There are times when the student becomes the teacher, but what happens when the teacher becomes a student again?
That was where Jean Goblinger found herself when she enrolled in the organizational leadership PhD program at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore in 2021.
While Goblinger, 50, made the decision to return to school 24 years after earning her master’s degree, she hasn’t been completely removed from the inside of a classroom. Since 2013, the Salisbury resident has been an adjunct college professor, teaching various communications classes at UMES and other colleges.
Now, Goblinger is more than just a student-turned-teacher-turned-student again. She’s graduating with her PhD during UMES’ 139th Spring Commencement on May 15.
“It’s been quite a gap between when I got my master’s in 2004 and to this moment, but I wouldn’t change how it happened,” she said. “Going into this process, you know you’re older and everything is different. You don’t have that young spirit, but you have those past experiences and that wisdom that helps push you through.”
Goblinger said she decided to return to school for her PhD to expand her career opportunities.
As an adjunct professor working contractually and part-time, the number of classes taught, pay, and career advancement opportunities are much lower than her full-time counterparts.
“Being in that environment, I have a love for education and for teaching,” she said. “I know not having that advanced doctoral degree was stopping me from going further in my career. It’s also been one of my goals to constantly learn and grow and develop myself as a person intellectually and spiritually.”
As part of the organizational leadership program, Goblinger engaged in a three-year course load that included Friday, Saturday, and Sunday classes, followed by a two-year process of developing her proposal for review, ultimately leading to her dissertation and defense.
It was Goblinger’s experience adjuncting that led to her research and development of her dissertation, focusing on authentic leadership and its role in adjunct faculty engagement.
Goblinger said through her research, she found staggering data showing the reliance on and volume of adjunct faculty in higher education.
“It’s super important right now because statistics show that almost half of all faculty at colleges and universities across the country are adjuncts,” she said. “There are about 650,000 adjuncts currently working, and it’s a substantial number. It is an important topic right now, especially in higher education.”
Throughout her involvement in the organizational leadership program, one of her cohort members was Latoya Jenkins, UMES Chief of Staff & Vice President of Presidential Strategy. Jenkins, who also earned her doctorate alongside Goblinger, said the experience of being each other’s supporters and advocates was rewarding.
“I think that as two higher education professionals, we were able to find like-mindedness with each other in our professional careers, but the classwork pulled us together and allowed us to use our strengths to help each other,” Jenkins said. “Making sure we encouraged each other along the way was essential over this last year. There’s a lot of self-guided learning, and Jean and I would do check-ins to keep each other motivated. Even on the day of my dissertation, she was there. Having her by my side was phenomenal.”
Goblinger said she was “super excited” about being able to share in achievement with Jenkins.
“Oftentimes, with the cohort groups, you don’t graduate at the same time together because you split up after finishing the three-year course,” Goblinger said. “So, the fact that Latoya and I did the program together and are actually getting hooded together is really important to us. So that’s another beautiful layer to all of this.”
As Goblinger crosses the stage to earn to her degree, being able to celebrate the accomplishment in person is a story with a near-perfect ending.
Rooting her on will be much of her family, including her husband Chad, son Kyle, and daughter Kira. The only thing missing will be her father, Fred, who passed away in 2023.
“When I did my master’s, I felt like I didn’t need the ceremony and I could just get my degree in the mail. My dad told me that the ceremony was part of the process in order to celebrate the journey,” she said. “Now that I’m older, I am so excited about participating in the ceremony, because it’s the final celebration of all that hard work and all of the people that helped in that.
“I couldn’t have had God write this better for me, except for having my dad here to see it. But I know he’s still here with me in spirit.”
