Director’s Statement

Maresi Nerad

I had studied doctoral education for 15 years at the University of California, Berkeley and was still motivated by the question of how doctoral education can be improved through innovations in the organization of PhD programs and through supportive initiatives sponsored by university-level bodies such as the graduate school.  By “improve” doctoral education, I mean primarily (1) increasing the pedagogical effectiveness and attractiveness of doctoral training for diverse groups of students, (2) facilitating the transition from doctoral study to professional employment in a variety of careers, (3) providing information to faculty, graduate deans, and policy makers about the types of skills and knowledge needed in contemporary and future PhD careers, and (4) in fields where this is relevant understanding the role of the postdoctoral appointment in the research career.  To further this work and to promote the development of a research agenda in this critical, yet little studied, area of higher education (i.e., doctoral education), I founded the Center for Innovation and Research in Graduate Education (CIRGE) at the University of Washington, Seattle in 2002 with funding from the Ford Foundation.

 

The need for a center that would conduct ongoing research dedicated exclusively to graduate education was clear and uncontestable, and this need has only increased as more and more graduate programs are called upon to demonstrate “accountability” measures, graduate students are voicing their concerns and desires about various aspects of their education, and the National Research Council’s has suggested that graduate programs conduct career path studies of their PhD recipients. Indeed the Center for Innovation and Research in Graduate Education (CIRGE) is ideally positioned to fill an important niche in graduate education.