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Doctor Van Amburgh Now!
By Argosy University Staff While other doctoral students are working in the library or on their computers at home, Lt. Col. Peter VanAmburgh was completing the final statistical analysis for his doctoral dissertation in a destroyed building at the Baghdad airport in Iraq. Earning an advanced degree and maintaining a full time job can be a daunting task for anyone. But for Peter C. VanAmburgh, the decision to complete a doctoral dissertation in education from Argosy University/Sarasota, while being stationed in the deserts of Iraq, was perhaps the biggest feat of all in fulfilling one student’s desire for a higher education. VanAmburgh is a Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) with the Georgia Army National Guard whose National Guard Unit was mobilized to the war in Iraq in February 2004. Argosy University offers the Doctorate of Education (Ed.D.) program in an accelerated format, giving students the option for students to complete coursework online, in the classroom, or a hybrid of both methods. For LTC VanAmburgh, this flexibility became a critical factor in allowing him to continue his studies. At the time of LTC VanAmburgh’s combat deployment, he was in the dissertation phase of his doctoral studies. When his unit was called up, LTC VanAmburgh’s explains, “I loaded all my data and dissertation items on my unclassified laptop in the event that I was to find some time while engaged to finish the project and not fall too far behind.” He credits Argosy’s flexible doctoral committee with allowing him the opportunity to finish his degree in a rather unorthodox fashion. Says Dr. Celia Edmundson, department head of the Organizational Leadership program in the School of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences at Argosy University/Sarasota, “as educators, our priority is helping our students achieve their academic goals. In this case, we were more than happy to accommodate Peter’s desire to complete his degree under what had to be challenging, if not often frightening circumstances.” “Peter has shown, as a student and as a leader, that life is to be lived with dedication, integrity and courage.” According to LTC VanAmburgh, he chose his course of study, Organizational Leadership (OL), because “I have been able to apply the lessons to the challenges of Army transformation, for example, building the objective force for CI/Human Intelligence forces of the future, teaching ROTC students, commanding battalion-level organizations, and organizing and directing combat operations.” From March to August 2004, LTC VanAmburgh moved frequently between Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. LTC VanAmburgh describes this as a chaotic time, where he and his team were responsible for a wide variety of intelligence operations. As for the challenges of concentrating on writing a dissertation on a laptop while traveling regularly in military vehicles to and from different locations, LTC VanAmburgh jokes that his fellow soldiers often looked at him with “shock and awe.” Now that Captain LTC VanAmburgh (who was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his contributions to CI and security missions throughout the combat zones of Iraq and Afghanistan), is home in Roswell, Georgia with his wife and two daughters, he’s had more time to reflect on his experience in Iraq. He describes a “high sense of personal and professional accomplishment” among his fellow soldiers for the role they played in the liberation of Iraq. “It was incredible to witness the poverty imposed upon some classes of Iraqi people while others lived in lavish palaces.” |
ARGOSY UNIVERSITY/SARASOTA