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What’s really behind the flap over jill biden’s doctorate.

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It's unfair to attack Jill Biden for using the honorific "Dr.," but there is reason to criticize the ... [+] field of education for a general lack of attention to science. (Photo by DNCC via Getty Images) (Photo by Handout/DNCC via Getty Images)

Criticism of Jill Biden for using the honorific “Dr.” has been snide and unfair, but it isn’t just misogyny. It also reflects longstanding disdain for the discipline in which Biden earned her doctorate: education.

A recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal took the prospective first lady to task for preferring to be addressed as “Dr.” The op-ed has been roundly criticized , primarily for being—as one letter to the editor with 330 signatures put it—“outrageously sexist.”

To be sure, the op-ed was patronizing in a way that makes it hard to imagine it having been written about a man. The author, Joseph Epstein—an 83-year-old who has long reveled in political incorrectness, including swipes at feminism—addressed Biden as “kiddo.” It’s unlikely he would have used that term in connection with, say, future “second gentleman” Doug Emhoff . But the overall thrust of the piece was not so much anti-female as anti what Epstein sees as academic pretentiousness.

According to Epstein, only medical doctors should be addressed as “Dr.” (He’s not alone: standard AP Style urges caution about using “Dr.” for those with non-medical doctorates, to avoid confusion.) Maybe things were different in the old days, Epstein writes, when oral exams were so rigorous that “a secretary sat outside the room” with “a pitcher of water and a glass” in case the doctoral candidate fainted. Even now, he suggests, people with doctorates in the hard sciences—physics, chemistry, and the like—are entitled to use “Dr.,” but not those in the humanities and social sciences. And he notes that Biden’s doctorate is merely an Ed.D—a doctorate in education, not a Ph.D.—obtained via a dissertation with what he calls an “unpromising” title: “Student Retention at the Community College: Meeting Students’ Needs.”

Given the high dropout rate in community colleges, it’s not clear why such a title is “unpromising.” More likely, Epstein assumed that Biden’s research was lacking in rigor. That assumption has been made explicit—and nastier—by right-wing commentators. One has called the Ed.D. “something of a joke in the academic world,” and a degree that “only deeply unimpressive people feel confers the honorific of ‘Doctor.’” They have combed Biden’s dissertation for typos and errors, declaring it “barely fit for a middle-school Social Studies classroom” and of a quality that “wouldn’t be tolerated in a high-school paper.”

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These attacks are hugely unfair. Biden’s dissertation is 137 pages long, with 80 pages of text plus references and appendices. It’s based not only on her reading of academic sources but also on surveys she designed and administered to community college students, faculty, and guidance counselors and interviews she conducted. It has some sound, specific recommendations—for example, to teach writing in all classes, not just English. Yes, there are typos and a few infelicitous phrases, but compared to a lot of academic writing, it’s admirably clear.

At the same time, the dissertation—also referred to as an “executive position paper”—is not particularly scientific. It doesn’t present a hypothesis that can be proven or disproven, it wasn’t designed in a way that makes it possible for others to test out its conclusions by replicating it, and it certainly wasn’t a randomized controlled trial —an experiment in which one group is given a “treatment” (e.g., writing instruction in all classes) that another similar group didn’t get.

But that’s not an argument against the validity of Biden’s research in particular. It reflects a general difference between standards for research in education and those found in other fields—including some of the “softer” sciences like psychology—that adhere to what is called the scientific method .

Research in education has generally differed from that in other academic areas, partly because many professors of education have valued ideology as much as evidence—or sometimes more. Professors of education have been heard to dismiss the mountain of evidence in support of teaching phonics as “your science, not my science,” as though science were a belief system.

It doesn’t help that schools of education are largely cut off from —and often scorned by —the rest of academia. In recent decades, there have been significant advances in the science of learning, but prospective teachers don’t become acquainted with them during their training. Research professors at schools of education may be familiar with those findings, but the instructors who train teachers are generally unaware of them —and certainly aren’t incorporating them into their research.

There’s surely a place for the kind of research reflected in Biden’s dissertation—case studies rather than large-scale experiments—but it’s distressing that education research, and teacher training in general, isn’t more grounded in science. If it were, it could make K-12 teachers’ jobs a lot easier—and Biden’s job as a community college English instructor easier as well.

One of the recurring themes in Biden’s dissertation is that students arrive in college unprepared for college-level work. In addition to devoting more attention to writing, she calls for a “study skills program” that might focus on things like test-taking and “finding the main idea.” But one reason so many college students arrive unprepared is the assumption in K-12 schools that these kinds of “skills” are what education should prioritize over specific knowledge. Relying on their training, teachers are likely to believe that teachers should avoid explicit instruction as much as possible, and that there’s no point in ensuring students learn facts when they can just Google them. Both of these assumptions are contradicted by scientific evidence .

Rather than being derided for claiming an honorific she spent 15 years earning, Jill Biden should be celebrated for her dedication to some of our neediest students. She should be applauded for returning to teaching English at Northern Virginia Community College even after she becomes first lady. And instead of wasting any more energy debating whether she should be addressed as “Dr.,” let’s focus on what we can do to make teaching easier for teachers like her—and learning easier for students.

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When her husband became president of the United States on January 20, 2021, Dr. Jill Biden became the nation’s First Lady. Through Joe Biden’s long political career, Dr. Biden maintained her own career as an English professor teaching primarily in community colleges. The Bidens stood out in the Washington political world for their more-than-40-year marriage and their devotion to family. 

Jill Tracy Jacobs was born on June 3, 1951, in Hammonton, New Jersey, and grew up in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. She was the eldest of five sisters. Her father served in World War II and then became a banker. She graduated from Upper Moreland High School in 1969. 

Jill married Bill Stevenson in 1970, and they divorced in 1975, the same year that she graduated from the University of Delaware with a bachelor’s degree in English. She later earned two master’s degrees: one in reading from West Chester University in 1981 and another in English from Villanova University in 1987. In 2007, she received her PhD from the University of Delaware in educational leadership. Her dissertation was titled, “Student Retention at the Community College: Meeting Students' Needs.”

Jill met Joe Biden in 1975, three years after a car crash killed his first wife and daughter and injured his sons, Beau and Hunter. Joe’s brother introduced them, and although Joe was nearly nine years older than Jill, they hit it off. In his memoir, Promises to Keep , Biden noted that Jill embraced the Biden family, and Beau and Hunter adored her, prompting the boys to advise their father: “We think we should marry Jill.” They were married on June 17, 1977, at the United Nations Chapel in New York City with Beau and Hunter standing with them at the altar. Their daughter Ashley was born in 1981. 

A life-long educator, Jill Biden began her teaching career in public high schools in Delaware then worked at the Delaware Technical and Community College from 1993 to 2008. She was able to continue teaching in Delaware while her husband served in the Senate because he returned home most evenings to Delaware from Washington, DC. 

