Doctoral Program Review

Associated forms: Working Group Doctoral Program Data (by area only) Working Group Doctoral Program Evaluation Questionnaire COMMUNITY FORUMS ON DOCTORAL EDUCATION In March 2008, the Graduate School will hold open forums for doctoral students and faculty to review the findings and recommendations of the Working Group. March 5: Student Forum on programs in the Humanities and Social Sciences (6-7 p.m., Smith Buonanno 106) March 6: Faculty Forum on programs in the Humanities and Social Sciences (6-7 p.m., Barus and Holley 166) March 17: Student Forum on programs in the Life Sciences and Physical Sciences (5-6 p.m., Barus and Holley 166) March 19: Faculty Forum on programs in the Life Sciences and Physical Sciences (6-7 p.m., Smith Buonanno 106)

Brown’s commitment to strengthening graduate education, supported by the Plan for Academic Enrichment, has allowed the University to compete with the most elite graduate schools in the world. Although advanced-degree training has been taking place at Brown for more than a century, the national and international visibility and reputation of the University’s graduate programs has improved dramatically in recent years. The Graduate School is receiving record numbers of applications, competing successfully for funds from the most prestigious and selective government research agencies and private foundations, and setting new standards for student-based initiatives and programming. Oversight and administration has also been dramatically improved in order to ensure that graduate students’ academic experiences are positive, and that they are receiving clear advice and direction regarding their course of study, their research, and the successful completion of their degrees. In short, Brown’s Graduate School has made many much-needed improvements that establish a solid and supportive base for excellence in its students and programs.

With this base secured, the deans of the Graduate School felt it was appropriate to consider the current and future scale and scope of graduate education at Brown. By necessity, this consideration entailed the assessment of advanced-degree programs individually and in the larger context of graduate education at Brown.

CHARGE

The Working Group for Graduate Education was convened by the Dean of the Graduate School in the fall of 2007. Composed of faculty, faculty-administrators, and graduate students from the four areas of graduate education at Brown – the humanities, and social, physical, and life sciences – the Group was charged to “address immediate needs and long-range plans for graduate programs at Brown… focusing principally on the size and scope of the Graduate School and on the critical role of research in graduate training and support.” The Group spent the fall semester reviewing doctoral programs. In the spring, members will turn their attention to master’s programs. A final report will be issued in the spring of 2008.

ASSESSMENT OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL AND ITS PROGRAMS

The Graduate School was well poised to embark on a process of program review, having recently completed the institutional response to the National Research Council Survey of Research and Doctoral Programs (spring 2006) and a successful application to join the national Ph.D. Completion Project administered by the Council of Graduate Schools (spring 2007). The Graduate School is also participating in the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) accreditation process during the academic year 2007-08. Each of these projects has required elaborate data collection and analysis, and all have been carried out in the midst of Brown’s transition from an antiquated student information system to SCT Banner. Using what they had learned from each of these projects, the deans and staff of the Graduate School began compiling data and assembling descriptive statistics and graphs for the Working Group. In addition to the quantitative measures, the Graduate School circulated a series of narrative questions for department chairs and directors of graduate study regarding different, less data-driven aspects of their programs, as well as their visions for the future of their doctoral programs.

REVIEW PROCESS

The review process was organized so that programs in each area – the humanities and the social, physical, and life sciences – were evaluated individually and in reference to programs in their area as a whole. Complete reports containing a range of data and narrative descriptions from programs were compiled and reviewed by each member of the Working Group. Members evaluated each doctoral program as excellent, satisfactory, or problematic on 18 different dimensions. These rating dimensions included:

