Concluding Comments Analysis of the Wretchedly Written Dissertation of Minneapolis Public Schools Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams

Lisa Sayles-Adams’s dissertation, African American Women Principals: A Phenomenological Study to Explore Their Experiences in K-12 Leadership, should have never been approved by her doctoral committee at Minnesota State University/Mankato.  Natalie Rasmussen (dissertation adviser), Candace Raskin, and Efe Agbamu have much for which they must answer for having approved this abominably written dissertation.

As readers now know, the dissertation is replete with misspelled and misused words, including a rendering of the word, tenet, as “tenant” two times;  presentation of the word, “rein,” as reign;  and the most brain-boggling of all:  the four-times misspelled pseudonym (“Marica” rather than “Marcia) assigned to one of the five interviewees participating in this qualitative study;  Sayles-Adams also once renders another pseudonym, Gwendolyn, as “Gwendoly.” 

Beyond errors impermissible for a competently written, reviewed, and edited dissertation, though, are substantive inadequacies of the Sayles-Adams dissertation:

 The chapters focused on the “Background of the Problem,” “Review of the Literature,” and “Methodology” cover half of the dissertation.  These chapters should have been much briefer, just enough to provide readers with an overview of the literature pertinent to challenges of African American women in positions of leadership and to establish the need for more data and information concerning African American public school principals in particular. 

 Much of Chapter II, “Review of the Literature” presents information on African American history that is well-covered in a bevy of books (obviating the need for the large number of citations that Sayles-Adams gives) and only tangentially related to the immediate topic of focus:  Sayles-Adams discusses the specific role of African American women principals during the Jim Crow era---  and how those roles and challenges changed in the post-Jim Crow era---  lamentably sparsely.

Chapter III, “Methodology,” could also have been much shorter, more concisely discussing the value of qualitative research and oral collections, along with a briefer explanation of Sayles-Adams’s own interview process.  As to her style of interview, Sayles-Adams should have explained why she opted for a virtual rather than physically in-person interview (of the type that that I have always utilized), which provides for more immediacy, nuance, and assessment of visual information.  Also, as I point

out in my “Comments” in the articles of this document, Sayles-Adams fails to follow up with questions the answers to which would have been enormously interesting in understanding more thoroughly the experiences, motivations, and professional goals of her interviewees.

 These failures in methodology as actually utilized results in very slim findings and shallow discussion.  Sayles-Adams gives appearance of using citations, which should be used sparely if at all in the “Findings” and “Discussion” chapters, to pad those already too short chapters.  An enormous opportunity is lost to discover more profoundly the experiences of African American women principals.  Sayles-Adams more often retreats into other authors’ findings as revealed in the literature in referring to the impact of race and gender on the women principals whom she herself interviewed, rather than providing more engaging material from her own interviews, asking follow-up questions, and thereby depending on her own original research to make a substantial contribution to the literature on African American women leaders in general and on African American women school principals specifically.    

The extraordinarily poor quality of Lisa Sayles-Adams’s dissertation makes all the more intriguing the author’s taking the rarely used step of placing the dissertation on “embargoed” status for many months and then taking the nearly unprecedented step of withdrawing her dissertation from public view on the Cornerstone digitalized format.