I concede this is similar to a few other questions, but any help would be appreciated.
My husband completed the twenty coursework requirement for his D.H.Sc. with a 4.0 G.P.A. from the online program of an established accredited U.S. University.
When admitted, the program claimed no one could finish the course work E.B.D. Then after two years, eight courses including two dissertation semesters and approval from the committee on his thesis project which was closely related his statement of professional interest in his application and the professional work of both of us since 1996, the University changed the policy to the traditional two years after coursework completion to complete the thesis.
Ironically, but irrelevant to us, when he was two courses from finishing the courses, the University changed it back so in theory no one can finish E.B.D., so I am speculating there were already issues, but we can't change the past.
During the seven years, he has at four faculty thesis advisors from the University although his Thesis committee, who are all Ph.D's in his professional field have otherwise has remained intact. His project was again approved by the committee after completion of the coursework with Thesis advisor number three, also from his profession.
Where this came off the rails was when the third faculty advisor was promoted and the fourth faculty advisor, who is from a different health care profession, took over about a year and a half ago when he was well into data collection of the approved study. I have little doubt without this change he would have finished his Thesis over a year ago.
Faculty advisor number four, never liked his study, kept requesting changes in method and data verification including a completely re-do of the study including a legally impossible data verification requirement from a third party governmental agency that refused to release raw data, even with subjects signing a release.
They spent most of the past year and a half at an impasse and the advisor kept asking for changes, my husband, hired a dissertation coach to help, made most of the changes, but then after reviewing each change, the advisor refused to take the project back to committee because of the data verification issue. Frustrating to us is our data collection method was approved in the two previously approved studies, but this advisor felt this point made the study flawed.
My husband requested a new advisor several times, ideally going back to thesis advisor number three who was still employed by the University, always denied, which of course did nothing to help the relationship with faculty advisor number four.
He has now received the anticipated termination letter. In my opinion, this last faculty advisor decided early on that this Dissertation was going no where but because it was his job, he just kept leading him one with one more change, one more change and because he was six years into this, my husband kept trying to make it happen.
Now what? He is distraught and after seven years and knowing that he has spent the past year and a half fighting this advisor, I am trying to find a way to salvage all of this time, money and quite frankly a decent study with meaningful data since we have been running the study in our business (another problem for the advisor, we are for-profit and the subjects are paying customers, not non-for profit) for two and a half years.
Can he approach another University that might accept some or all of the coursework and do a Dissertation through them? He already has a Masters Degree and a Professional Degree. But are there any options to make something of all this work?
Any ideas would be helpful and appreciated since the University is not returning any of our calls or e-mails.
