Contact:
Nate Thompson, CGS: (202) 223-3791 / nthompson@cgs.nche.edu

Washington, DC — The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) today announced it will partner with ProQuest to explore the future of doctoral dissertations in a new Best Practice project, which will culminate in a workshop to be held in Washington, D.C. in January of 2016. The two-day workshop will convene graduate deans, publishers, library and information professionals, and other stakeholders to discuss how emerging technologies and other innovations in doctoral training may shape the Ph.D. dissertation of the future.

CGS plans to invite scholars and experts from different stakeholder groups to write short pieces on their view of the current state and future prospects of doctoral dissertations, and to collect these papers into an edited volume that will be distributed to CGS membership. “Ultimately, the goal will be to determine the questions that will require more sustained consideration by the graduate community,” explained CGS President, Suzanne Ortega. “What information do deans need to navigate the shifting landscape of doctoral dissertations? What kinds of questions should we be asking of our structures and policies, our staff and faculty partners, and our students?”

The changing nature of academic publishing and scholarly dissemination, new technologies, and new paradigms for graduate education have caused some to question whether the traditional doctoral dissertation should remain a strict requirement for the completion of the PhD. Might dissertations take different forms (such as through a series of blog posts or as collaborative work)? How might the dissertation be structured to reduce time to degree? What is needed to ensure nontraditional dissertations are archived sustainably? What, if any, differences exist among the broad disciplinary fields of humanities and social sciences and STEM dissertations? What roles do open access dissertations and embargoes play? These questions, among others, will continue to structure the conversation in the graduate community about doctoral dissertations.

ProQuest, renowned as a gateway for discovery and access to dissertations and theses from the world’s leading universities, will support this project. “This collaboration with CGS is both exciting and important,” said Niels Dam, ProQuest Vice President, Product Management. “As holder of the world's largest collection of dissertation and theses, and partner to over 3000 global institutions we are pleased to be sharing data, metrics, and on-the-ground insight that will inform the discussion about the next generation of doctoral dissertations and help the dissertations community prepare for the future.”

CGS plans to share results of the project in the spring of 2016.

Washington, DC — The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) has announced that Edelma Huntley, Dean of the Graduate School and Chief Research Officer at Appalachian State University from 2006 to 2014, has been named the CGS Dean-in-Residence for 2015-16. Dr. Huntley brings to the post significant experience leading graduate education, including serving as President of the Conference of Southern Graduate Schools (CSGS) from 2012 to 2014, and serving two terms on the CGS Diversity and Inclusion Committee. Huntley will join CGS on August 1. 

The CGS Dean-in-Residence program was created to infuse a campus-based perspective and vision across a variety of the Council’s programs and initiatives. The Dean-in-Residence works on multiple projects aligned with his or her interests and the Council’s needs.

“Dr. Huntley has been at the forefront of national initiatives to develop professional master’s programs in arts and sciences, and she has supported students in these programs by creating additional research opportunities for them,” said CGS President Suzanne T. Ortega. “Her expertise in master’s education will greatly benefit CGS members, especially as the Council prepares to launch new research efforts in this area.”

In accepting the appointment, Huntley pointed to important issues in graduate education she will help the Council address. “CGS has been a valuable resource for me throughout my career, and I look forward with great excitement to participating more fully in the work that CGS is doing, particularly in preparing future faculty, preparing graduate students for careers outside the academy, and exploring new developments in master's education.”

As Dean of the Graduate School and Chief Research Officer at Appalachian State University, Huntley oversaw development of the institution’s first Professional Science Master’s programs, graduate certificates, dual degrees, and accelerated baccalaureate-to-master’s programs. She chaired a committee that envisioned and developed the Research Institute for Environment, Energy, and Economics. Huntley also created the Graduate Research Associates Mentoring Program at Appalachian State, providing two years of support for promising master’s-level researchers to work with faculty mentors.

Dr. Huntley holds a PhD in Restoration and 18th Century British Literature from the University of Louisiana, Lafayette. At Appalachian State, she was the recipient of multiple teaching awards, including the Distinguished Graduate Faculty Award and a campus-level, North Carolina Board of Governors Teaching Award.

