Article: "The Ph.D. Problem" - Professionalism in the Academy

[naptown]

Interesting article at: http://harvardmagazine.com/2009/11/professionalization-in-academy

"The argument that [doctoral students] need the training to be qualified to teach undergraduates is belied by the fact that they are already teaching undergraduates. Undergraduate teaching is part of doctoral education; at many institutions, graduate students begin teaching classes the year they arrive. And the idea that the doctoral thesis is a rigorous requirement is belied by the quality of most doctoral theses. If every graduate student were required to publish a single peer-reviewed article instead of writing a thesis, the net result would probably be a plus for scholarship."

Thoughts?

[coyabean]

I don't hate this idea, but I am "tainted" by the private sector.

The positives, as I see them:

-- promote scholarship that actually gets read versus the dissert; even if by a small audience that is better than a e-doc gathering moss in a library server somewhere. at the very least the peer reviewers will have read it.

-- it provides more information for the college-going public. as it stands how are potential students being forced to judge the quality of an institution? by the slick marketing campaigns and the very unbiased ranking systems. I like the idea of being able to compare recent published scholarship of faculty. While some schools make this possible by their internal tenure standards I have come across many profs who haven't published anything in 20 years. As a student this puts me at a disadvantage when entering a program.

-- at this point anything else that forces folks to review why they are pursuing a phd might be a good thing in light of the statistics.

The major negative:

-- the peer review system is anything but blind. What mechanism is there to promote an egaliatarian approach that does not privilege those with name recognition in the publishing process? And "blind review" is hooey. People often know who they are reading. That some scholars are published prodigiously while others can't get an acceptance isn't entirely justified by the quality of the paper. For example, everyone knows my mentor in his field(s). They know his kinds of issues and his writing voice. They also know he's probably floating some new idea or theory because they've had dinner together or seen him at conference. So when a "blind" article hits their desk that sounds like something he would do or has talked about doing he gets some benefit of the doubt that I would not.

[JennyFieldsOriginal]

A lot of the academics I know used their dissertation pretty directly as the first draft of the book they used to get themselves tenured. I think worrying about publication when you're still a PhD candidate might not yield the same results. I think if the dissertation is a little too "messy" for publication it's not necessarily the worst thing in the world.

At the same time, I think it really depends on the reason you are getting a PhD, and what kind of university you attend. If the percentage of TT professors that come out of the school is extremely small it might be smart to take a different approach than the one employed by other universities.

Who knows though? I don't think I applied to any schools that require me to teach my first year, and I was told specifically not to apply to particular schools because they want you to be teaching and teaching and teaching as opposed to researching your own stuff. I think it depends what you want out of the experience. I think teaching will be awesome and I'm eager to get my feet wet...on the other hand I don't want to be doing so much that I'm unable to do quality research. If what I wanted was career heavily based on teaching I think I would feel differently though.

I think it also depends on your field, and what you're trying to achieve.

Very interesting though. Certainly debate-worthy.

[jacib]

A lot of the academics I know used their dissertation pretty directly as the first draft of the book they used to get themselves tenured. I think worrying about publication when you're still a PhD candidate might not yield the same results. I think if the dissertation is a little too "messy" for publication it's not necessarily the worst thing in the world.

At the same time, I think it really depends on the reason you are getting a PhD, and what kind of university you attend. If the percentage of TT professors that come out of the school is extremely small it might be smart to take a different approach than the one employed by other universities.

Who knows though? I don't think I applied to any schools that require me to teach my first year, and I was told specifically not to apply to particular schools because they want you to be teaching and teaching and teaching as opposed to researching your own stuff. I think it depends what you want out of the experience. I think teaching will be awesome and I'm eager to get my feet wet...on the other hand I don't want to be doing so much that I'm unable to do quality research. If what I wanted was career heavily based on teaching I think I would feel differently though.

I think it also depends on your field, and what you're trying to achieve.

Very interesting though. Certainly debate-worthy.

Interestingly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, in Sociology Berkeley, a "teaching, teaching, teaching" program, has one of the longer years to degrees AND the best placement rates at top institutions... probably in part at least because the students are expected to be much more experienced teachers than a student from a research, occasionally TA but rarely teach your own class program. Just one more thing to consider thinking about.

I would argue teaching your first year (that is, leading at least a discussion section) would be EXCELLENT because it starts you down a good, experienced road. In your first job, you'll probably be expected to start at the bottom and teach a range of classes that no one else wants... especially intro classes. Dealing with a range of classes during your graduate work will be good preparation for that.

