Dr. Sheila Elworthy
Victoria Cohort
(2005-2008)
Thesis Title: You’ve Got E-Mail: The Impact Of Electronic Communication Technology On Faculty Productivity.
“Having the EdD got me the job interview for my current job!" an ecstatic Sheila Elworthy comments. A former instructor and the Professional Accounting Certificate Program Leader at Camosun College, School of Business in Victoria, Sheila is now adjusting to her new role as Vice-President at the Chartered Accountant School of Business (known as CASB). Hers is a story of a local gone regional. CASB is the professional school for all aspiring Chartered Accountants in the four western provinces, Yukon and Northwest Territories. Once students complete their undergraduate degree, they complete six modules with CASB and then write the Uniform Final Examination (UFE) national exam.
She says that for her current position, the employer was looking for a CA involved in education, preferably with a doctorate. She asserts that, “Going through the Educational Leadership program gave me the confidence to apply for this job and the belief that I could successfully perform at an executive level.” The tenacity to persevere, to dig for information, to delve into the details, while still seeing the bigger picture; are among the qualities she had developed over the course of her study. So when a recruiter suggested that she apply for this position, she felt that she was competent and adept to handle it.
Sheila was enrolled in Victoria Cohort in 2005 and graduated in the Summer of 2008. She readily recommends the program to others, but with a warning; that the research component requires a certain amount of resolve, motivation and commitment in order to ensure completion. For Sheila, however, the greatest challenge was, “To balance life, work and schoolwork for the three-plus years of the program”.
When recounting memorable times in the program, Sheila says the face-to-face sessions with her cohort group and the friends she made through the program. Her most favourite ones were: her Research class and when at convocation, walking across the stage to receive her degree and hearing her kids in the audience yelling "Yeah Mom!"