{"id":15901,"date":"2026-05-14T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/?p=15901"},"modified":"2026-05-18T11:44:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T15:44:23","slug":"celebrating-a-long-awaited-achievement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/celebrating-a-long-awaited-achievement\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating a long-awaited achievement: Graduate student Jean Goblinger completes her PhD journey"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dr. Jean Goblinger, earned her PhD in organizational leadership at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. She will be one of 316 graduates earning their degrees on May 15 at the institution’s 139th Spring Commencement<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

There are times when the student becomes the teacher, but what happens when the teacher becomes a student again?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was where Jean Goblinger<\/strong> found herself when she enrolled in the organizational leadership PhD program at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Goblinger, 50, made the decision to return to school 24 years after earning her master\u2019s degree, she hasn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, Goblinger is more than just a student-turned-teacher-turned-student again. She\u2019s graduating with her PhD during UMES\u2019 139th<\/sup> Spring Commencement on May 15<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been quite a gap between when I got my master\u2019s in 2004 and to this moment, but I wouldn\u2019t change how it happened,\u201d she said. \u201cGoing into this process, you know you\u2019re older and everything is different. You don\u2019t have that young spirit, but you have those past experiences and that wisdom that helps push you through.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goblinger said she decided to return to school for her PhD to expand her career opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeing in that environment, I have a love for education and for teaching,\u201d she said. \u201cI know not having that advanced doctoral degree was stopping me from going further in my career. It\u2019s also been one of my goals to constantly learn and grow and develop myself as a person intellectually and spiritually.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was Goblinger\u2019s experience adjuncting that led to her research and development of her dissertation, focusing on authentic leadership and its role in adjunct faculty engagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goblinger said through her research, she found staggering data showing the reliance on and volume of adjunct faculty in higher education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s super important right now because statistics show that almost half of all faculty at colleges and universities across the country are adjuncts,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are about 650,000 adjuncts currently working, and it\u2019s a substantial number. It is an important topic right now, especially in higher education.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout her involvement in the organizational leadership program, one of her cohort members was Latoya Jenkins<\/strong>, UMES Chief of Staff & Vice President of Presidential Strategy. Jenkins, who also earned her doctorate alongside Goblinger, said the experience of being each other\u2019s supporters and advocates was rewarding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d Jenkins said. \u201cMaking sure we encouraged each other along the way was essential over this last year. There\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Dr. Jean Goblinger and Dr. Latoya Jenkins celebrate earning their PhDs in organizational leadership during the 139th Spring Commencement on May 15, 2026.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Goblinger said she was \u201csuper excited\u201d about being able to share in the achievement with Jenkins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOftentimes, with the cohort groups, you don\u2019t graduate at the same time together because you split up after finishing the three-year course,\u201d Goblinger said. \u201cSo, the fact that Latoya and I did the program together and are actually getting hooded together is really important to us. So that\u2019s another beautiful layer to all of this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I did my master\u2019s, I felt like I didn\u2019t 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,\u201d she said. \u201cNow that I\u2019m older, I am so excited about participating in the ceremony, because it\u2019s the final celebration of all that hard work and all of the people that helped in that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t have had God write this better for me, except for having my dad here to see it. But I know he\u2019s still here with me in spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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…Read more Celebrating a long-awaited achievement: Graduate student Jean Goblinger completes her PhD journey<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1559,"featured_media":15903,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","wds_primary_category":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-15901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1559"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15901"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/pr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=15901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}