Second it's really hard to teach teaching. I am teaching now, and I did a 120 hour, one month TEFL course which was really useful in terms of basic things like lesson planning and classroom management... but not nearly as good as actually teaching for a month. Knowing how to explain things precisely, how to answer questions quickly, how to anticipate questions, how to emphasize the important distinctions, how to keep a class at least vaguely entertained through a detailed explanation (hell, which details to use), how to improve core skills in others (in the humanities, things like writing, critical thinking, understanding complex arguments), none of these things are things that can be really taught, I don't think. They're all things that people have to figure out on their own. But all of them are absolutely critical to being a good teacher, which is what most people here are aiming for. And I think teaching is why most schools--especially most first jobs out of grad school--will hire you. Obviously these skills not so important if your future plans don't involve teaching... but it seems at least 95% of the people on this board in the social sciences and humanities plan on teaching.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing in favor of Berkeley's ten year average time til degree, but I mean, there are reasons why teaching early on will help you later on. That said, neither one way or the other really affected my choices... my top two schools are on opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of teaching and time til degree.

[zilch]

There are some pluses for the doctoral dissertation. Mainly it serves as documentation for everything you did so if anyone down the line wants to see how you solved an issue or use your methodology they can look it up in your dissertation rather than your published papers as most journal articles tend to skip the particulars due to space restraints.

as someone from an applied sciences program, I would say that more than one publication (probably ~4 or 5) in a peer-reviewed journal is needed. I think the majority of the graduate students in my department are published in a peer reviewed paper within 3-4 semesters of starting and a decent amount (maybe 10% to 20%) were published before finishing the bachelors. This is most likely because so much of the funding for these fields come from organizations like NSF, NIH, DOE and corporations who are interested in specific technologies or issues. These programs, as a result, are solution oriented. Every project is defined to address a problem or fill a need. And whenever you get results you generally have enough to write a paper.

graduate education really needs to become more results oriented. It's great if you invented a new material, but unless you characterize it and come up with potential applications it's completely useless.

I would like to see more emphasis on graduate teaching in the applied sciences/engineering fields. As it is currently, it is possible (and relatively common) to make it through a phD in these fields without ever having taught.

[moralresearcher]

This could be my entirely anecdotal and naieve experience, but I thought one of the main goals of doing a PhD was to publish, not only your dissertation (eventually) but lots of other things. Especially if you want a TT position at research school (I do) sooner rather than later. Also, you're expected to publish lots of things while teaching undergrads, because that's what you'll be doing as a professor. I think that even though a dissertation may not be top notch when it is first written to fulfill a requirement for matriculation isn't such a big deal (I've heard people say "it's good enough"), as long as you revisit things later and revise it for publication. You're faced with (somewhat of) a time crunch with your dissertation--you can only do so much data collection and so complex a study in a prescribed timeframe, whereas if you just get it done, you can come back to it, get more data, revise your methods, and have more interesting/important findings later. Again, I'm still an undergrad and have a very bright shiny view of how wonderful everything is and how much fun it is to sit in the lab and run ANOVA after ANOVA and factor analyses until my eyes hurt, so I could be totally off base here.

[Genomic Repairman]

Some of us have no teaching requirements. I just have to be a lab rat

[MemphisMomma]

I don't have to teach undergrads but I do the lab for a portion of the medical school classes. I think if your ultimate goal is to have a lab or just to teach at the undergraduate level, then perhaps you want a graduate school that encourages some teaching. However if you want to go into industry, work for a think tank, or use your PhD in an alternative career, teaching is just an additional pain. I'd rather err on the side of caution and get a little teaching under my belt.

[geichat]

This could be my entirely anecdotal and naieve experience, but I thought one of the main goals of doing a PhD was to publish, not only your dissertation (eventually) but lots of other things. Especially if you want a TT position at research school (I do) sooner rather than later. Also, you're expected to publish lots of things while teaching undergrads, because that's what you'll be doing as a professor. I think that even though a dissertation may not be top notch when it is first written to fulfill a requirement for matriculation isn't such a big deal (I've heard people say "it's good enough"), as long as you revisit things later and revise it for publication. You're faced with (somewhat of) a time crunch with your dissertation--you can only do so much data collection and so complex a study in a prescribed timeframe, whereas if you just get it done, you can come back to it, get more data, revise your methods, and have more interesting/important findings later. Again, I'm still an undergrad and have a very bright shiny view of how wonderful everything is and how much fun it is to sit in the lab and run ANOVA after ANOVA and factor analyses until my eyes hurt, so I could be totally off base here.