A recently released CGS publication is available online:

Doctoral Initiative on Minority Attrition and Completion

Doctoral Initiative on Minority Attrition and Completion synthesizes the findings from both quantitative and qualitative data collected from 21 participating institutions to better understand doctoral outcomes of underrepresented minority (URM) students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. The publication reports new benchmarks for completion rates, attrition rates, times-to-degree, and times-to-attrition for URM STEM doctoral students, and also sheds light on factors leading to the successful completion of a STEM doctorate. 72 pages. April 2015.

CGS provides free electronic access to all our publications at the Member Library. Any administrator, faculty, or staff member of a CGS member institution may view, download, or print copies of CGS titles in PDF format (login required).

Print copies of this publication are also available for purchase in the Online Store. CGS members receive discounted rates. To order, access the publication in the Member Library. For complete details on CGS publications, visit cgsnet.org/publications. 

Summit Program and Compilation of Papers*

*Individual papers below have been updated and edited for the electronic proceedings.

We invite you to explore the electronic proceedings of the 2014 Global Summit, Interdisciplinary Learning in Graduate Education and Research. Panel summaries provide an overview of the papers and discussion, with individual papers accessible at the links below.

CGS contributions to the 2014 Summit were supported by a generous gift from ProQuest.

Contact:
Julia Kent, CGS
(202) 223-3791
jkent@cgs.nche.edu

Findings Suggest New Strategies for Improving Retention and Completion

Washington, DC — The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) today released findings from the Doctoral Initiative on Minority Attrition and Completion (DIMAC), a 3-year study that examined patterns of degree completion and attrition among underrepresented minorities in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF #1138814), the project collected data from doctoral students at twenty-one universities in the United States, including universities affiliated with NSF’s Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program.

The most recent project in a series of CGS research studies on doctoral completion trends, DIMAC has resulted in the most comprehensive account of STEM doctoral completion and attrition for underrepresented minorities (URM) in the U.S. In the context of the study, URM includes U.S. students and permanent residents who self-identify as American Indian/Alaska Native, Black/African-American, and Hispanic/Latino.

Completion Trends

The DIMAC report provides completion rates, attrition rates, times-to-degree and times-to-attrition of URM STEM doctoral students using data spanning academic years 1992/93 to 2011/12. There is some data to suggest that from the earliest cohort to the most recent, there have been slight improvements in completion outcomes.

A key finding of the data on student completion rates is that completion outcomes vary by student characteristics, with some of the most notable differences emerging in the analysis of race/ethnicity and field of study. Over a ten-year period, 54% of students completed a doctorate. Looking at ten-year completion data by student characteristics,

• doctoral students in the life sciences completed at 63%, while candidates in physical &mathematical sciences experienced a rate of 45%.
• Hispanic/Latinos completed at a rate of 58%, while Black/African Americans completed at a rate of50%.
• women completed at a rate of 56%, while the ten-year completion rate for men was 52%.
• ten-year completion was 57% for students with a prior master’s degree, and 52% for those withouta master’s.

More analysis of trend data by student characteristics can be found in Chapter 3 of the report.

Student Experiences

DIMAC also collected data on students’ experiences of their doctoral programs through a Doctoral Student Survey, conducted in fall 2012, and focus group interviews at 16 institutions conducted throughout 2013. While many respondents reported a positive sense of their peers, advisors, and their doctoral programs overall, a minority expressed uneasiness as they moved into the dissertation phase of study. Students in this advanced stage of study, for example, were more likely to report that faculty did not understand the challenges they were experiencing.

CGS President Suzanne Ortega remarked that the findings demonstrate the need to support underrepresented doctoral students at every stage of a doctoral program. “One of the striking lessons from this study is that the dissertation phase is a particularly critical time for students. Our country’s STEM workforce will lose a great deal of potential talent if we don’t help underrepresented doctoral students cross the finish line.”

Key Recommendations

The study also explored institutional practices that can help support underrepresented minorities working to complete STEM doctoral programs. Data sources shed light on the value of four particular elements: 1) conducting interventions throughout the entire doctoral process; 2) providing students with enhanced academic support; 3) monitoring and evaluating programs and interventions; and 4) cultivating a culture of diversity and inclusion.

Additional information about student experiences of program features and interventions (i.e., advising and mentoring, networking, research and professional development, and non-financial support) can be found in Chapter 4 of the report.

