A reader recently asked me, “I am strongly considering the Doctor of Health Education program and would like to know how you went about finding two committee members. I really like the format of the program with the integrated dissertation and all, but I am not so sure about finding two people who I can rely on for the next two years. What is your experience like with this issue?”
One of the great things about the Doctor of Health Education program is that you start working on your dissertation from the first week you're in the program. The flip side of this is that it's like learning to swim by being thrown into the pool.
Because of this, I think the best way to approach the program is to go in already having a pretty clear sense of what sort of research project you want to do. During the first course you'll get this starting point idea stretched around a little, and that's okay, but if you have a reasonable sense of what will interest you then you can think ahead of time about who your two external reviewers might be.
In other words, if there's a topic that already interests you, I don't think it's premature to look for external reviewers now. What I did was put together a spreadsheet where I listed people whose descriptions online made them seem not only qualified but also having a compatible research interest to mine. When the time came to ask for external committee members, I had a set of email addresses ready so that I could reach out to possible committee members right away.
Note that this was a list of people I didn't already know. That can be a little strange, it's basically saying, “Hi, I realize you don't know me, but I'd like to work with you for the next two years. What do you say?” But, if you don't ask, you don't get, and it turns out there are people out there happy to help with this sort of thing.
The other approach is to shake your tree of personal contacts. You may find that someone you know peripherally is actually perfectly suited to help oversee your research. While I found one of my committee members through the spreadsheet/cold call method I described, I found the other by taking a closer look at colleagues from work and realizing that one was perfect.
So I suppose the bottom line is that it's sort of like looking for a job — you tell all the people you know what you're looking for, and you also network as much as you can beyond that.
A final bit of good news is that the school will help you look for external reviewers if you really get stuck and can't find ideal people to help you. I didn't have to take them up on it, but it was reassuring that the option was there.
Next up, I comment on a legal victory for educational fair use of copyrighted materials.