glad to see another undergrad here. im also still in college and applying for the fall admissions. i dont know how others feel about this, but when i think of the fact that i might be teaching undergrads (so people roughly my age) in a couple years (or even sooner than that), i get this weird feeling...its kinda exciting on one hand, but then again, how much more do i know to teach them??..anyways, i know it will still be a while from now that i will actually be teaching, and by then i might feel totally different about this. but just thought i'd hear what other people think:D

[Multiple Infusions]

I do not know if this has been remarked upon above, but I belive there is an important distinction that was not made in this quote (and that I didn't see when I skimmed the article): teaching undergraduate classes and teaching undergraduates are not the same thing. Generally, a graduate student teaches intro-level undergraduate class (e.g., a Ph.D. student in mathematics will teach calculus) and by the time they have achieved the position of "graduate student in ____" the intro-level material should be trivial to them. If a student intends to pursue a career in academia, then this should be a benefit to both him/her and the department. The student is then placed in an important learning role; they must become competent in the conveyance of their knowledge to others, particularly the easy stuff.

Sure, both grad students and undergrads complain about this, but since TAs are covering these large lectures (teaching undergraduate classes), the members of the department are allowed to have free time to teach upper-division classes (teaching undergraduates), instruct graduate students and other necessary tasks. This influx of free time should, in theory, lead to an increase in scholarship in the department by alloting professors with ample opportunities to work on papers to be placed in peer-review journals; allowing the accomplished contributors to academics to further their work, while putting a little more responsibility on untested researchers, the teaching assistants. In turn, the TAs learn how to organize a class and (hopefully) teach efficiently, which should be beneficial to them when they obtain tenured positions in academics. The doctoral thesis then becomes a determining factor in one's capacity for research, but not necessarily a masterpiece; it shows that its author is capable of producing exemplary work.

[oldlady]

Thanks for the link, OP -- I enjoyed the article.

It is interesting for me, coming from a business background, to learn about the system in other academic areas. The business schools strictly limit the supply of graduate (PhD) student slots and push us to earn our degrees within five years. Demand for a business PhD is lower, too, because many of those interested in business would rather get an MBA and then go out into the corporate world to make their money. As a result, it seems much harder to get into a business PhD program, but there is relatively less competition for academic jobs after graduation. Lower academic competition and higher corporate competition also keep academic salaries relatively high.

Regarding the dissertation versus publishing while in the program, I was given the following advice:

• From Day 1, do whatever you can to only/mostly work on research that could be relevant to your dissertation.
• Publish as much as you can before you go on the job market.
• Spend as little effort as possible on teaching and service.

If you follow this advice, you are, in effect, building job market momentum from the day you begin your studies. I think that, as students, we sometimes forget that the goal is not the degree, but the job after the degree. I think this advice holds water once you are on the tenure track, as well.

Edited March 24, 2010 by oldlady

[UnlikelyGrad]

In my program, it's required to publish 3 papers in addition to writing a dissertation. You can incorporate your actual papers as part of your dissertation though.

[BionicKris]

For me, being a science major, I'm mostly getting a PhD to teach at the college level. I'm committed to research and publishing but the "publish or perish" attitude that seems to plague a lot of the top-tier schools in this country makes me want to hurl. It forces otherwise brilliant professors to maintain an 80/20 attitude - 80% research 20% education. I feel as though administrators think the need for great educators ends at high school. I've had terrible, TERRIBLE, professors at the college level. Undergraduates need no less encouragement than high school students do. Do I think it's sad when professors who claim to do brilliant research haven't published in years, yes I do. But I also feel that it is important to focus on the capabilities of of a scientist as an educator. I love science - both teaching it and studying it, but I don't feel that I should focus more on one than the other simply because the school I work for wants all sorts of accolades. I know that research is important, but what good are my findings if I can't share them with my students?

As far as being required to teach or being required to publish is concerned, why have an either/or scenario. If your ultimate goal is to teach, then you as a grad student should be required to teach and evaluated on the efficacy of your teaching style. If your ultimate goal is to do research in an academic setting then you should be required to publish at least one paper before graduating. Unfortunately we are destined to forever deal with the politics and money grubbing that is academia.