When Joe Biden became vice president to President Barack Obama, the Bidens moved to the district. In 2009, Jill Biden began teaching English at the Northern Virginia Community College. She was the first second lady (wife of the vice president) to continue working while her husband was in office. She pledged to continue teaching while First Lady.  

As second lady, Jill focused much of her time and energy on causes important to her, including raising money and awareness for cancer research, advocating for community colleges, and supporting military families. Together with Michelle Obama, Jill Biden started the Joining Forces initiative to support service members, veterans, and their families. 

After the death of Beau Biden in 2015 of brain cancer, Joe Biden announced that he would not run for president in 2016. The Bidens created the Biden Foundation and the Biden Cancer Initiative, but both organizations suspended operations after Joe Biden announced in 2019 that he would run for president. 

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Jill campaigned for her husband and served as one of his closest advisors. The Democratic National Convention in August 2020 was a mostly virtual event because of the coronavirus pandemic and was structured to appeal to voters watching on television at home. Jill spoke from an empty classroom at Brandywine High School, where she had once taught. In her speech, she focused on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on education and highlighted her devotion to her family through its personal tragedies and successes. 

Dr. Biden is the author of three books: Don’t Forget, God Bless Our Troops (2012), Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself (2019), and Joey: The Story of Joe Biden (2020). 

Steven Levingston

Editor The Washington Post

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Essay by Dr. Jill Biden in The Chronicle of Higher Education

The following essay penned by Dr. Jill Biden will be featured in the April 23 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, and can be found online HERE .

Community Colleges: Our Work Has Just Begun Jill Biden

I have been a teacher for almost three decades and a community-college instructor for the past 16 years. Last spring, President Obama asked me to increase awareness about one of the best-kept secrets of higher education: the very sizable and valuable contribution of community colleges. Since then I have been visiting colleges around the country and reporting back to the president about their challenges, innovations, and ideas. This issue is a priority for the Obama-Biden administration. We are committed to making community colleges better and more accessible to students across this nation.

The passage of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 was a substantial victory for community colleges. The final legislation does not contain everything our administration had proposed, but it does include one of the most significant new federal investments in higher education, and in community colleges, since the GI Bill was introduced, over 60 years ago.

Pell Grants had been threatened with a 60-percent funding decrease, but we stabilized the Pell program and ensured that such grants would increase with inflation. The Pell Grant victory will put money in the pockets of millions of full- and part-time community-college students, helping them pay for tuition, books, supplies, and living expenses. This increase in financial aid is coupled with the recently expanded Opportunity Tax Credit, which provides students a tax credit of up to $2,500 per year for up to four years to offset higher-education expenses, including a partial credit for those who owe no taxes. It also sets up income-based repayment of student loans, capping loan repayments at rates based on income and family size. As a lifelong teacher, I am particularly pleased that income-based repayment helps those who choose public-service careers. Graduates who work as teachers, nurses, or in other public-service professions—and those who serve in the military—can have their loans forgiven after 10 years.

The reconciliation bill also sets aside $2-billion ($500-million per year over four years) to develop and improve educational and training programs at community colleges. Throughout the nation, community colleges will receive funds to help them serve students more effectively, and to help form partnerships with regional industry clusters so that graduates will be prepared to excel in the local work force.

This administration's commitment to community colleges is a long-term one. The president has asked me to convene a national summit on community colleges in the fall. We will bring college presidents, instructors, and advocates together with business leaders and other stakeholders to share best practices and successful models for helping students gain the knowledge, training, certificates, and degrees needed to succeed. This will be a working summit, a setting where we can shine a spotlight on community colleges, highlight their utility to families and communities across the nation, nurture more collaboration, and generate additional policy ideas and goals for student success. As a community-college instructor, I am thrilled to be leading this summit and truly pleased to have the support of the administration.

Over the past 16 years, I have seen firsthand the power of community colleges to change lives. And that is, in large part, why I never really considered the possibility of not teaching at a community college after we moved to Washington last year. Since then I have been privileged to teach students from more than 22 countries.

As an English teacher, I frequently use journals and exercises in our school's learning lab as a tool for my students to develop their writing and composition skills. One exercise that is always productive is to encourage my students to write about their core beliefs as inspired by National Public Radio's This I Believe program. In these sessions, students listen to radio segments as examples—and then I encourage them to write about their own core beliefs. I am constantly moved and humbled by the experiences my students share in this exercise and in their journals about their dreams, challenges, and values.

Each one of them has a story to tell—stories about dedication and sacrifice.

Every day, I see my students work hard to overcome obstacles just to be in the classroom. Many of them work full time, have aging parents in need of care and attention, or are parents themselves. Often they contend with difficult economic realities. They are eager to learn, and many of them are the first members of their families to attend college. They persevere because they understand that getting an education will change their lives for the better. It will improve their job prospects and enrich their understanding of the world around them.

Community colleges can also serve as a gateway from a high-school diploma to a baccalaureate degree. They offer an affordable option for middle-class high-school students who want to attend a four-year college but cannot afford the tuition. The numbers tell the story: The average cost of tuition at a private four-year university is over $26,000 for the current academic year. At public four-year universities, the average is $7,000. Community-college tuition averages $2,500, presenting a far more affordable way to complete the first two years of a college education, especially when the credits earned on a community-college campus can often be transferred directly into four-year programs. It is not a coincidence that community colleges educate over 40 percent of all postsecondary students nationally.

For laid-off workers, community colleges offer job-certification programs that teach new skills and professions. Most people would be surprised to look at the catalog of an average community college today—they would find course work in a range of emerging health-care industries, training in cutting-edge technologies, offerings in architecture and green-building techniques, and classes in highly marketable job fields. For an immigrant or first-generation American, community college is often the place to begin a postsecondary education.

All of us have the opportunity to match the dedication of community-college students with a renewed commitment to ensuring their success. By working together, we can maximize the return on the new federal investment in students through Pell Grants, and in community colleges themselves, by modernizing the way classes are offered, ensuring easy transfer to four-year schools, and supporting other strategies for student success.

We know that education is the key to unlocking human potential. And we know that today, on community-college campuses across this country, millions of students are eager to build a more secure future for themselves, their families, and our country. We cannot—and we will not—let them down. As a member of the education community, I ask for your continued partnership in the months and years ahead as we continue to build support for community colleges and work to improve their offerings and outcomes. This is the moment for community colleges. Our work has just begun.

Jill Biden, a lifelong educator with a doctorate in education from the University of Delaware, teaches English at Northern Virginia Community College.

