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Doctoral Support FAQ On February 28, 2007, the Graduate School hosted an open forum for doctoral students at Brown. Of particular concern to students, as evidenced by a resolution that had recently been passed by the Graduate Student and Undergraduate Student councils, was the new plan for doctoral support and the guarantee of five years of funding for incoming students. Below is a summary description of the discussion from the forum in Q&A format. It is not a transcription of everything that was said at the forum, but it is intended to summarize all major points of discussion from that evening. If you were present at the forum and feel this document does not adequately represent any concerns or issues you heard discussed please send suggested edits or amendments to Graduate_School@brown.edu. With the change to a five-year guarantee of funding, what are the consequences for students who entered Brown with other commitments? All doctoral students who entered Brown with support are now covered by the five-year guarantee, even those who entered with shorter guarantees. Funding in the sixth year is not automatic; it is determined by the Graduate School. As part of the new process for allocating support to doctoral students, the Graduate School asks program chairs and directors of graduate study for an assessment of the progress and academic standing of each of their students. This information, which we refer to as the annual census, will be used to determine allocations for support for all students, including those who are beyond the five-year guarantee. Is it now the Graduate School’s expectation that all doctoral degrees will be earned in five years or less? No. There has been some confusion around this issue that is partly explained by the difference between policy and procedure. We have not made a policy decision that doctoral students must complete their degrees within five years. Instead we are setting up administrative procedures to more effectively manage the five-year guarantee and the expectations of students who are beyond the guaranteed period. The Graduate School has never prohibited funding students who are beyond their fifth year. We anticipate that in academic year 2007-08 approximately 70 students in their sixth year will receive support; this is the same number of same-stage students who are being supported this year, and were supported last year. This number is also based on our meetings with departments and programs and meets, we think, the total outstanding need. This is where procedure and the five-year guarantee become important. The specific nature of sixth-year funding can only be determined after we have satisfied our obligation to all students who are within the guaranteed period, and after we have a sense of the yield rate on the incoming class. Our original plan was to delay decisions on sixth-year funding until April 15, when the admission season concludes. We have since reconsidered that decision and hope now to have final notifications to students by late March. It is possible that not all sixth-year funding will be the same. Some students may receive teaching assistantships while others may receive tuition scholarships that include health insurance and the University Health Services fee. We will know the answers to these questions within the next few weeks. We will depend on the census and other information provided by your DGSs in making the final determinations. What makes a student eligible for funding beyond the fifth year? Criteria for timely progress and academic standing are set within programs, not by the Graduate School. The variations between disciplines are too vast for us to set central standards. During the annual census process described above, programs advocate for their students individually. Some make the case for students by describing how much of their dissertations they have completed, how many awards they have won, or what external grants they have received. These are all issues that vary by field. If a student receives an external grant during their first five years, does this immediately qualify them for another (sixth) year of support from Brown? At the moment no student is immediately guaranteed a sixth year of support for any reason. But students who receive external support during their first five years move up to the top of the list for sixth-year funding. We encourage students to do everything they can to receive external grants and support, partly because it allows the University to support a larger number of students, and also because the winning of these grants is important to the professional development of students. They look good on your CVs. We are working to establish incentives for students who receive external funding, by supplementing their stipends, and, possibly, offering more assurance about sixth-year funding. Students will be notified when a final decision has been made about this. Will the census information be available to students? No. This information is confidential. We encourage all students to ask their DGSs for details on their status and progress. Given the variety in time to degree across disciplines, why isn’t there a corresponding variety in offers of guaranteed support? We are very sensitive to the differences in time to degree in different disciplines. At Brown, which is typically a year shorter than the national average, the average median time to degree of all doctorates since 2004 has been 6.67 years (7.4 in the humanities, 7.2 in the social sciences, 6 in the physical sciences, and 5.6 years in the life sciences). In reality, students have been supported for longer than five years in the past and will, we expect, continue to be supported past five years in the future. However, Brown cannot simply declare that doctoral students will be funded for as long as it takes them to complete their degrees. The five year guarantee, at Brown as elsewhere, is intended to keep students from worrying about their funding for five years. Ideally, this means students have fewer distractions and will be more able to focus on their work and accomplish more in a shorter period of time. We hope, in other words, that it will shorten time to degree across all programs. Isn’t the decision to go to five years of funding essentially a demand to change the nature of some of Brown’s doctoral programs? And if so, isn’t there a chance this will make Brown Ph.D.s less marketable? No and no. The five year guarantee is designed to increase the quality of our applicants and students, not somehow lower the value of a Brown Ph.D. The five-year guarantee puts us in line with the funding practices of our peers – the best, most competitive graduate schools in the country. What if you are entering your sixth year of study, have been assured all along that you have been making good progress, and have been told by your program that sixth year support has always been available – until now? Such a student would be put forward by her program as someone who needs and is deserving of support in her sixth year, and we would do our best to give that student the support she needs in order to complete her degree. We recognize that we are in the midst of a transition regarding assumptions about support. There are also other components to this transition. The new funding plan asks programs to provide more information about their students more systematically than they ever have before. The intention here is to be proactive, to tell programs we are watching their interactions with students in order to provide some oversight and, if there are problems, opportunities for intervention earlier rather than later. The Graduate Schools deans did not come up with this plan in order to do a better job managing our budget (although, ironically, it has had that effect). The primary objective of this plan is to help students, to enable them to complete their degrees in a timely way and as soundly as possible – by giving them the time, the resources, and the tools to do the best and most interesting research they can. How are these changes likely to affect international students? The five-year guarantee represents an improvement for international students. Since we are now issuing what is essentially a five-year contract for incoming students, the visa re-application and approval process for students should be somewhat easier. We are aware that international students have fewer options for supporting themselves once they reach the end of their support guarantee. This has always been the case. We are aware of these issues and plan this year to manage them on an individual basis. (It is worth noting that until this year one of our peer schools that offers five years of aid actively dis-enrolled all doctoral students who had not completed at the beginning of their sixth year. The ensuing complications for international students was only one reason the school decided to change their policy this year.) How do leaves of absence or time off in other forms affect my funding? The Graduate School strongly recommends that you do not interrupt your studies during the first three years, during which time you should be able to complete your coursework and pass your qualifying exams. If you need to take a leave and it is approved by both your DGS and the Graduate School, the clock would stop on the five-year guarantee during the time of the leave. Has the Graduate School eliminated its support for summer language training? No. Last fall we initiated a discussion with Summer and Continuing Studies about whether and how to broaden the range of summer language-training opportunities for graduate students at Brown. Courses to help students gain reading competency in French and German have been offered free of charge to graduate students through SCS for some time. We have not yet been able to asses those needs. In the interim, the language training that has been available in the past will be available again this summer. Please contact Summer and Continuing Studies for details. |