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CARNEGIE FOUNDATION BEGINS FIVE-YEAR STUDY OF THE Ph.D.
Menlo Park, CA, November 2000—The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching announces a program of research and collaborative initiatives aimed at enhancing education for the highest degree awarded by the university, the Ph.D.
Carnegie President Lee S. Shulman noted that the United States is the international leader in the number of doctoral programs and number of doctoral degrees granted, and that students from all over the world come to American universities for doctoral work because of the quality of American doctoral education.
George E. Walker, the vice president for research and dean of the University Graduate School at Indiana University, will lead this study. Walker begins a five-year appointment as a Carnegie Foundation senior scholar in January. He will serve in-residence part-time at the Foundation, while retaining his duties at Indiana University.
Carnegie initiated this program, stated Carnegie Foundation President Lee S. Shulman, because of its conviction that the doctoral degree is critical to the continued improvement of all American education, from the elementary school to the graduate school. "If educators hope to change the character of undergraduate education, the Ph.D. is critical; doctoral programs prepare and socialize the next generation of undergraduate teachers," Shulman said. "If we wish to influence the course of elementary and secondary schools, the Ph.D. is critical, for those who hold the doctorate also educate those who teach our nation’s schoolchildren."
Walker said that now was the ideal time to do this study, precisely because the doctorate was not in disarray. He said there were tremendous new opportunities and responsibilities for the doctorate to address changes in education and society.
"This is an exciting new initiative to maintain and enrich the quality of doctoral education, and Indiana University is extremely pleased to collaborate with the Carnegie Foundation through Dr. Walker’s role as head of the study," said University President Myles Brand. "We feel that having Dr. Walker lead this partnership with the Carnegie Foundation supports both Dr. Walker’s and the University’s historic involvement in national initiatives that are closely associated with the University’s own goals and mission." Brand said a study of the doctorate is "at the heart of what we’ve been doing at Indiana University: building upon great traditions in areas of research and teaching, while at the same time closely examining our responsibility to the future."
Shulman said that the project goal was to support and study new experiments in doctoral education with leading graduate programs, to document and analyze the character of those initiatives, and ultimately to offer specific recommendations to educators and policy makers about the continued vigor of doctoral education. "We believe those who prepare the nation’s future teachers and researchers are ready to take a long, hard, positive look at the existing strengths but also at the under-developed opportunities in doctoral education, and that certainly includes a review and re-consideration of how these programs prepare their students to explore, explain, and apply the fruits of scholarship."
Carnegie plans from the outset to develop collaborative relationships with institutions and organizations invested in the preparation of Ph.D.s, including universities and disciplinary societies, employers, fellowship-granting organizations that fund Ph.D. candidates, and professional organizations. The Association of American Universities (AAU), The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS), and The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation are among Carnegie’s collaborators.
AAU President Nils Hasselmo said, "We welcome the Foundation’s new study. The Ph.D. is a central concern of the AAU—we ourselves have recently issued reports on both graduate education and postdoctoral education.
"We have high regard for Dr. Walker, who served on the committee that developed our graduate education report, and we look forward to working with him on this new project," he added.
"The Carnegie Foundation’s new commitment to doctoral education is splendid news," CGS President Debra Stewart said. "The American doctorate is both the envy of the world and a work in progress. At the Council of Graduate Schools we welcome the opportunity to work with the Carnegie Foundation to explore the full potential of doctoral study. We also celebrate the appointment of George Walker, former chair of the CGS Board of Directors, as the leader of this important effort."
Robert Weisbuch, president of The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, a leading provider of doctoral fellowships, said, "Through our combined efforts we hope to create a more generous and self-aware opening out of doctoral education to the world at large – a more responsible and responsive Ph.D."
At the end of five years, Carnegie envisions that there will be new models of doctoral education in a number of disciplines.
Founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1905 and chartered in 1906 by an act of Congress, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is an independent policy and research center with a primary mission "to do and perform all things necessary to encourage, uphold, and dignify the profession of the teacher and the cause of higher education." The improvement of teaching and learning is central to all of the work of the Foundation. The Foundation is located in Stanford, Calif.
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