The Colbert Cohort: A Louisville Family Earns Their Doctorates Together

When Danielle Colbert told her husband she was applying to Spalding University’s Doctor of Education in Leadership (EdD) program, he had one suggestion: tell Nana.

“I said, you know what, you should tell Nana just to see how she reacts,” recalled Brandon Colbert, referring to his grandmother, Kim Colbert. “As soon as Danielle told her, Nana said, ‘Really? Me too.'”

It was the nudge that brought the whole family together. Brandon had long dreamed of earning a doctorate and had once been enrolled in a PhD program before a job relocation required him to leave. When Kim and Danielle enrolled in Spalding’s EdD Leadership Program, the timing finally felt right. He got his acceptance letter the day after the deadline closed.

The Colbert Cohort was born.

All three will cross the stage at Spalding’s commencement ceremony, each earning their doctorate from the same program at the same time.

Rooted in Purpose

Each member of the Colbert Cohort arrived at Spalding with a career already shaped by service.

Kim is a licensed marriage and family therapist who founded KIM Counseling Center. She also works as a clinical therapist at the Home of the Innocents, a Louisville organization serving children with complex behavioral and medical needs.

“I wanted to get my doctorate so that I can continue to educate those who are coming behind me,” Kim said. “Education is the key to the future. Your past does not have to dictate your future.”

Danielle’s path into higher education began with a frustrating experience as a first-generation college student, in which a lack of advising guidance cost her a full year of applicable coursework. Rather than be discouraged, she turned the experience into a calling, going on to earn her master’s degree in adult and higher education. As a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and executive director for academic support at Simmons College of Kentucky, she has dedicated her career to making sure other students don’t face the same obstacles she did.

The EdD felt like a natural next step. “Once my career began to grow and I got different experiences,” Danielle said, “it just began to make more sense.”

Brandon is an organizational culture leader whose work spans education, corporate and nonprofit sectors. A member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., whose cornerstone initiative encourages young people to pursue higher education, he describes the feeling of watching a learner finally grasp a difficult concept as his greatest motivation. “The light behind a student’s eyes when you see something finally click,” he said. “There’s nothing like that feeling.”

Balancing It All

Completing a doctoral program is demanding under any circumstances. Making it work required the Colberts to be deliberate about nearly everything and to lean on each other from the start.

Each week, the three gathered as a cohort to study together, sometimes with a toddler in tow. The sessions were part accountability, part encouragement. “We mapped out study time together at least once a week,” Kim said. “We wanted to get through this program, but we wanted to make sure we got through it well.”

For Brandon and Danielle, the balancing act extended into every corner of daily life. Between full-time jobs, church commitments, and raising a 3-year-old, the couple learned to trade off, with one handling bedtime while the other finished an assignment, then switching the next night.

“We wear many different hats,” Brandon said. “We’re husband and wife, we’re parents, we’re both in school, and we’re both working. Knowing we share the same difficulties and challenges is unique.”

Even amid the busyness, small moments of connection mattered. “It’s interesting because you find that even though you spend all your time together, you still miss each other,” Danielle said. “Just sitting next to each other doing homework and appreciating those moments — that’s been important.”

Carrying Each Other Through

Even with that structure, there were hard moments.

“I don’t think any one of us hasn’t said at some point, ‘I’m about to quit,'” Brandon said. “But the other two have always been there to encourage us, to tell us we’ve got this. That’s what’s gotten us through. The Colbert Cohort was critical to all of our success.”

For Brandon, Kim’s steadiness in this program was no surprise. She had shown up throughout his whole life, at Grandparents Day in elementary school, at mock trial in middle school, at Black Student Union events in high school. “She was always there,” he said. “Always encouraging me and my cousins and my siblings to pursue education.”

But for the Colbert Cohort, the work won’t stop there. Each one plans to carry their doctorate back into the Louisville communities they already serve.

At Spalding, that connection to community is not a coincidence. It’s the point.

Learn more about Spalding University’s EdD in Leadership program and our commitment to developing leaders who serve their communities.