Keith Melville

A Passion for Adult Learning Keith Melville

This book tells the story of Fielding Graduate University, an institution that started a radically innovative doctoral program in the 1970s, and initiated many changes that have been widely adopted ever since. Fielding's founders, a colorful group of publicly engaged scholar-practitioners, were visionaries intent on creating a new kind of educational experience for adults. They were utopians who set out to realize a mission of social change and comprehensive institutional innovation. Now that the learning model of this pioneering program has moved into the mainstream of higher education, Fielding's story is particularly pertinent today. Increasingly, questions are being raised about how doctoral education should be delivered, and whether traditional programs are equipping their graduates with the knowledge and competencies they need to succeed. Fielding's experience, which is vividly captured in this highly readable account, offers a lens and a mirror for many people in higher learning who are engaged in institutional innovation and in redesigning doctoral education for the 21st century.