The Programs for Higher Education (PHE) at Nova University (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) developed field-based doctoral programs in higher education, leadership in adult education, and vocational, technical, and occupational education. During the 1980s, PHE critically analyzed the format for the delivery of the specialization seminars for the three programs. PHE decided that the new system should include a learning contract, required units, elective units, participation in the Summer Institute, and a synthesis paper. The first two specialization seminars to be modified were in the vocational, technical, and occupational education program; they are: Personnel-Human Resources Development and The Emergence of Vocational, Technical, and Occupational Education in America. Doctoral students in the Vocational, Technical, and Occupational Education program are, for the most part, pragmatic managers and pragmatic humanists. The exercise to create alternative scenarios of the future was a rewarding experience for the participants and a necessity if the program is to produce transformational leaders, agents of change. The synthesis papers have become qualitatively better over the years. Each student completing the two specialization seminars demonstrated marked improvement during the second seminar, regardless of the sequence in which they took the courses. (Data tables are appended.) (YLB)