Jill Biden, Essay by Dr. Jill Biden in The Chronicle of Higher Education Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/351534

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Jill Biden’s Doctorate Is Garbage Because Her Dissertation Is Garbage

You can tell someone is smarting from an inferiority complex when he insists on being addressed as “Dr.” on the basis of holding an academic doctorate rather than being a physician. Ph.D. holders who have genuine accomplishments don’t make you call them “Doctor,” which is why you never hear about “Dr. Paul Krugman” and “Dr. George Will.” None of the professors I knew at Yale, even the ones who were eminent in their fields, insisted on the title, and I think most of them would have scoffed if someone had addressed them as “Dr.” The only reason you ever hear the phrase “Dr. Henry Kissinger” is that Kissy grew up in title-mad, airs-and-graces Germany, where people are awed rather than dismissive even if you insist on a triple-serving title (“Herr Professor Doktor”).

Insisting on being called “Doctor” when you don’t heal people is, among most holders of doctorates, seen as a gauche, silly, cringey ego trip. Consider “Dr.” Jill Biden, who doesn’t even hold a Ph.D. but rather a lesser Ed.D., something of a joke in the academic world. President-elect Joe Biden once explained that his wife sought the degree purely for status reasons: “She said, ‘I was so sick of the mail coming to Sen. and Mrs. Biden. I wanted to get mail addressed to Dr. and Sen. Biden.’ That’s the real reason she got her doctorate,” Joe Biden has said .

Mrs. Biden wanted the credential for its own sake. As for its quality, well. She got it from the University of Delaware, whose ties to her husband, its most illustrious alumnus if you don’t count Joe Flacco, run so deep that it has a school of public policy named after him. That the University of Delaware would have rejected her 2006 dissertation as sloppy, poorly written, non-academic, and barely fit for a middle-school Social Studies classroom (all of which it is) when her husband had been representing its state in the U.S. Senate for more than three decades was about as likely as Tom Hagen telling Vito Corleone that his wife is a fat sow on payday. The only risk to the University of Delaware was that it might strain its collective wrist in its rush to rubber-stamp her doctoral paper. Mrs. Biden could have turned in a quarter-a**ed excuse for a magazine article written at the level of Simple English Wikipedia and been heartily congratulated by the university for her towering mastery. Which is exactly what happened.

Jill Biden’s dissertation is not an addition to the sum total of human knowledge. It is not a demonstration of expertise in its specific topic or its broad field. It is a gasping, wheezing, frail little Disney forest creature that begs you to notice the effort it makes to be the thing it is imitating while failing so pathetically that any witnesses to its ineptitude must feel compelled, out of manners alone, to drag it to the nearest podium and give it a participation trophy. Which is more or less what an Ed.D. is. It’s a degree that only deeply unimpressive people feel confers the honorific of “Doctor.” People who are actually smart understand that being in possession of a credential is no proof of intelligence.

My friends, I have read this document in its entirety and it is so equally lacking in rhetorical force, boldness of conception, and original research that it amounts to a triple null set, a vacuum inside a blank inside an abyss. If Ingmar Bergman were alive and hired to make a film about this paper, he would say, “I can’t do it, there’s so much emptiness even I cannot grasp it,” and it would sound so much worse in Swedish that suicide hotlines would have to hire extra staff. Gene Simmons has a better claim to be a Doctor of Love than Jill Biden to be a Doctor of Education; after all, Simmons has spent a lifetime demonstrating mastery of his field. As for Biden, she has spent a lot of time teaching remedial English to slow learners in community colleges. Which is like being a rock musician who’s in a bar band. That plays covers. At mixers. Held in assisted-living facilities. Mrs. Biden’s dissertation emits so much noxious methane the EPA should regulate it, Greta Thunberg should denounce it, and Hollywood celebrities should hold a telethon to draw awareness to its dangers.

As Joe Biden has frankly noted, Mrs. Biden sought the Dr. honorific to rebuild her amour propre . Much of the press plays along, addressing Jill Biden as “Dr. Biden” even when actual medical doctors are referred to without the honorific if they are not currently practicing. Eminent pediatric neurosurgeon and HUD secretary Ben Carson is now “Mr. Carson” to the New York Times , but the same paper refers to Mrs. Biden as “Dr. Biden.” This practice appears to contradict the Times ’ style guide, which explains that the “Dr.” title is used for non-physicians “only if it is germane to the holder’s primary current occupation (academic, for example, or laboratory research).”

Mrs. Biden until recently taught English composition at NoVa, a small community college in Northern Virginia. To justify addressing her as “Dr.” would require a generous view of what constitutes an “academic,” and judging by the writing skills evinced by her students (“She very bad teacher and it is hard to pass class. I RECOMMEND NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR”), they emerged from her tutelage lacking mastery of even very basic grammar. As for the contents of the dissertation, which she cobbled together from a few secondary sources and some vapid interviews and questionnaires she sent around at the campus where she worked before her husband became vice president, Delaware Technical Community College, I’ll go over them in detail in my next column .

More from National Review

Joseph Epstein Is Right about the ‘Dr.’ Problem

Doctor Jill Biden

Jill Biden’s Garbage Dissertation, Explained

Hi, I’m Jill. Jill Biden. But please, call me Dr. Biden

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Vice President Joe Biden often joked on the campaign trail about his wife’s lofty educational achievements. She had two master’s degrees and had already worked for nearly a quarter-century as a college community instructor. But he had a better idea.

“Why don’t you go out and get a doctorate and make us some real money?” he said he told her. (That was always good for a laugh, especially in university towns.)

In 2007, at 55, Jill Biden did earn a doctorate -- in education, from the University of Delaware. Since then, in campaign news releases and now in White House announcements, she is “Dr. Jill Biden.” This strikes some people as perfectly appropriate and others as slightly pompous, a quality often ascribed to her voluble husband.

Last week, the White House announced that Jill Biden had returned to the classroom -- thought by some who study the presidency and vice presidency to be a historical first. She is teaching two courses at Northern Virginia Community College, the second-largest community college in the U.S. She began her new job before last month’s inauguration; the announcement was delayed out of respect for that event.

“She’s just really excited to be back in the classroom,” said Courtney O’Donnell, her spokeswoman. “Teaching is such a huge passion and a joy for her.”

Some second ladies, as vice presidents’ wives are called, have been accomplished professionals. Marilyn Quayle is a lawyer, but she did not practice while her husband, Dan, was in office. Lynne Cheney, Jill Biden’s immediate predecessor, is a novelist who earned a doctorate in English with a dissertation titled “Matthew Arnold’s Possible Perfection: A Study of the Kantian Strain in Arnold’s Poetry.” She goes by Mrs. Cheney.

But Biden is thought to be the first second lady to hold a paying job while her husband is in office.

“I think she is unique,” said Joel Goldstein, a professor at St. Louis University School of Law and an expert on the vice presidency. Other second ladies -- Cheney, Quayle, Tipper Gore and Joan Mondale -- wrote, lectured or did important volunteer work.

