Impacting Education: Journal on Transforming Professional Practice New articles in this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 United States License. This journal is published by Pitt Open Library Publishing. 1 This journal is supported by the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate: A Knowledge Forum on the EdD (CPED) cpedinitiative.org impactinged.pitt.edu ISSN 2472-5889 (online) Vol. 9 No. 1 (2024) DOI 10.5195/ie.2024.422 Designing, Developing, and Sustaining Doctoral Programs in a Post-Pandemic Age Rebecca Harper Augusta University rharper7@augusta.edu ABSTRACT This special themed issue of Impacting Education, Designing, Developing, and Sustaining Doctoral Programs in a Post-Pandemic Age, focuses on ways in which educators have used the pandemic as an opportunity in their doctoral programs for reimagination and reflection. Although this was a disruptive time in education, it also allowed time for transformations and opportunities within doctoral programs. Instead of ignoring the challenges presented by the pandemic, the contributors in this issue used their observations and experiences for improvement and refinement, and emerged from the pandemic with programs that were more robust and reflected the needs of their students. KEYWORDS pandemic, doctoral program, program evaluation This special themed issue of Impacting Education, Designing, Developing, and Sustaining Doctoral Programs in a Post-Pandemic Age focuses on ways in which our colleagues have used the pandemic as an opportunity in their doctoral programs for reimagination and reflection. As you’ll see in the essays that follow, what was certainly a disruptive time in education yielded several transformations and opportunities within doctoral programs. Instead of ignoring the challenges presented by the pandemic, these contributors leaned into them and used their observations and experiences for improvement and refinement and emerged from the pandemic with programs that were more robust and reflected the needs of their students. While I have included a brief summary of each article below, I hope you will take the time to read this issue in full and learn what our Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED) friends are doing at their home institutions, as their work is both impactful and inspiring. In Jessica Marotta’s essay, Transformative Learning and Professional Advancement During an EdD Program, she explores the rationale and justification for candidates’ enrollment in an online doctoral program post-pandemic. The article written by Cherese Childers-McKee, Sara Ewell, Joan Giblin, Joseph McNabb, and Melissa Parenti, Developing and Sustaining Northeastern’s EdD Program During and Post Pandemic, focuses on Northeastern’s response to social justice issues in the world and how their program integrated these concepts in their programs of study. In Reimagining the EdD in a Time When the Future of Public Schooling is at Stake, Laura Flores Shaw, Juliana Paré-Blagoev, and Laura Quaynor address their critical reflection process as they reimagined their institution’s EdD. From Reacting to Re-imagining: Using Pandemic Adaptations for Program Advancement, authored by Amy Markos, Ray Buss, and Josephine Marsh explores their journey through the pandemic as they used these experiences to reimagine their EdD program. In Pivoting from Problems to Possibilities in Response to Dual Pandemics, Jarrod Druery, Melissa Jones, and Brandelyn Tosolt focus on their experiences addressing dual pandemics (COVID-19 and racial injustice) and share how these shaped and changed their doctoral program. Mechanisms for Change: Infusing the EdD with Change-making Practices, a metaphoric essay written by Nicholas Husbye, Tachier Rezac, Stephanie Wessels, and Guy Trainin, explores how programs might be designed in order to equip candidates with the necessary skills for success. Jacqueline Hawkins and Monica Martens wrote about their program evaluation results in A Model for Program Improvement Using Reflections by EdD Scholars About Adaptation During a Pandemic Time and how this helped them address their program needs. In the article penned by Chery Lucarelli, Amy Murzyn, Matthew Ridenour, and Neil Witikko, The Architecture of the Unknown: Constructing a Flexible EdD Program, the authors share ways in which they created an inclusive, innovative, flexible structure, as validated (and challenged) by the COVID-19 pandemic. From Room to Zoom: Co-constructing Doctoral Community in Pandemic and Post-Pandemic Times, Enda Donlon and Fiona King reflect on a cohort of doctoral students and their thoughts on community building engagements in the virtual setting. Lastly, Henry Tran, Kathleen Cunningham, Suzy Hardie, Peter https://library.pitt.edu/e-journals http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ http://cpedinitiative.org/ Harper Impacting Education: Journal on Transforming Professional Practice impactinged.pitt.edu Vol. 9 No. 1 (2024) DOI 10.5195/ie.2024.422 2 Moyi, and Era Roberts focus on their process for program improvement in Re)designing a CPED-Oriented EdD Program to Improve its Emphasis on Equity in a Post-Pandemic World. Thank you to all our contributing authors for their work on this issue and the production staff for getting the journal ready for publication. We could not do this without your hard work and assistance.