Fielding Graduate University is a private university in Santa Barbara, California. It offers postgraduate and doctoral studies mainly in psychology, education, and organizational studies, primarily through distance education programs. Fielding Graduate University was founded in 1974 by Frederic M. Hudson, Hallock Hoffman, and Renata Tesch. They designed Fielding as a graduate program for mid-career professionals who were not being served by traditional universities.
Academics
The university offers graduate programs for adult professionals seeking master's and doctoral degrees. It offers degree and certificate programs through the School of Psychology and School of Leadership Studies. The programs include online learning, individual faculty-student mentoring and assessment, and in-person events of various types in many locations throughout the year. The professions targeted include clinical psychology, media psychology, educational leadership, organizational leadership, and human development, within the corporate, nonprofit, and public sectors. Fielding was the first university to offer a Ph.D program in media psychology. Fielding's learning model implements a student learning plan, contract-based learning, competency-based assessment, student-to-student peer feedback, project and portfolio reviews, and final thesis or dissertation. The school's website says that its "distributed learning model" combines "in-person" and "remote" participation. , its School of Leadership offers "accelerated" Ph.D. degrees that can be earned in as little as three years, and its School of Psychology offers a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology that can be earned in five or six years.
Accreditation
Fielding Graduate University is a 501 nonprofit organization accredited by the WASCSenior College and University Commission.
Reputation
Fielding Graduate University was selected as a member of the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate, a collaboration of 87 institutions focused on redesigning doctorate in education programs. It also was one of 240 schools selected for the 2015 Community Engagement Classification from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The university has been named one of the Top 100 Graduate Degree Producers for Minorities by Diverse Issues in Higher Education magazine.