“But I think Dr. Biden is the first . . . to basically continue in the regular workforce,” said Goldstein, who has a DPhil (the English term for doctor of philosophy) from Oxford and a JD (juris doctor) from Harvard. He seemed mildly amused upon hearing that Biden liked to be called “Dr.”

“It’s a funny topic,” Goldstein said. “Occasionally someone will call me ‘doctor,’ and when that happens my wife makes fun of me a little bit. But nobody thought it was pretentious to call Henry Kissinger ‘Dr. Kissinger.’ ”

Joe Biden, on the campaign trail, explained that his wife’s desire for the highest degree was in response to what she perceived as her second-class status on their mail.

“She said, ‘I was so sick of the mail coming to Sen. and Mrs. Biden. I wanted to get mail addressed to Dr. and Sen. Biden.’ That’s the real reason she got her doctorate,” he said.

Amy Sullivan, a religion writer for Time magazine, said she smiled when she heard the vice president’s wife announced as Dr. Jill Biden during the national prayer service the day after President Obama’s inauguration.

“Ordinarily when someone goes by doctor and they are a PhD, not an MD, I find it a little bit obnoxious,” Sullivan said. “But it makes me smile because it’s a reminder that she’s her own person. She wasn’t there as an appendage; she was there as a professional in her own right.”

Newspapers, including The Times, generally do not use the honorific “Dr.” unless the person in question has a medical degree.

“My feeling is if you can’t heal the sick, we don’t call you doctor,” said Bill Walsh, copy desk chief for the Washington Post’s A section and the author of two language books.

Joe Biden, who was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is expected to travel widely in his new job. But he may need to tone down the Dr. Jill Biden stories, should he find himself in Germany with his wife.

Last year, according to the Post, at least seven Americans (with degrees from places like Cornell and Caltech) were investigated for the crime of “title fraud” for calling themselves doctor on business cards, resumes and websites. Only people who have earned advanced degrees in Germany or other European Union countries may legally call themselves that.

Estela Bensimon, a professor at USC’s Center for Education, said she cared about being called Dr. Bensimon only if she was being addressed by her first name while male colleagues were called doctor.

“That often happens with women academics around male academics,” she said. “I don’t feel I need to be called doctor to be respected. Also, just think if you were on an airplane and you called yourself doctor and there was an emergency.”

Jill Biden’s new boss, Jim McClellan, dean of humanities and social sciences at Northern Virginia, said she was teaching English as a second language and developmental English 3. Her students, he said, were delighted to learn the identity of their teacher. (When students at her old school, Delaware Technical & Community College, would ask whether she was married to Joe Biden, she usually would say she was “a relative.”)

McClellan declined to say exactly how much Biden would earn, but said she was teaching 10 hours a week and that the range of pay for her adjunct position was $900 to $1,227 per credit hour. (That means each semester her pay could be from $9,000 to $12,270.)

“It’s not that much,” McClellan said. “She could have done anything with her time and make a difference, but she chose to teach, and teach at a community college. That says to our students that they are important and that community colleges are an important piece of the American educational system.”

As for how the new professor will be addressed, O’Donnell, her spokeswoman, said: “This week, she encouraged her students to call her Dr. B.”

[email protected]

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Robin Abcarian is an opinion columnist at the Los Angeles Times. She writes about news, politics and culture. Her columns appear on Wednesday and Sunday. Twitter: @AbcarianLAT

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What’s Up Doc: Jill Biden Shellacked over Dissertation

I don’t know Matt Bethlehemanti whose recent tweets eviscerating First Lady-Elect Jill Biden’s doctoral dissertation are the latest viral hit on the right. He has only 903 followers, but this number will probably skyrocket after his harsh treatment of Mrs. Biden.

The dissertation/executive position paper, “Student Retention at the Community College: Meeting Students’ Needs,” by Jill Jacobs-Biden, was submitted to the faculty of the University of Delaware in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education with a major in Educational Leadership in the fall of 2006.

According to the abstract, “This Executive Position Paper (EPP) studies student retention in the community college and Delaware Technical & Community College in particular. The paper focuses on four areas of students’ needs: academic, psychological, social, and physical.

“An overview of the paper is given, and an introduction to Delaware Technical & Community College is presented. First, the nature of the pre-tech (developmental) population is discussed. Then, a literature review offers current research by experts in the field. In addition, the results from pre-tech students, faculty, and advisor surveys and interviews are analyzed. Statistical information underscores the problem of retaining students, and personal accounts from students provide insight as to why students drop out. Overall, problem areas are identified, and recommendations and solutions are offered and encouraged.”

Here’s Matt Bethlehemanti’s Twitter critique. He was not kind:

Here’s the PDF so y’all can follow along. https://t.co/RpTVKwwYSn — Matt Bethlehemanti (@mattbramanti) December 13, 2020

Keep in mind that at this point in her life, Mrs. Biden was a grown woman who had been married for a cumulative 30+ years to various people. “Three quarters of the class will be Caucasian; one quarter of the class will be African American…the remaining seats will be filled with students of Asian descent or non-resident aliens.” “Although there is strength in diversity as a classroom component, the lack of homogeneity in academic ability makes it difficult to teach to a single standard.” “Admission to the College is open to all Delaware residents who have a high school education or its equivalent or to anyone who is eighteen years of age or older and able to benefit from instruction.” “The unique nature of the classroom allows for a complexity of problems as well.” this person expects, on the basis of this effort, to be called “doctor.” “Many universities and colleges did not eliminate the freshman and sophomore years.” No [expletive]. Please tell me more, doctor. “With a new president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Americans were offered the New Deal, and thousands of dollars were put into federal emergency junior college funds.” Upwards of two thousand.

“After Roosevelt’s death, Truman, as the next president, created the Truman Commission.” pic.twitter.com/e03tP26IB4 — Matt Bethlehemanti (@mattbramanti) December 13, 2020

So much for the quality of Biden’s doctoral work. In a December 11 Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Joseph Epstein suggested that Jill Biden should stop using the academic title “Dr.,” which she earned as a Doctor of Education, saying that it “feels fraudulent, not to say a touch comic.”

Epstein, who is 83, opened ( Is There a Doctor in the White House? Not if You Need an M.D. ): “Madame First Lady—Mrs. Biden—Jill—kiddo: a bit of advice on what may seem like a small but I think is a not unimportant matter. Any chance you might drop the “Dr.” before your name? “Dr. Jill Biden” sounds and feels fraudulent, not to say a touch comic. Your degree is, I believe, an Ed.D., a doctor of education, earned at the University of Delaware through a dissertation with the unpromising title “Student Retention at the Community College Level: Meeting Students’ Needs.” A wise man once said that no one should call himself “Dr.” unless he has delivered a child. Think about it, Dr. Jill, and forthwith drop the doc.”

