyone want to come to Knoxville and help me? :)

While I have completed and "checked-off" so many things, I still have a lot to do.

One year to go...

When we moved to Tennessee in August 2012, I have had several moments where I thought May 2014 would never arrive. After I turn in a survey proposal on Monday, I will be officially finished with my coursework toward my dissertation. How on earth did I make it through 4 long semesters and a summer that included 16 courses, 6 of which were research based?

Yesterday morning I had my dissertation pre-proposal meeting with my dissertation committee. It is pretty crazy to think I will be graduating with a Ph.D. in a year-May 7, 2015 to be exact. Don't get me wrong, I still have a long road ahead of me the next year to complete my comprehensive exams, officially propose my research topic, collect data and write my dissertation, but this spring the light at the end of the tunnel got a little brighter and it continues to shine and guide me to the end of this intense 3 year process (most other Ph.D. programs are 4-5+ years, so 3 is really fast).

In 2 weeks I start my comprehensive exams that I must "pass" to become a doctoral candidate and will then be "ABD" or "all but dissertation". Everyone tells me how lucky I am to have the exams I do. I receive 4 questions over the summer and I have 3 weeks to answer each question. By the time the summer is over and I have answered all 4 questions, I should roughly have chapters 1-3 of my dissertation complete. My friends tell me I am lucky because many of them have their comprehensive exam over a 6 hour period with not notes, books, internet, etc and must answer their questions. And, it is not necessarily related to their dissertation topic. What?! So, I feel lucky and glad my process is going to help me in the long run.

My research will be over motivations that influence travel to college sporting events, particularly college football games. While this type of research has been done in the past, I am going to look at an area that has very little, if any, research published: those that travel to the games with a RV. This is a unique population as they do not spend money in the community in the same way your traditional fan does and the community will need to market to these individual differently as well.

So if the posts on this blog continue to be really sporadic, it is because I will be practically living in the library to answer my exam questions over the next 12 weeks.