The grove keepers
Every WGU file that comes through the practice is walked by the same three people, each holding one part of the branch. There is no pool and no hand-off to a stranger: you know who has your folder at every step, and each of them has read more WGU capstone files than most reviewers.
Three consultants, one file. Lydia Fairbanks reads the aim statement and settles which branch the project is on. Emma Sorensen builds the consent file, aligns the instruments and writes the data-security plan. Ruth Ellery drafts the site letter, files the submission through WGU's current portal and answers every reply from the board until approval.
Lydia Fairbanks
DNP, APRN Lead consultant; determinations and the planLydia is the first reader on every WGU file. She takes the aim statement, the site and the planned data, walks them through the four forks the tree asks about, and writes the reading: determination, exempt, expedited or talk-first, with the reasons in plain language. She has drafted more not-human-subjects determination requests for WGU capstones than any other document in the practice, and she is the one who will tell you, when it is true, that your draft is clean and you should file it yourself.
Her particular care is the intent statement, the place where quality improvement is claimed and has to be meant. She reads it the way the office reads it: does the design only make sense as evidence for other sites, or is this one unit fixing one problem with its own tools? When the honest answer is the heavier one, she says so before a single document is drafted, and when a small truthful redesign would walk the same question down a lighter branch, she draws it for you.
Lydia leads the free application review and writes every quote. How the walk runs from her reading onward.
Emma Sorensen
MSN, RN Consent, instruments and data securityEmma came to the practice from unit-education and quality roles, where she sat on the receiving end of surveys that promised one thing on the flyer and another on the sheet. She builds the consent file as a reviewer reads it: one story across the information sheet, the recruitment email, the break-room flyer and the huddle script, with every load-bearing element present and no line that says "no risks" over identifiable workplace opinions.
She also holds the identifiers answer. Emma aligns every instrument to the stated aim, checks that nothing collected quietly points back at a person, and writes the data-security plan in specifics: which encrypted drive, whose access, destroyed on what trigger. When a candidate has kept a linkage key "just in case", she is the one who walks them back through fork 2 and, more often than not, moves the whole project to the lighter side of the tree.
Her files rarely return with a consent note. When one does, she answers the note itself and revises every page the answer touches.
Ruth Ellery
PhD Site letters, submissions and board repliesRuth spent years on the administrative side of a research office before joining the practice, which means she reads a file the way the coordinator who opens it reads it: is every page here, do the dates agree, does the letter come from someone who can actually grant what it grants. She drafts the site permission letter for the signer's letterhead, carries the request through the facility's own council or education office, and keeps the longest limb moving while everything else is polished.
On Full Handover she files the submission through WGU's current portal, keeps the confirmation, and owns every reply after it: revision notes answered in the board's own order, amendments when the project changes, continuing-review notices when they arrive. She never argues with a reviewer; she answers the note, fixes the page, and resubmits a file that tells one story.
If your application has been returned once already, Ruth is usually the first person to read the notes.
How a file moves between the three
The folder travels in one direction and never loses its owner. Lydia opens it with the reading and the plan, and the plan names which documents go to Emma and which to Ruth. Emma builds the consent file, the instruments and the data plan while Ruth has already started the site letter, because that limb is the slowest. Lydia reads the whole file once more before it is filed, for drift: the place where page 4 quietly contradicts page 11. Then Ruth files it, and every reply comes back to the same desk.
You hear from one of them at each station, by email or phone, whichever you gave us, and the status of the file is never a mystery. On the light branches this can be a short walk: a determination request is a few precise paragraphs and a portal form. On the heavier branches it is the whole folder, and all three of them have touched it before the board does.
What they will not do
- Conduct the research. The question, the design, the data and the findings are yours; the practice never authors a result.
- Represent any university. The practice is independent and not affiliated with Western Governors University; WGU's current handbook and portal are the authority on its process.
- Promise what the board will decide, or how long it will take. They make sure the file gives the board no reason to pause, and they answer every note it sends.
- Sell a heavier package than the branch needs. If the tree and the free review put you on the determination leaf with a clean draft, the advice is to file it yourself.
The voices in the chat
The live chat on every page is staffed by the application desk: Colette Fraser, DNP, APRN, and Marian Holt, MSN, RN, who take the first question, ask which leaf the tree gave you, and route the file to the keeper who should hold it. If you would rather write, the contact page reaches the same desk.
Put the file in three pairs of hands.
Send where the tree left you and whatever exists. Lydia reads it first, and you will know within the reply which branch you are on and whether you need the practice at all.
Request the free application review- Lydia Fairbanks: the reading and the plan
- Emma Sorensen: consent, instruments, data security
- Ruth Ellery: site letters, submission, every reply