Penn College News

English Faculty Member at Penn College Earns Doctorate

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Bruce A. Wehler, instructor of English composition at Pennsylvania College of Technology, recently earned his doctorate of education in adult education from Penn State.

Wehler successfully defended his dissertation, titled “Until All the Pieces Fit: A Hermeneutic Phenomenology of the Informal Learning of Selected Foster Parents in Northeastern Pennsylvania.”



Bruce A. Wehler“Approximately 500,000 children are in foster care in the United States on any given day,” Wehler said. “In Pennsylvania alone, over 12,000 foster parents care for over 20,000 foster children. There is a formalized training process that foster parents go through to become certified, but the research for my dissertation indicates that foster parents learn informally from other foster parents and from their foster children to really learn how to be effective foster parents.”

A native of Williamsport, Wehler has been a full-time faculty member at Penn College for six years. Previously, he taught at the college as an adjunct instructor for 19 years. In 2007, he received the college’s Distinguished Teaching Award for Part-time Teaching Excellence.

His academic experience includes 15 years of teaching English and special education in the Loyalsock Township School District.

Wehler holds a Master of Science in special education/exceptionalities from Bloomsburg University, a Master of Divinity in theology and counseling from Eastern Baptist Seminary, and a Bachelor of Arts in English and religion from Lycoming College.

To learn more about communication and literature courses offered by Penn College’s School of Sciences, Humanities & Visual Communications, visit the school's website.

Penn College is celebrating 100 years as an educational institution of national reputation throughout 2014. For more information, email the Admissions Office or call toll-free 800-367-9222.