"Every part is difficult," said Katherine Reynolds, an associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policies of the College of Education. But for busy graduate students, said Reynolds, who has chaired and served on numerous dissertation committees, perhaps the most tedious part can be the beginning.

"It frequently turns out to be a stop-and-go process that entails developing a proposal, preparing questions, conferring with committee chairs, rethinking the proposal, discussing the topic with committee members, and so on," she said.

Reynolds thought the process could be helped along by gathering Ph.D. students enrolled in the College of Education into a group to jump-start their dissertation work. She was particularly interested in helping part-time doctoral students who comprise the majority of those in the educational administration field.

She and six of the college's doctoral candidates in a thesis writing graduate course assembled for a three-day "writer's colony" at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, N.C., May 24–26 to work on their introductions, review of literature, and methodology. Reynolds planned the getaway as a pilot, the idea of which, had it not gone well, could have been scrapped. But reaction to the retreat by students was so positive she would like to repeat it in future years, perhaps with more students and more faculty.

The enclave was held at Gardner-Webb because one of the Ph.D. candidates, Drew Van Horn, is vice president for development at the school and was able to arrange the gathering for only $50 per student. The location two-and-a-half hours from Columbia also was just far enough away to provide the isolation needed for concentrated work, yet close enough to reach comfortably by car.

Earlier in the semester, the students met on two Friday afternoons to prepare for the retreat, then arrived at Gardner-Webb armed with books, articles, and laptop computers ready to write and engage in paired- and group-feedback sessions. As it turned out, said Reynolds, different students got to different points in their proposals, some hammering out the introduction and literature review in draft form, while others didn't get past the introduction "but were delighted with themselves anyway.

"Everyone had been required to meet with their committee chairs before the retreat and had agreement on where they were headed, "but just hadn't started putting it on paper yet," Reynolds said.

"I would say the experience was extremely effective," said Michael W. Ivey, a Baptist missionary who is an administrator and teacher at Baptist Bible College in Ichon, Korea, southeast of Seoul. "I went into the seminar with a general topic in mind and general questions I had discussed with my advisor, but they were very preliminary and in the first feedback session I was trounced by the group," said Ivey, whose dissertation will deal with pedagogy and curriculum commitments in Korean seminaries.

"I had to rethink how I was saying what I wanted to say. It wasn't so much that my ideas were off base, it was that I wasn't communicating them well, which is the point of the introduction and the proposal. I came away from the three days with a start on my introduction that was much clearer than it had been two days before, and with a commitment to get it done."

"The best thing about the retreat was that it allowed you to get away and think about nothing but your dissertation," said Mary Grimes, head of the drama department at Claflin College in Orangeburg, who is writing her dissertation on women college presidents and their management styles.

"We were totally immersed in the setting and were able to process our ideas with the entire group. As a facilitator, Professor Reynolds also provided individual help with a wealth of experience. By the time we left, the process had moved along, we had some direction, and we didn't feel as though we were out there working on it all by ourselves."

The workshop also made the doctoral students closer, Grimes said. "The cohort of students became stronger as each of us became a link in a buddy system where we went from being classmates to part of each others' lives," she said. "I also liked the fact that Professor Reynolds respected us as colleagues."

Grimes recommended the experience for others, adding, "I feel strongly that it would work well in any discipline."

Reynolds believes the retreat could accommodate a few more students, including those at different stages of work on their dissertations, "and the more faculty, the better. It would behoove us to do it as a team teaching situation. We could have more students to do that and still not have it be too expensive."