Dr. Samuel Strickland III, Ph.D. in Educational Leadership – Trident University
Video Transcription
My name is Samuel Strickland III. I’m from Raleigh, North Carolina. When I began to look at my career moving forward, I wanted to go higher and in order to go higher in the military, you had to make sure that you were doing your education. It was part of our promotion process. So education was that stepping stone for me.
When I got ready to retire, I had already attained my Master’s degree in Adult Education. At that time I thought about a PhD but I didn’t know where I wanted to go. After looking at many different colleges for distant learning, Trident University became the college that looked the best fit for me.
And once I began the application process and was accepted to the program, the many Professors that I had made it even more apparent that this was the right place for me. One of my most favorite Professors was with Dr. Wenling Li. Dr. Wenling Li had a very profound effect on me because she was a person that always inspired me to go higher and do more as I went through my Doctoral program.
And there was a time in my life as I went through my Doctoral program, that I had a major battle with cancer. And for a two year period or more I had to deal with recovering from that, and at times I wanted to give up, but I always returned to Dr. Li who inspired me to continue with this process.
And I don’t believe that without Dr. Li as a person who could inspire me to keep going with my program that I would have given up. Having the type of cancer that I had and the surgery that I had caused many things. It affects my memory, it affects the way that I go about doing work today.
I believe that Dr. Li understood that as we talked about the different things that went on with with me trying to continue my dissertation. I didn’t really want to tell her at the time that I was thinking about giving up the program. And so we had another discussion and I decided that you know what? I’ve gone this far so far Trident has been very good to me and given me opportunities to continue my program.
And with that type of support from Dr. Li and others who saw that I had concerns about my degree, they knew that I was pushing hard to try to finish it. And I really thank her for continuing to just bear with me to go through the process helping me to recall things when I needed to recall things, helping me to reshape the paper that I fought so hard to try to make sure was right.
And without her, without her help, without your help Dr. Li I don’t think I could have finished. >> [LAUGH] >> She stuck with me and her goal was to help me finish and when I signed up at TUI, that was what I read, that’s what I was most impressed by. Was the support you got from the people who were taking you through the education program, and Dr.
Li has been that person that has helped me sustain the process. As long as Trident has these type of individuals in their academic court, Trident will be a very very good college going forward. It will be a college that I’d definitely recommend, I’ve already recommended it to a number of my colleagues.
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About Trident University
Founded in 1998, Trident University International (Trident) is a leading online post-secondary university serving adult learners. Trident developed the Trident Learning Model, which employs case-based learning in an online setting to teach real-world relevant critical thinking skills to enhance student’s lives and careers. Trident offers high-quality bachelors, masters, and doctoral degree programs, led by a qualified faculty team, over 80% of whom have doctoral degrees. Visit www.trident.edu, Trident’s Facebook page, or call at to learn more about Trident’s wide range of program offerings.
