Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools superintendent defends dissertation, criticizes reporting
On Friday, Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Superintendent Nyah Hamlett posted this message on the district’s website in response to a News & Observer reporter’s questions about attribution errors in her PhD dissertation. The bolded text matches what is bolded online.
Dear CHCCS students, families and staff,
This is not a typical Community Update, and I would be grateful if you read all the way to the end.
I hope that you had a wonderful Winter Break and enjoyed time with family and friends. As some of you may be aware, on January 1, I celebrated my two-year anniversary as your superintendent. For these past two years, in my weekly updates I have typically shared the wonderful things happening in our schools with a touch of personal vulnerability in an effort to provide our community with some insight into the life and perspective of your superintendent.
This week, I’d like to be as open and transparent as possible on a topic that reminds me being in public leadership requires perfection (and undue scrutiny and judgment), sometimes at the expense of the progress and grace that I often encourage our community to extend to self and others. I only hope that I can model what I expect of our community, display the capacity to adjust, and take the Michelle Obama approach … “When they go low, we go high.”
In late November, a local news reporter with an anonymous source unexpectedly contacted me. The reporter asked questions related to citations in the doctoral dissertation that I completed in 2018 at The College of William & Mary, one of the oldest and most prestigious institutions of higher education in the country. Even though I knew my dissertation underwent a rigorous review process, including multiple reviews by graduate readers and the SafeAssign software, the reporter’s questions prompted me to go back through my work. In doing so, it was clear that the sourcing and citations provided proper credit and accurately reflected the research that contributed to my final product. However, the placement of some citations and some word choices to summarize or synthesize information could’ve been done differently, and I acknowledged that to the reporter.
I do not know why or how this topic may be represented in a local news article, but however a story may read, I felt an obligation that you first hear about this directly from me instead of anyone else. I want each of you to know that I maintain my commitment to transparency with and accountability to our Chapel Hill-Carrboro community. Rest assured, I continue to believe in authentic, relational and transparent leadership.
No one has higher standards for myself than I do, and it means the world to have the continued support of those who encouraged and challenged me during the years of research that were invested in this body of work. I stand by my work and William & Mary’s process. The Dean of the School of Education at The College of William & Mary supports my work and the multi-layered review process that it went through, as does my dissertation chair, who also responded to an inquiry from this same reporter. Furthermore, our Board of Education Chair participated in an interview with the reporter just this morning. I appreciate her taking time out of her busy schedule, and I am so thankful for the Board’s full support. It has also been brought to my attention that the reporter has reached out to a number of people who do not know me or my work, requesting that they too contribute to this line of questioning.
I realize that no dissertation, article, or book is free from errors, so I am in the process of having my dissertation reviewed once more for my own peace of mind. In my line of work, people’s words and actions can be hurtful and frustrating, but I will be unbothered, which simply means that I am being reflective and resilient. As your superintendent, I will continue to think strategically while remaining professional and calm in the midst of seemingly tumultuous times. As individuals and as a community, being resilient has to be our superpower. It starts with genuine humility and a desire to model the way and roll up our sleeves to make this community better each day. My title, accolades, credentials, years of experience and degrees only matter on my resume.
The way that I interact with each of you to solve problems of practice is far more important than what an article might say. And with that, I’ll leave you with this quote attributed to Kemi Sogunle:
“Without making mistakes, there won’t be lessons learned. Without getting hurt, there won’t be knowledge gained. The only way we grow is by learning from the past. Always be willing to learn and grow daily. It’s how we come to know who we are and what we are made of.”
Now let’s get back to living out the core values (Engagement, Joy, Wellness, Social Justice Action, and Collective Efficacy) of our Strategic Plan in service to the children of Chapel Hill and Carrboro.
Sincerely,
Nyah D. Hamlett, Ed. D.
Superintendent
This story was originally published January 11, 2023 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools superintendent defends dissertation, criticizes reporting."