1. Overall Program Structure
   Vision: Narrative responses from program representatives regarding their program’s past and potential future. Milestones: Information collected from program handbooks, websites, and responses regarding the program’s completion requirements (specifically: whether the degree requirements, timing, and the consequences of falling behind are clearly stated in a program guide). Capacity: The ratio of graduate students in the program to FTE effort in the home department. Student Satisfaction: Results from a 2004 survey of all enrolled graduate students at Brown.
2. Admission and Diversity
   Admission: The numbers of applications, offers of admission, and matriculants for each program for each of the last three academic years. The program’s selectivity and yield (combined functions of the other numbers) were also reported. Diversity: Admission data as outlined above for the past two academic years, by the ethnicity and national status (domestic or international) of the applicants. Also included was each program’s self-reported diversity and recruitment plan, which had been required by the Graduate School during the previous admission season, as well as the demographic breakdown of each program’s current students.
3. Appointments and Funding
   The types and proportions of student appointments in fall 2007 (TA, RA, fellowship, etc.), and their funding sources, either internal to the Graduate School or external via faculty or student-won grants. Also, the per-FTE grant performance of faculty in the associated academic departments.
4. Instructional Support
   Departmental average course enrollments, ratios of enrolled students per FTE and per TA, and faculty-to-graduate student ratios.
5. Completion and Placement
   Time-to-degree, attrition, and completion data for each cohort of entering PhD students from 1993 to 2005. Also, data provided by each program regarding the employment outcomes of their graduates over the last five years (academic, governmental, domestic or international, etc.).

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

The Working Group’s findings are not easily reduced to a list of ranked programs, nor do they lend themselves to quick analysis. What is very clear, however, is that there are issues that concern all programs at the University, others that are area specific, and still others that are unique to the programs themselves.

The Graduate School circulated a brief selection of highlights from the Group’s evaluation work to the Brown Corporation before its February meeting. These highlights -- examples of the types of data examined by the group, the conclusions that were drawn, and the recommendations that can be made -- were endorsed by the Corporation. A more complete and public final analysis and set recommendations will be forthcoming.

SUMMARY OF PRELIMINARY RECOMMENDATIONS:

The recommendations of the Working Group will be outlined in detail in the final report along with a series of “best-practice” recommendations for the Graduate School and individual programs. To summarize, the Working Group recommends:

1. Growth
The University needs to increase the size of the Graduate School in a staged and strategic fashion. The reasons for growth include meeting instructional pressures, supporting faculty research, and enhancing the reputation of the University which rests in many ways on its doctoral programs.

The Group recommends specifically that the rate and specific locations of growth should take their cues from two sources:

1. Changes in faculty that have come through the Plan for Academic Enrichment: the addition of 100 new faculty make growth of graduate programs imperative.
2. A set of incentives structured specifically to attract external funding. Since such a model will privilege the physical and life sciences, the Group recommends that student-won support also be considered in this structure and that consortial models to enhance critical mass, especially in small humanities and social science programs, be encouraged. The University needs to maximize the gains made through the Plan; new, young faculty need a structured way to enlarge their research agendas and attract additional funding to Brown.

2. Instructional Needs
Historically, the size of our graduate programs has been determined by Brown’s undergraduate enrollments. The solution to meeting the University’s current and future instructional needs is more complicated than simply enlarging our doctoral programs. The response to these pressures must come through a collaborative process involving the deans of the Graduate School, Faculty, College, and Biology and Medicine who will coordinate the response to a range of pressures and indicators.

Assessing and appropriately sizing instructional support for academic departments is a complex task involving multiple stakeholders. Pressures come from areas which do not have doctoral programs (East Asian Studies or International Relations), from departments with large undergraduate enrollments and disproportionately small doctoral programs (Chemistry and Political Science), and those with competing needs originating from externally funded faculty research (all programs in BioMed). Possible solutions to these pressures vary according to their causes. In some cases, increasing the size of the doctoral program may be an appropriate solution. In others, providing short-term relief through a lecturer or post-docs may be more efficient and much less costly.

The Working Group feels strongly that teaching assignments for graduate students should be staged to respond to their professional development. Across the sciences, we wish to move to a model that supports students as fellows in the first year, TAs in the second, RAs in the third and fourth, and RA, TA, dissertation fellow in the final years.

3. The Graduate School and the Division of Biology And Medicine
The Working Group recommends that the decision to separate the budgetary management of the graduate programs in the Division of Biology and Medicine from the Graduate School should be revisited with a goal of greater parity in faculty access to students and funding, TA support, and decreased barriers to interdisciplinary training initiatives.