Short Biography
Courses Taught
Research Interests
Publications
Research Projects
"Tips" for Working with Sork
Introduction to Program Planning

Short Biography

Tom Sork was born in Orange, California on January 13, 1948. He grew up on a farm and lived in Huntington Beach until the age of 14 when his family moved to Dixon, California where he attended high school, graduating in 1966. He attended Colorado State University where he received a B.Sc. in Agriculture (Animal Sciences) in 1970. Upon graduation he began work as a conference coordinator in CSU's Office of Conferences and Institutes, his first professional work experience as an adult educator. While working there he began a part-time masters program in adult and continuing education and graduated with an MEd in 1973. From 1973-1975 he completed coursework toward the PhD in adult education at Florida State University during which he was an intern with FSU's Division of Continuing Education. From 1975-1977 he served as Assistant Director of Continuing Education at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. During this time he also completed his doctoral thesis, graduating in 1978. His first full-time academic appointment was in the Department of Adult and Continuing Education at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln where he worked until 1981 when he accepted a position in the adult education program at the University of British Columbia where he currently teaches. His research and teaching focus on educational planning and professional ethics in adult education. His hobbies include various outdoor pursuits, photography and genealogy.

He was at Disneyland the day it opened, was in Miss Rosemary Vineys Spanish class the day Kennedy was shot, once knew a person on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List (it was the 1960s after all!), and drew "lucky" number 318 in the Selective Service Draft of 1970.

Courses Taught

*Note: individual course descriptions may be under construction.

ADHE 329, Planning Short Courses, Workshops and Seminars

ADHE 510, Research Traditions in Adult Education

ADHE 514, Adult Education Program Planning Theory

ADHE 515, Adult Education Program Planning Practice

ADHE 565, Continuing Education in the Professions

EDST 533, Planning in Educational Organizations

EDST 596A, Ethics in Educational Leadership

EDST 601, First Year Doctoral Seminar (PhD)

EDST 602, Second Year Doctoral Seminar (PhD)

EDST 602, Second Year Doctoral Seminar (EdD)

Research Interests

Program Planning and Evaluation
Continuing Professional Education
Planning in Educational Organizations
Resource Allocation Processes
Professional Ethics

Publications

Download Tom Sork's publications record.

Research Projects

Ethics in the Curriculum: A Study of Ethical Principles and Moral Imperatives Embedded in the Curricula of Adult Education Graduate Programs"

This project is funded by a grant from the Hampton Research Fund at UBC and involves surveys and interviews of adult education faculty members in Canada, the US, the UK and Australia to determine the implicit and explicit moral/ethical content of the curriculum.

For further information about this project, contact tom.sork@ubc.ca.

"Tips" for Working with Sork

Please refer to this link for "a set of notes ... intended for use by students who have asked me -- or plan to ask me -- to either chair or serve on their graduating paper, thesis or dissertation supervisory committee".

Introduction to Program Planning

Please refer to this link for a PowerPoint presentation about program planning.