Northwestern University and its English department (where he worked as a visiting adjunct lecturer from 1974 till 2002) each released a statement condemning Epstein’s opinion. The University wrote, “Northwestern is firmly committed to equity, diversity and inclusion, and strongly disagrees with Mr. Epstein’s misogynistic views.” The university also removed Epstein’s page from its website, where he had been listed as an emeritus lecturer of English.

Finally, Matthew Walther, National correspondent for  The Week and editor of  the Lamp magazine  added his five cents’ worth:

“To all of you who got [expletive] degrees when you were over the age of 50 out of boredom, I’m so sorry for your pain. All the work of writing a fake dissertation is so valid and I am so proud of you. How dare an octogenarian Jewish essayist punch down at the wife of a president!”

He then added: “If Melania Trump had an Ed.D. and insisted upon being referred to as ‘Dr. Trump,’ the same peoples feigning outrage would laugh her out of the room. And rightly so. This is a propaganda campaign by the Biden people, and all the usual suspects are playing along. Life is short.”

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Jill Biden's doctorate: Let's improve education instead of insulting educators | Opinion

The response to  Joseph’s Epstein’s Wall Street Journal op-ed was swift and damning. And with good reason. The piece, even if it wasn’t intended to be read this way, was insulting, dismissive, elitist and sexist.

Unfortunately, reasonable criticisms have been taken as examples of “cancel culture” or a concerted attack from the left, instead of accepted for what they are: a necessary corrective. One needn’t make assumptions about Epstein the man, or hypothesize about his motives to appreciate that his unprovoked attack on Dr. Jill Biden was as mean-spirited as it was unnecessary.

But because he wrote the piece, and because it has generated such a large response, I think it is worth highlighting one aspect of the piece that hasn’t received a great deal of attention.

Epstein seems to single out the Ed.D on a practical topic as worthy of particular scorn. He writes, addressing Biden directly: “Your degree is, I believe, an Ed.D., a doctor of education, earned at the University of Delaware through a dissertation with the unpromising title ‘Student Retention at the Community College Level: Meeting Students’ Needs.’”

Attacking the Ed.D. degree is nothing new, and  strong internal critiques of the degree already exist. But this isn’t what Epstein is doing here. He writes with knowingness about a degree he knows nothing about.

Make no mistake, a dissertation project in education is often different from a dissertation written in other fields. But why assume that this difference is a sign of lack of rigor or significance?

If I am a parent of a student struggling at a community college and if I am worried about my child dropping out, wouldn’t I be happy to learn that someone like Biden is interested in learning how to meet my child’s need so that they might stay in school? Though Biden may not have written on a topic that Epstein deems rigorous or promising, why must we assume that her work lacks merit, especially when it can improve the lives of her students and the students of educators who read her research?

There is a particular irony in attacking the type of practical work that doctoral candidates in education work on in the middle of a pandemic that has severely disrupted schooling. Students working in schools of education across the United States are currently engaged in studying what can be done to make learning better for students in this particularly challenging time.

Is this work the same as doing work in the sciences? No. But should it be dismissed as lacking rigor or interest? Certainly not.

It is common in education to do what are called action research projects. In an action research project, a researcher locates a problem that is personally meaningful to them. They then review the literature that exists on their topic, looking to discover interventions and ideas that they can use to respond to the problem they care about. Because doctoral students in education often also work full-time as educators, they are able to implement their interventions in their classrooms and schools, and then they can study the results of their interventions and their impact.

It is easy for someone unfamiliar with this type of research to dismiss it as lightweight or insignificant. But anyone who has supervised or engaged in action research projects appreciates the challenges and impact of this work. 

First, this type of action research can improve learning for the students in the researcher’s classroom. Second, teachers tend to value research done by other teachers, so successful action research is more likely to be taken up by other teachers. Finally, someone who does an action research project builds skills that can be used beyond their dissertation project and across their lifetime working with students.

It is for this reason, interestingly enough, that I think Epstein’s criticism of Biden’s use of the title doctor is especially off-base. Just as a medical doctor uses their training to heal patients under stressful and often uncertain conditions, a doctor of education is meant to be prepared to do something similar, but in schools.

No one in education could’ve anticipated the impact of COVID-19 before it hit schools; no one was trained to teach with our present moment in mind. Though teachers can draw on their own experience and what  we know from the learning sciences, the best teachers are currently doing their own versions of action research projects to respond to COVID-19. They are studying their classrooms, they are reading literature that helps them respond to problems that are emerging in their classrooms, and they are implementing solutions and studying their impacts.

Instead of denigrating the Ed.D., we would be better served understanding what this degree is meant to do. It is meant to prepare people who can study schools so that they can be improved.

Teachers are working tremendously hard to do their best during an extraordinarily challenging school year. They are drawing on the work of doctors of education like Biden, and doctors of education like Biden remain in classrooms drawing on their doctoral training in ways that benefit their students and schools.

Though this type of action research may not rise to the level of what Epstein deems worthy of respect, I remain grateful for the commitment and intelligence that good teachers demonstrate, especially during this current pandemic. I don’t take this appreciation to be a marker of cancel culture, just a reminder that educators deserve far better than the treatment they got from Epstein.

Jeff Frank is a professor of education at St. Lawrence University.

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Education 'makes us whole,' career teacher dr. jill biden tells stanford.

“Education is possibility set in motion,” said former Second Lady of the United States and longtime teacher Dr. Jill Biden at Stanford on Wednesday in an inspiring Cubberley Lecture that focused on teachers as exemplars and transmitters of humanity.

“Just as important as the practical argument is the civic one,” said Biden, who has taught writing in high school and community college for more than 30 years. “Education teaches us compassion and kindness, connection to others. Education doesn’t just make us smarter. It makes us whole.”

The Cubberley Lecture, inaugurated in 1938, is the Stanford Graduate School of Education’s premier showcase for ideas. In inviting a classroom teacher – albeit one with unusual windows onto power that give Biden what she calls a “dichotomous” life – the GSE, a broad-based research and professional school, proclaimed the value of teaching in general and Biden’s compassionate, holistic teaching practice in particular.

“As Second Lady, Dr. Biden had responsibilities that are hard to imagine, but she always kept teaching, because that is who she is. She is our kind of person,” said Daniel Schwartz, dean of the GSE, who introduced Biden to the capacity crowd of 1,700 and large web-stream audience at Stanford’s Memorial Auditorium. Biden's visit to Stanford included meeting with students in the Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies program and hearing them present on a research project.

Biden spoke at Stanford the day after giving finals at a community college in Northern Virginia, where she is a full-time professor of writing. She noted to audience cheers that the scheduling placed her talk in the midst of Teacher Appreciation Week.

