June 10, 2003
Doctoral Programs Under the Microscope
Committee Evaluating PhD Programs in an Effort to
Highlight Excellence, Offer Suggestions for Focus
By Greg
Licamele
Doctoral degrees, often considered the crown jewels of higher education,
are under intense review at GW by a committee looking to showcase the
best programs and make specific recommendations about the futures of
others.
The 19-member review committee is assessing the viability of the 48
doctoral degrees GW currently confers by examining quantitative data
submitted by the programs, including faculty resources (fellowships,
grants, contracts); quality of faculty scholarship (journal publications,
conference participation); quality of students attracted to a program
(previous degrees, grade point averages, test scores); admissions and
enrollment numbers; and job placements of graduates. In all, seven doctoral
program criteria were scored in addition to three criteria for academic
excellence.
“We have some outstanding programs, but simultaneously, we have
some that need to be looked at very closely,” says Donald R. Lehman,
executive vice president for academic affairs and chair of the committee.
Each committee member devoted the month of April to generating 10 scores
for each program using a scale of one to five. The most weight was assigned
to faculty and student credentials. Special resource needs and costs
were not scored.
“We’re saying that top doctoral programs have excellent faculty
and excellent students and that those characteristics count more than
some of the other aspects,” says Carol Sigelman, associate vice
president for research and graduate studies and co-chair of the committee.
After its initial examination, the committee is now discussing each
degree program in detail. This time-consuming phase (the first session
lasted five hours to discuss nine programs), will continue through the
summer. Final decisions are expected by Jan. 1.
“We’re doing this not just on the basis of scoring, but on
the basis of the discussion,” Lehman says. “There’s an
objective approach of work with the data, but through discussion, questions
get raised.”
“It’s an extremely valuable process and it’s necessary
for the University to evaluate the state of its programs,” says
committee member Henry Nau, professor of political science and international
affairs.
As part of GW’s strategic plan — which also includes a comprehensive
writing program, identified areas of academic excellence, and an improved
business and service model — the doctoral review process will identify
programs to receive additional funding, most notably for graduate student
support and, in some cases, expanded facilities.
Doctoral programs are not generally intended to be revenue-producing
because of the limited number of students pursuing the degrees and the
costs of support packages they receive. According to the Office of Institutional
Research, GW granted 1,019 doctorates between Fall 1997 and Spring 2002,
about 200 each year. In a national context for the 1999–2000 academic
year, the US Department of Education reports that of 1.7 million bachelor’s,
master’s, and doctoral degrees conferred, only 44,808 were PhDs.
Based on data collected from other universities, Lehman says GW does
not have too many doctoral degrees for an institution of its size and
scope, but rather, it’s in the middle of the pack.
“I would suspect that we’re the norm,” Lehman says. “Certainly,
until recently, our biggest shortfall was the fact that we didn’t
have ‘tier one’ graduate student support for our doctoral
students. We’re getting there now.”
Sufficient graduate student support is critical to successful doctoral
programs because of the need for multi-year funding, especially in the
humanities and social sciences. To improve its financial packages, GW
will have invested $1.5 million in additional graduate assistant support
by the end of 2004, raising minimum stipends (independent of tuition)
to at least $15,000 an academic year for a majority of graduate assistants
and targeting additional funding for graduate assistants in specific
programs. GW also has doubled its contribution for graduate assistants
who enroll in the University’s student health plan from $500 a
year to $1,000.
“We have to be able to compete,” Lehman says. “Having
top-notch students is critical to having the proper environment for
research and scholarship at a top-tier institution.”
For some disciplines, the key to attracting and keeping quality doctoral
students is to guarantee support for five years, an initiative that
institutions such as New York University, Columbia University, and Washington
University in St. Louis have in place. Because of finite resources,
Lehman says GW is not yet in a position to provide many multi-year packages.
“It’s pure resources,” Lehman says. “We have to
make sure we generate the revenue from new sources or reallocate existing
resources. If we decide to reduce the number of doctoral programs, we
may be able to reallocate resources to graduate student support for
multi-year packages.”
Sigelman says some programs have a clear focus, while others have probably
tried to do too many things, thereby scattering scarce human and financial
resources.
“We’ll try to encourage more focus in some of the programs
that will continue to be offered,” Sigelman says. “One of
the greatest values of this exercise is that it encourages the faculty
of a program to think hard about what they are trying to do.”
She also suggests another option for some programs may be consolidation.
“We may have related programs that could fruitfully be merged and
be stronger because they’d then have a critical mass and show up
better in systems for rating doctoral programs like that of the National
Research Council,” Sigelman says. “They’d be stronger
simply because they’re larger.”
Nau says GW has to be realistic about its resources.
“I think you just can’t do everything,” Nau says. “It
hurts areas of true excellence and absorbs resources. You have to live
within your means as a university.”
Lehman says consolidation and/or elimination might be a blessing for
some faculty members because doctoral programs are time intensive.
“If we can’t produce a quality product, there’s no reason
to do it,” Lehman says. “A department may be much better off
becoming a first-tier, undergraduate-focused department. Or maybe the
department would be better off becoming a premier offerer of master’s
degrees. Nothing will be done arbitrarily. It’s going to be driven
by the resources we have available, enrollment, and other factors. If
there are any doctoral students in any doctoral programs cut, then they
will be taught through to the finish.”
Lehman says this review process is also driven externally by what he
calls the “prestige factor… . When somebody thinks of studying
political science at the doctoral level, for example, we want GW to
be on that list of top tier institutions.”
As the committee heads toward its goal, Nau says some faculty members
expressed initial doubt that the concept of selective academic excellence
would work. He says he always believed it would work, and now even more
professors join him in believing it will work because GW is being realistic
about finite resources..
“This is a real chance to move forward academically and substantively.
This is a story for academics to hear,” says Nau, adding that this
is not about bricks and mortar, “but about the heart and soul of
the academic enterprise.”
Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu
