
I recently retired from Pennsylvania State University after 32 years, during which time I had the honor of chairing 120 Ph.D. student committees and helping those students earn their doctoral degrees. I have also served on doctoral committees in Australia, China, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. I have had doctoral students from every continent except Antarctica, and I like to joke that “the sun never sets on my students, in the same way that the sun never sets on the former British Empire.” From those experiences as the chair of so many doctoral committees, I have drawn some sobering conclusions.