“Whenever you travel, whenever you meet another educator, it’s like an instant relationship,” she told the crowd.

Always a teacher

Biden’s husband, former Vice President Joe Biden, served with President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017. Jill Biden is thought to be the first U.S. vice-presidential spouse to work full time for pay during her husband’s term.

“When we won the election in 2008, no one really expected me to keep teaching,” she said. “I couldn’t just walk away. I couldn’t just live Joe’s life.

“So I did both. I went to state receptions with the most powerful men on Earth, then to study sessions with single mothers just hoping to get a job.

“There was a little nook on Air Force Two that contained the vice-presidential seal, and I would sort of wedge myself in there and grade papers on the floor.”

Biden described herself as “a practitioner of my craft, not a policy expert.

“But I think policy should always start in the classroom, and it must be flexible enough to allow teachers to choose the best path for their particular circumstances.”

In Washington and today, as chair of the Biden Foundation and of College Promise, Biden has translated her classroom insights into advocacy for education as career preparation and for community colleges as doors to opportunity. Most of all, she advocates for the resources and support that will sustain teachers as transmitters not just of academic content but of morality, compassion and human values.

“Jim Crow laws no longer exist. But poverty and ZIP codes often play the same role,” Biden said. “Resources are stretched paper-thin. I find that in my own classroom I’m providing books and breakfast bars to students who need them.

“And in the past 10 years, with the increased threat of violence and with school shootings, some teachers have become the unfortunate heroic martyrs of their times. Now, along with telling students where the fire exits are, I say, ‘This is what we do in case of an active shooter.’”

Biden reminded the audience of Martin Luther King’s speech in Memorial Auditorium more than 50 years earlier.

“The ability to create educational road maps is deeply connected to the health of our communities,” Biden said.

“As Dr. King said, ‘The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

Creating community

As Second Lady, Biden continued to teach during her own crises including son Beau’s illness and death from brain cancer. On one bad day, Biden said, she momentarily turned to her whiteboard to hide incipient tears and turned back to find her students standing to each give her a hug.

“We often don’t know how much someone needs our grace, our strength,” she said. “As teachers, you will need to know two things. When to ask for help, and when to give it. We lead by what we do, not what we say.

“Often, it doesn’t take that much to be that strength in return. I believe I am a much more compassionate teacher because of my life experiences than when I began.”

Biden followed her talk with a question-and-answer session led by Jim Shelton, MA/MBA ’93, who served as Obama’s deputy secretary of education and now heads the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s education division.

In reviewing Biden’s long career, Shelton asked her what about teaching hasn’t changed.

“Lack of resources,” Biden replied to audience applause. “We don’t have mental health services, and I deal with students who are really struggling with major issues.”

But Biden praised cities that have initiated comprehensive wraparound services, such as health care and services for housing-insecure students in Portland, Oregon.

She also urged the future teachers in the audience to quickly learn their students’ names as a way of creating community in the classroom.

 “I have about 80 students,” she said. “That first week I make sure I learn everybody’s name. I make that personal connection.

“I make them learn everybody else’s name, too. You’ve all felt it. You go to a new school, you feel weird. But if you know somebody’s name –  you feel better.

Teachers also need to know how to address all different kinds of students in the classroom, Biden said: “Students who are on the autism spectrum; who have Tourette’s. Who are from military families” – a particular Biden cause because of Beau’s National Guard service.

“Teachers have to know to identify the important facts in the children’s lives.”  

Shelton asked Biden about her work for community-college access. Biden’s University of Delaware doctoral dissertation examined student needs affecting community-college retention. In Washington and now through College Promise, she has backed localities’ efforts to make community college free.

“Education is so expensive,” Biden said. “One of the greatest things about community colleges is that they have reciprocity agreements with four-year colleges. If students’ GPAs are high enough, they can slide right in as juniors. There is a stigma attached; I get that. We need to work on that.”

Biden concluded her talk with the example of her grandmother, a teacher in a one-room school who sometimes brought the young Jill to class and let her ring the old-school bell.

“When I think about that bell, I think about her legacy,” Biden said. “Of education that has rung out into the world like waves of sound.

“The poet Rumi wrote, ‘Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.’

“We have all taken different paths to get here,” Biden said. “But we’ve gathered to do the same thing: to lift up our communities together.”

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The Professor and the Madman

If Jill Biden wants to flaunt her Ed.D., who are we to object?

Joseph Epstein’s record of provocation and self-disgracing is long but not unbroken. To start with something positive: He revived the reputation of one of my favorite style guides, a book by F. L. Lucas that advises writers to avoid writing “in the weary monotone of a fretful midge.” Sure enough, he wrote with fearless gusto an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal this weekend, advising Jill Biden, an English professor at Northern Virginia Community College, to stop insisting that people call her “Doctor Jill Biden,” which “sounds and feels fraudulent, not to say a touch comic.” She is the spouse of the president-elect and earned an Ed.D. in educational leadership from the University of Delaware in 2007.

Do people with doctoral degrees have the right to call themselves “Dr.”? If they have the right, does exercising that right make sense, in all situations? If Epstein had wanted to investigate these questions, he could have done so without sprouting new feet like a centipede, finding ways to step in rhetorical dog turds in every paragraph. He called Biden “kiddo,” perhaps appropriate to a youngster like me but not to a woman much closer to his own advanced age; he demeaned her scholarship without bothering to read it; he suggested that only physicians merit the title, even though (as many, many people have pointed out) it comes from the Latin docere , “to teach,” and that is what Biden is: a teacher. And so on.

“Dr.” is the title Biden earned and prefers. What mystifies me is Epstein’s desire to police the use of the title, when he could instead just use it as requested, like a normal person, and contain his disrespect. Without hesitation I use religious titles (“Bishop,” “Dā'ī al-Mutlaq,” “His Holiness”) sacred in other people’s faiths. I call senior government officials by their titles, even if they are despots whose people would not only strip the titles but hang the officials by the neck if they had the chance. I know academics who are frauds, and I call them “Dr.” if they wish. Why not just use the title, even if you think it is bogus?

