Health Policy and Management

Campus Visits
Each cohort of students will come to Chapel Hill or an alternate designated site for three to four days at the beginning of their studies (August), between the fall and spring semesters (early January), and between the spring and summer semesters (May). Otherwise, all learning will take place in the student's home or office.

Students will begin their studies with four days on campus during which they will be oriented to the program, the Department, and the University. They will also be provided a series of special sessions on leadership, ethics, and cultural competence, and they will participate in group discussions with top health care and public health leaders. They will also be introduced to the remainder of the first semester curriculum.

Students will come back to Chapel Hill between each semester to conclude work on the preceding semester and begin work on the next semester's curriculum. The process will be repeated throughout the first two years of the curriculum.

In lieu of campus visits, the program may at times elect to meet at other sites, including sites within or outside the U.S., where we may take advantage of additional opportunities for leadership development.  

Pace of Program
All students will move through the curriculum at the same pace. Every course in the first two years is required of every student. Some students will no doubt be expert at some elements of the curriculum, but will still be required to take those elements. We want students to share their expertise with the others in the cohort. We believe active interaction among students is an important part of good adult learning.

The focus in the third year is on writing the dissertation, although students will be free to take a maximum of two electives. We anticipate that the workloads for each course will be similar, although some variation will occur. On average, each credit hour will require about 40 hours of student time. Therefore, students will spend approximately 240 hours on school work per semester. While demanding, this amount of work (16 hours per week) is reasonable for people working full-time.

For more details, see our Curriculum Plan.

Online Access
Students will connect to the faculty and their peers mainly via their computers. As a result, they will not need to go to distance education sites, such as videoconference centers, to participate in the program.

PLEASE NOTE: Students must have a high-speed (DSL or cable) connection to the Internet. Dial-up connections will not work with the Department's technology.

Students will receive material (recorded videos, narrative case studies, datasets, readings, etc.) via the Web each week. They will study these materials on their own time but must have completed these tasks before the weekly late afternoon/evening sessions when they convene live via our Internet video technology. These three-hour synchronous learning sessions will be divided into components of the curriculum and led by faculty members and/or guest speakers responsible for each component.

Conflict of Interest Policy
The Doctoral Program in Health Leadership is guided by policies designed to avoid real or perceived conflicts of interest associated with financial support from corporate or other sponsors.

Our program policies are aligned with the University's conflict of interest policy.

In addition: All sponsors are publicly acknowledged on the DrPH web site.
Sponsors have no involvement in the development of program curricula.

We accept no conditions from sponsors for how unrestricted funds are spent. Funds earmarked for specific purposes, such as program technology or student scholarships, adhere to all applicable University policies.

The DrPH Advisory Committee discusses proposed external funding relationships and monitors existing ones to ensure avoidance of real or perceived conflicts of interest.

Graduation Requirements
Graduation requirements for the Executive Doctoral Program in Health Leadership (DrPH) at the University of North Carolina include the successful completion of the following:

• All courses and course work
• All comprehensive exams
• The dissertation, including a formal defense