About the report

The DIMAC project collected and analyzed four main sources of data: student-level enrollment data provided by institutions; an inventory of institutional policies; responses to a student survey; and information obtained from focus group interviews with students and university personnel. Active participation from 21 institutions resulted in over 7,500 student records. Over 1,600 URM STEM doctoral students were surveyed and 320 URM STEM doctoral students (and as many or more faculty and administrators) participated in focus groups at 16 institutions.

Contact
Nate Thompson
nthompson@cgs.nche.edu
(202) 223-3791

Washington, D.C. — The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) today announced it has been awarded grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to advance national and local understandings of the career pathways of PhD holders. Over the next nine months, with input from a range of stakeholders in the higher education community, CGS will develop a survey instrument and guidelines for data collection across a broad range of fields. These guidelines will be designed to help universities gather long-term career information from their PhD students and alumni with the goal of improving PhD programs.

A recently-completed CGS feasibility study also funded by the Sloan and Mellon Foundations found evidence that a lack of clear national standards for data collection is a major barrier to institutions seeking to understand the career pathways of their PhD alumni. In the project just announced, CGS will convene an advisory committee of graduate deans and other experts, which will advise CGS staff in developing a survey instrument and a framework document outlining methodological standards for data collection. This data collection instrument and framework document is intended to support universities’ collection and use of program-level PhD career information from matriculation through 15 years past graduation in STEM, social science, and humanities fields.

CGS will also convene two day-long workshops to develop partnerships and benefit from the expertise of stakeholder groups. One workshop will bring together higher education associations, disciplinary societies and federal agencies that use or collect career data on PhDs, while the other will convene graduate deans, provosts and other senior academic leaders. These workshops will provide occasions for these groups to share perspectives and expertise that will inform the work of the project.

CGS President Suzanne T. Ortega explained, “We have heard for many years, and from many sectors, that universities need a better understanding of the long-term career outcomes of their PhD graduates. This information is critical for helping graduate educators to develop curricula and professional development programs that better prepare students for the full range of careers they are likely to follow. We are delighted that the Alfred P. Sloan and Andrew W. Mellon Foundations are lending their support to CGS as we begin to address this important knowledge gap.”

Support for the CGS project is part of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s longstanding commitment to fostering improvement and innovation in STEM higher education. Past Sloan-supported efforts in this area include fostering college and university data collection on student entry and retention in STEM fields, the creation of the Professional Science Master’s degree, and the founding of eight University Centers of Exemplary Mentoring devoted to improving graduate education of underrepresented minorities in the sciences, mathematics, and engineering.

“Understanding the career pathways of doctoral recipients is absolutely essential to creating PhD programs that maximize value both to students and society as a whole, and CGS is very well-positioned to lead this initiative.” says Elizabeth S. Boylan, Program Director of the Sloan Foundation’s STEM Higher Education program.  “We are proud to be partnering with the Mellon Foundation in support of this vital effort to craft national data-collection standards and practices that have the potential to transform what we know about the careers of Ph.D. recipients and to improve the quality of programs for future students.”

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has long supported efforts to improve the intellectual and professional outcomes of doctoral education in the humanities. The Foundation assists universities and professional organizations in launching initiatives that broaden the preparation of PhD students for a variety of professional trajectories in as well as outside the academy. It also fosters collaborations within and among institutions that support disciplinary innovation.

“We are delighted to partner with the Sloan Foundation in supporting CGS in its initiative to make progress on this important issue,” stated Mariët Westermann, Vice President of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.  “We believe an approach that combines PhD career path tracking in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences is most likely to be successful across American universities.”

Results of the project will be shared with the higher education community in December 2015.

This CGS report reviews what is currently known about the career pathways of doctoral degree holders, current gaps in our understanding, and areas that call for greater clarification. It outlines findings from a year-long feasibility study supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. This work represents the first step toward closing knowledge gaps about the long-term career paths taken by PhDs in the US and Canada across all broad fields.

The Fifth Annual Strategic Leaders Global Summit on Graduate Education brought together graduate leaders from 16 countries to address professional skills and career outcomes for graduate students. These proceedings provide brief essays on emerging best practices for improving the professionalization and employability of students. Readers will find summaries of rich discussions of topics such as integrating workforce demands into degree design and evaluation, developing professional development programs, and defining specific and transferable skills.