As Virginia Heffernan, Ph.D., noted on Twitter yesterday, the title might seem worthless for people like Epstein, who get university appointments without it, but it’s valuable for people “like me & Dr. Biden who are mistaken for housewives” (even though most doctorates are, in fact, earned by women ). Racial minorities sometimes insist upon “Dr.” for a similar reason. You are more likely to want to be addressed as befits a professor if people have assumed you are a janitor or a common thief , just because of the color of your skin. When I was a student, I took a seminar given by the distinguished literary scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. (known to intimates as “Skip”). Gates—a world-class charmer who demanded exactly what he was owed—addressed this issue head-on, telling us, “Because this is a small seminar, you may call me by my first name, which is Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. ”

I spend a lot of time among professors, nearly all of whom have doctorates, and I rarely hear one ask to be addressed as “Dr.” At Oxford, where the professors are all “fellows” of the university’s constituent colleges, the ones who were appointed to their fellowship without receiving a doctorate were addressed in perpetuity as “Mr.” or “Mrs.” or “Ms.,” according to their preference. These titles therefore indicate precocity, above the ordinary “Dr.” The eminent Wittgensteinian Elizabeth Anscombe was always “Miss Anscombe.” There are many endearing stories about academics too bashful to use their earned titles. In London in 1954, as the molecular biologist Francis Crick told the tale , a man calling himself “Willie the gardener” hired himself out to the wealthy as a part-time landscaper. During tea service an astonished guest looked out the window and asked her host what Sir William Lawrence Bragg, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics and resident professor at the Royal Institution, was doing in her flower bed.

These stories are charming in an academic bizarro world, where the title “Dr.” is ubiquitous instead of rare. And the strangeness of this milieu only demonstrates the reasonableness of Biden’s use of the title: In a university environment, insisting on it might be pompous; in an environment where such titles are rare—such as before the name of the soon-to-be first lady of the United States—they make more sense.

I suspect that parsing social niceties is, however, not what Epstein was getting at. Addressing Biden, Epstein wrote: “Your degree is, I believe, an Ed.D., a doctor of education, earned at the University of Delaware through a dissertation with the unpromising title ‘Student Retention at the Community College Level: Meeting Students’ Needs.’” Epstein scarcely bothers to disguise his snobbery. I wonder whether he would have complained about calling Biden by her title if her degree were instead a Ph.D., and the dissertation a thousand-page brick, demonstrating mastery of archives, languages dead and living, and a century of secondary literature. His disdain here is, I think, at least as much for the field of “educational leadership” as for Biden’s use of titles per se.

In fairness, an Ed.D. is not a Ph.D., which requires a dissertation that typically takes several years to complete. The Ed.D. dissertation at the University of Delaware is an “ Executive Position Paper ,” which “identifies a problem of significance to you and your organization, analyzes the problem thoroughly, and develops a feasible plan to solve the problem.” If you spend seven years writing it, you are doing it wrong. Biden’s is 129 pages, including table of contents and footnotes. Many Ph.D. dissertations (ones made of words rather than numbers, anyway) are twice that long. Education schools are a frequent target of the types of writers who show up on the Journal ’s editorial page, perhaps because of their role as incubators of wokeness. Maybe Epstein disdains Biden’s field. If that is the case, I wish he had said so, and made his case directly rather than boorishly impugning the first first lady to hold a research doctorate of any kind.

Many have noted that the senior Trump administration national-security official Sebastian Gorka goes by “Dr. Gorka,” because he somehow earned a Ph.D. from Corvinus University in Hungary, without raising the ire of the Journal . I have read his dissertation and other writings, and I do not think much of them. But he is Dr. Gorka—and if I had my way, he would be required to call himself “Dr.” Better that he be made to own the title. If I earned a Ph.D. by writing a dissertation like his, I would want to hide the degree rather than publicize it, and on my business card it would be a source of recurring cringe to me and others. (“Doctors” whose scholarship is risible tend to be particularly attached to the title, and to wield it because they think it provides the gravitas that their intellects do not.)

If Jill Biden wants to flaunt her Ed.D., who is Joseph Epstein to object? Those letters mean only what they mean. They certainly aren’t more embarrassing than other titles that people use in perpetuity. Ambassadors, I find, tend to call themselves “Ambassador” forever, even if they bought their sole ambassadorship by bundling political donations in Long Island, and the ambassadorship was a year on some speck of an island in a forgotten sea. Roald Dahl mocked people like this in his memoir about boarding school, where one of the cruelest teachers called himself “Captain Hardcastle.” “Even small insects like us knew that ‘captain’ was not a very exalted rank,” Dahl wrote, “and only a man with little else to boast about would cling to it in civilian life.”

When Michael Caine starred in Sleuth with Sir Laurence Olivier in 1972, Caine was 39—and not yet a Sir himself—to Olivier’s 65. “How should I address you?” Caine asked . “Lord Olivier,” Lord Olivier replied. “After that I am Larry, and you are Mike.” Life can be simple, if you want it to be.

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Aug 20, 2024

Jill Biden speaks at 2024 Democratic National Convention

First Lady Jill Biden spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Read the transcript here.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Love you too.

( 00:46 ) Joe and I have been together for almost 50 years and still there are moments when I fall in love with him all over again. Like when I handed him our baby Ashley for the first time and saw the smile that lit up his face or on nights after an exhausting day working in the Senate, when he would read one more bedtime story just because the kids asked.

( 01:26 ) When he stops on a rope line because he sees someone grieving who needs to know that everything is going to be all right one day or to encourage that child with a stutter, to find the confidence she needs.

( 01:46 ) Those moments when I’m reminded of all he’s accomplished in the name of something bigger than himself, receiving the Medal of Freedom with humility. Placing his hand on our family Bible to take his oath of office, and weeks ago when I saw him dig deep into his soul and decide to no longer seek re-election and endorse Kamala Harris.

( 02:42 ) With faith and conviction, Joe knows that our nation’s strength doesn’t come from intimidation or cruelty. It comes from the small acts of kindness that heal deep wounds from service the communities that make us who we are, from love of a country that shines with promise and renewal. Kamala Harris knows that too.

( 03:18 ) Our son, Beau, first worked with Kamala when he was Attorney General of Delaware. He told me at the dinner table one night, “Mom, she’s special. Someone to keep your eye on.” And he was right. Joe and I know Kamala. We have seen her courage, her determination, and her leadership up close.

( 03:51 ) Kamala and Tim, you will win and you are inspiring a new generation. We are all a part of something bigger than ourselves, and we are stronger than we know. The future of our country is in the hands of those in this room and all of you watching at home.

( 04:30 ) It’s going to take all of us and we can’t afford to lose. With faith in each other, hope for a brighter future and love for our country, we will fight and we will win together. Thank you. Thank you.

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Jill Biden’s speech at convention honors President Biden and marks an end for the first lady, too

President Joe Biden came out to give his speech at the Democratic National Convention — only to be greeted with roughly five minutes worth of cheers, applause and chants of “Thank you, Joe.”

First Lady Jill Biden speaks during the Democratic National Convention Monday, Aug. 19, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

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Second gentleman Doug Emhoff, Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and his wife Gwen Walz applaud as first lady Jill Biden speaks during the first day of Democratic National Convention, Monday, Aug. 19, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

First lady Jill Biden arrives to speak during the first day of Democratic National Convention, Monday, Aug. 19, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

First lady Jill Biden speaks during the first day of Democratic National Convention, Monday, Aug. 19, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

It’s Day 2 of the DNC, and there are 76 days until Election Day. Here’s what to know:

• Live updates: Follow The AP’s live coverage and analysis from the 2024 Democratic National Convention .
• Democrats turned their roll call into a dance party with celebrities, state-specific songs and Lil Jon .
• Protests: More than a dozen pro-Palestinian demonstrators were arrested Tuesday during a protest that began outside the Israeli consulate .

