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Whither the doctorate: UW project culminates in conference
“There seems to be general agreement, particularly in the education and popular press, that graduate education has to change. From what and to what are not always clear.” These words from Jules LaPidus, president of the Council of Graduate Schools, sum up a project the UW has spent two years leading.
Backed by funding from the Pew Charitable Trusts, Principal Investigator Jody Nyquist has talked to more than 300 people concerned with graduate education - specifically the doctoral degree - to try to answer the two questions referred to by LaPidus: What is doctoral education today? And what would we like it to be? In a few weeks her work will culminate with a conference designed to specify the next steps.
Although it is widely considered the best in the world, U.S. graduate education - particularly the doctoral degree - has come under increasing attack in recent years from critics both within and outside the academy. The major complaint is that doctoral education is too narrowly focused on scholarly research, which leaves graduate students under prepared for the other responsibilities of faculty - such as teaching, curricular planning and institutional citizen responsibilities - and completely unprepared for the increasing number of job opportunities that are outside the academy. That’s why Nyquist and her collaborators called the project “Re-envisioning the Ph.D.”
“The interviewing has been a fascinating experience,” said Nyquist, director of the UW’s Center for Instructional Development and Research (CIDR). “Each time I did an interview, the person would suggest someone else I should speak to. I wound up talking to more people than I ever thought I would at the beginning.”
And she got an earful. Nyquist had designed the project in the belief that there were eight different “sectors” with a stake in graduate education that she intended to hear from. It proved to be a wise approach. There is discontent with doctoral education, she learned, but the different sectors have different concerns about it. And no one sector believes it can address problems without the cooperation of other sectors.
The eight sectors are, research intensive universities; other higher education institutions (comprehensive and doctoral universities, liberal arts and community colleges); graduate students; government agencies; business and industry; disciplinary and educational associations; foundations; and K-12. These shareholders represent those who prepare Ph.D.s, those who fund doctoral programs and those who hire Ph.D.s.
Nyquist gives some examples of what she calls the conundrums the sectors face: The government funding agencies say the problem with doctoral education is the culture of the research universities, but the research universities say doctoral programs are a reflection of what gets funded. The other higher education institutions say graduates of doctoral programs are not educated to become primarily teachers, even though most will not end up at research-intensive institutions. Yet, the Carnegie classification system has other higher education institutions trying to climb the ladder by bringing in more research dollars. The graduate students say they can’t admit to wanting to do anything but emulate their advisors. The faculty feel pushed to maintain large research programs to attract funding.
The situation, Nyquist says, “is nobody’s fault but also nobody’s responsibility to change. There is a willingness to change but people haven’t figured out how to best do that.”
She hopes the conference, scheduled for April 13-15 in downtown Seattle, will help move the process along. It has, in fact, been designed to do just that, for the first time bringing together representatives of all the sectors. They’ll be discussing four issues:
But this isn’t your typical conference. Participants will be discussing the issues in cross-sector groups through case studies written and led by Harvard-trained case writers and facilitators. They’ll also be part of sector meetings discussing the question, “What can our sector contribute to address each of the challenges of change and achieve the recommendations proposed?” And they’ll end their time together with a session on “What is the single most important next step that needs to be taken to improve doctoral education?” A listserve to be set up after the conference will help keep participants in touch as they move forward.
The conference is only one of the things Nyquist agreed to produce when she set out on the project two years ago. She also pledged to find innovative practices already being tried and to post these on a Web site for others to learn from. That site is now live and will receive a large infusion of examples between now and April 10. It also contains a selected bibliography of relevant papers and reports on doctoral education. It can be found at http://depts.washington.edu/envision. Nyquist is also producing what she calls a “concerns brief” spelling out the concerns raised by each of the sectors.
And even as Nyquist was doing her interviews, the UW was holding its own conversation about doctoral education. Through the Quarterly Forums on Teaching and Learning and other events, CIDR and the Graduate School brought speakers from both inside and outside the University to ponder the topic.
What will happen after April 15? Nyquist isn’t certain, but she believes the effort that she has begun will continue. There are several organizations and foundations that are interested in leading an effort to take forward the ideas that will be generated at the conference. “The timing for this was just right,” she says. “The people I interviewed were eager to speak with me. I really believe there is strong interest in taking action now.” ¶
Nancy Wick