Donald Orkand (center), president and CEO of The Orkand Corporation, congratulates doctoral students at University of Maryland University College James Malm (left) and Loye Pailen (right) for their $15,000 awards as Orkand Fellows in UMUC’s new doctor of management program. The program is one of only a few nationwide.

(Adelphi, MD) - Two doctor of management students have been named University of Maryland University College’s first Orkand Fellows in a program being touted as "just what the doctors ordered." The new D.M. program at UMUC is considered by many to be more valuable than a typical Ph.D. because of the D.M.’s interdisciplinary approach to management rather than a concentration on one particular area.

Loyce Pailen and James Malm will each receive annual awards for three years, totaling $15,000, thanks to the contribution of $30,000 to the UMUC doctoral program by Donald Orkand, president and CEO, The Orkand Corporation, Falls Church, Va. The students’ selection was based on scholarly works they submitted that were considered exceptional for their relevance, knowledge, style, and mastery of subject matter.

Pailen, a UMUC alumna who earned both her undergraduate and graduate degrees at the university, is a second-year student, specializing in technology and information systems in the doctor of management (D.M.) program. She recently retired from The Washington Post Company as director, information technology after serving there for 28 years. Pailen resides in Beltsville, Md.

Malm, a first-year D.M. student from Woodstock, Md., has been chief administrative officer for continuing education and economic development at The Community College of Baltimore County since 1999. He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from The Pennsylvania State University.

"The Orkand Corporation considers it a privilege to support Loyce and James in their educational pursuits," said Orkand. "These two outstanding fellows are working towards their doctoral degrees at a superb institution."

UMUC’s D.M. program is one of only a few nationwide. It differs from a typical doctoral program because Ph.D. programs focus very strongly on one curriculum of study and do not necessarily emphasize how that function interrelates with others at modern organizations. For that reason, the D.M.’s more applied focus, rather than solely a research-oriented or theoretical one, is slowly making its way into existing doctoral programs, as professors nationwide take a critical look at the Ph.D.’s their universities offer.

According to a national doctoral program survey of 32,000 students nationwide, conducted by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation last year, one common criticism was that those programs provided "little practical training for nonacademic careers."

A similar study, conducted by University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher Chris Golde at 27 universities, said "doctoral education is ‘unnecessarily mysterious,’ with up to two-thirds of students unclear about how their coursework applies."

"It’s unrealistic in today’s job market to get into a doctoral program that would prepare me only for teaching in college," said Pailen, who chose to specialize in technology and information systems for her D.M. program at UMUC. "The doctor of management is a more well-rounded program, and there won’t be any disappointments about opportunities available to me in many fields when I graduate."

Orkand, a member of UMUC's Board of Visitors, founded The Orkand Corporation in 1970 to provide information systems and analytical services to a wide range of public- and private-sector clients from across the United States and overseas. It is an $80 million company with over 1,100 staff members at 34 locations in 20 states and in Washington, DC.

He earned a bachelor of science, an M.B.A., and a doctorate, all in statistics and economics, from New York University.

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