CHICAGO (AP) — Jill Biden once said that she knew marrying Joe Biden — then a senator from Delaware — would mean “a life in the spotlight that I had never wanted.”

On Monday night, now very accustomed to that spotlight, the first lady stood before the Democratic National Convention to do her part to highlight her husband’s 50 years of public service as his presidency begins to draw to a close.

Her words marked the beginning of an end for her, too.

Before the president walked across the stage at the United Center to deliver the keynote speech on the convention’s opening night, the first lady used her address to speak to his character and reiterate her support for Vice President Kamala Harris.

“Joe and I have been together for almost 50 years, and still there are moments when I fall in love with him all over again,” she said. Among them, she said, was watching him “dig deep into his soul and decide to no longer seek reelection and endorse Kamala Harris.”

▶ Follow The AP’s live coverage and analysis from the 2024 Democratic National Convention .

Jill Biden urged Americans to unite with “faith in each other, hope for a brighter future, and love for our country.”

President Biden endorsed Harris shortly after he dropped out of the presidential race in July, and she has succeeded him as the Democratic Party’s nominee.

In the weeks before Biden decided to leave the race, the first lady had declared that she was “all in” on her husband’s reelection plan, even as Democrats began calling on him to drop out following his disastrous performance in a debate against Republican Donald Trump on June 27.

Biden himself had brushed aside those calls, repeatedly insisting that he was staying in the race. His wife, one of his fiercest supporters and defenders, backed him up.

“For all the talk out there about this race, Joe has made it clear that he’s all in,” the first lady told a crowd in Wilmington, North Carolina, on July 8. “That’s the decision that he’s made, and just as he has always supported my career, I am all in, too.”

Biden pulled the plug on his campaign on July 21.

The president was introduced by Ashley Biden, his only living daughter, who humanized her father as “the OG girl dad” in a deeply personal speech.

She described “this extraordinary journey of being Joe Biden’s daughter,” remembering a time he made a special trip home during a busy period in Washington to be with her when she blew out candles on her eighth birthday, then got back on the train to return to the nation’s capital. And she lionized his public service, calling him “one of the most consequential leaders ever in history.”

After Joe Biden took the stage to extended applause and chants of “thank you Joe,” he proudly proclaimed, “that was my daughter!”

The first night of the four-day Democratic convention was rearranged after Biden bowed out. It honored his record of public service, including six terms as a U.S. senator from Delaware, eight years as vice president and one four-year term as president.

Jill Biden was with her husband through it all and now both are figuring out what they want to accomplish in the time they have left in the White House.

During the remaining months of the administration, which ends in mid-January, aides say Jill Biden will continue to work on her favored causes: supporting military families through her Joining Forces initiative, reducing cancer’s toll through the Biden Cancer Moonshot , advancing research into women’s health under an effort launched in November 2023, and increasing opportunities for education.

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She is also expected to campaign for Harris this fall.

The first lady charted a new path for presidential spouses when she became the first to hold a paying job outside the White House. She is an English and writing professor at Northern Virginia Community College, where she has taught since 2009, and has been working on her lesson plans for the coming fall semester, aides said.

As first lady, Jill Biden traveled to over 40 states, over 200 towns and cities, and 19 countries, most recently leading a delegation to support Team USA at the Olympic Games in France.

She spent the first year of the administration traveling around the United States encouraging people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

In 2022, she traveled to Ukraine after Russia’s military invasion to show U.S. support for Ukrainians.

Associated Press writer Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed to this report.

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Here’s the Speaker Lineup for the Opening Night of the Democratic Convention

Monday’s headliners include President Biden and the first lady, Jill Biden, along with Hillary Clinton, who was defeated by Donald J. Trump in the 2016 election.

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By Neil Vigdor

• Aug. 19, 2024

Democrats have cemented the lineup of speakers for the first night of their convention in Chicago, one that blends nostalgic tributes to President Biden with blunt messaging about the threat of a second Donald J. Trump presidency.

In the early evening, the session will be called to order by Jaime Harrison, the Democratic National Committee chairman, and the convention committee chair, Minyon Moore.

Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago will then deliver welcoming remarks before the delegates hold a ceremonial vote confirming Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota as the party’s vice-presidential nominee. Vice President Kamala Harris named Mr. Walz as her running mate almost two weeks ago.

The program, which will run from 6:15 p.m. to 11:15 p.m. Eastern time, will be headlined by Mr. Biden and the first lady, Jill Biden, along with Hillary Clinton, the party’s presidential nominee in 2016 who lost to Mr. Trump.

Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, who played a pivotal role in reviving Mr. Biden’s candidacy in 2020, will also fill one of the prime-time slots.

The choice of speakers seemingly reflects the party’s changing of the guard. It includes key progressive voices like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and influential union leaders like Shawn Fain, the president of the United Automobile Workers.

Three women with harrowing pregnancy stories will step into the spotlight, with Democrats seeking to frame the election as a crucial moment in the fight for abortion rights.

Mallory McMorrow, a state senator from Michigan who received acclaim in 2022 for her response to right-wing efforts to smear her as grooming and sexualizing children, will deliver remarks about Project 2025. The right-wing blueprint for remaking the federal government, one that Mr. Trump has tried to distance himself from, has become a political cudgel for Democrats.

The actor Tony Goldwyn will serve as the convention’s host on Monday night, followed on the subsequent nights by Ana Navarro, a Republican panelist on “The View,” and the actresses Mindy Kaling and Kerry Washington.

Notable names, in the order in which they are scheduled to speak, include:

7 o’clock hour (all times Eastern)

Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan of Minnesota

Lee Saunders, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)

8 o’clock hour

Senator Laphonza Butler of California

Gina M. Raimondo, the commerce secretary

Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York

9 o’clock hour

Steve Kerr, coach of the Golden State Warriors

Shawn Fain, president of the United Automobile Workers union

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York

Hillary Clinton

Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland

Representative Grace Meng of New York

10 o’clock hour

Amanda Zurawski, the plaintiff in a patient-led legal challenge to state abortion restrictions in Texas

Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky

Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia

Senator Chris Coons of Delaware

Dr. Jill Biden

Ashley Biden, the president’s daughter

President Biden

Lisa Lerer , Nicholas Nehamas and Tim Balk contributed reporting.

Neil Vigdor covers politics for The Times, focusing on voting rights issues and election disinformation. More about Neil Vigdor