Some weeks ago we launched a university-wide discussion about ways to strengthen graduate education and research at Georgetown. It addressed how the functions of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) might be reconsidered to achieve those goals. Since then we’ve discussed this at meetings and town halls of main and medical campus faculty, graduate students, faculty committees of the GSAS, staff of the GSAS, directors of units reporting to the Graduate School, former Deans of the Graduate School, and school Deans.
Based on those discussions I found most people focusing their remarks on three different functions of the GSAS: oversight of graduate education programs, administration of internal and external faculty grants, and oversight of various units assigned to the GSAS (Georgetown University Press; the Communication, Culture, and Technology graduate program, the Global Infectious Diseases PhD program, the Global Health Master’s degree, the Institute for Soft Matter, and the Center for Population and Health).
It appears that participants in the meetings agree on some things and disagree on others.
My distillation of areas of agreement are that some central university body should evaluate proposed new programs on cost, quality, and sustainability, but that terminal professional Master’s programs have different issues than other Master’s programs. Most agree that objective evaluation of current graduate programs should be strengthened. Most thought that academic integrity adjudication should be centralized. Most thought graduate fellowship support policies need review and continuous updating, and that nonacademic services for graduate students are inadequate. Most felt that where application processing and other administrative student issues are handled should be guided by cost considerations.
Regarding research administration, fundamental difficulties have been noted by faculty on the main campus, before and since I arrived. So we sought an external review. We asked a pair of experienced research administrators from two other research environments to review the situation. They’ve submitted their report. Their recommendations include that the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) should be designated as the Main Campus pre-award office; subaward negotiations should be assigned to a procurement subcontract administrator. These should be combined into a Shared Services Center to support PIs without dedicated administrative support. Functions supported by the Shared Services Center would include pre and post-award contract and grant administration (budget preparation, proposal writing, and coordination for multiple PI efforts), financial assistance (purchasing, Procard, project monitoring, reconciliation) and human resources assistance (hiring staff). An ongoing program should provide updated training for research administrators across campus. Finally, a research administration faculty advisory group should be named to provide ongoing customer satisfaction feedback to the shared services center. The provost’s office, the Chief Operating Officer’s office, and the Senior Vice-President for Research all have agreed to implement these recommendations.
It seems a logical next step to forward options for each of the three major functions of GSAS. First, regarding research administration, there appear to be two options: improve the operation of the research administration functions according to the recommendations and place it under the Dean of the Graduate School (status quo) or under the new Vice-Provost for Research. My read of the meetings was that most faculty want a function that works well and are less interested in where it is located administratively.
Most viewed that the oversight of graduate education was the most central function of the Graduate School. Some believe that removing all other functions from the GSAS would strengthen its focus on graduate education. Regarding the oversight of the graduate education functions, the most commonly mentioned options are 1) Keep the status quo, 2) Disperse evaluating of professional Master’s programs to schools; retain all other Graduate School functions; new programs reviewed centrally; 3) Disperse evaluation of all Master’s programs to schools; retain all PhD oversight functions in Graduate School; and 4) create Graduate School of Sciences, separate from all others.
Many faculty believe that interdisciplinary programs need special care, as they by definition lie between or among units with somewhat different missions. Others thought that direct oversight of academic programs was best placed in units whose sole purpose was running academic programs. Regarding the oversight of various units now assigned to GSAS, there seem to be three possible options: 1) the status quo, 2) an interdisciplinary focus, keeping interdisciplinary academic programs reporting to the dean, reassigning other units (e.g., GU Press, Center for Population, Institute for Soft Matter), 3) a catalyst for interdisciplinary programs, launch new interdisciplinary programs within the GSAS but after 5-10 years of existence move them to a different school; reassign other units (same as in 1), and 4) no direct academic or research oversight (reassign all units to other locations).
Each of the options for each of the three functions needs more elaboration, which can be achieved in a town hall of the full university that I will schedule soon. As we as a university discuss these options, I’m confident that we can achieve our aspirations for improving graduate education and research at Georgetown.
What seems to me to be missing from this second iteration is a clearly stated concern for doctoral education. In the discussions of which I have been part, this question has been raised repeatedly, yet the only mention that has turned up here is in the description of the model that mentions “PhD oversight functions.”
Clearly master’s level research is important, but most of our master’s degrees are professional degrees rather than research-oriented. They constitute the bulk of our graduate education and take up the bulk of our attention. Any new iteration of the Grad School needs to take seriously the importance of creating a culture of research and scholarship for doctoral students.
I support a close alliance of research leadership and the Graduate School, preferably with a single dean. Also, separating terminal Masters programs might be more efficient, but it might move them farther away from campus standards. I hope that the idea of separating the sciences from other disciplines is not widely held. Given the small size of GU’s PhD community and the push toward interdisciplinarity, this idea seems unwieldy at best.
alumna, I applaud your vision for the Graduate School. I wish that the leadership would speak in such concrete terms when discussing the future of the Graduate School. Strengthening the Ph.D. programs is an obvious priority but as a newer employee, when I ask what that means, I only get vague replies. I hope that Provost Groves and others are reading and following up on quality opinions such as yours.
I would like to see more direction and movement on this topic. In anticipation of the next town hall meeting, what is the agenda? Are we going to be asked to voice the same opinions we were requested a few months ago? Is more input needed (or possible, given that the Provost and others have been very diligent about hearing from all stakeholders)?
As I understand it, opinions have been voiced, research has been done, consultants have been consulted. Let’s pick a direction and work as a team to move forward with this, even if we disagree on the details. We’re not all going to be happy with any decision, but we all work toward the same mission of and should be able to support that.
There is no question that graduate education needs to be strengthened. This has been highlighted once again by the recently released U.S. News ranking of graduate programs, which yielded mixed results for GU. For the first time since 2008 the ranking of Humanities and Social Sciences graduate programs (mainly Ph.D.s) was updated based on their reputation among academics, which especially concerns GU. The well-managed History Department rose 6 points from the previous ranking to # 30, the Economics Department stayed put # 46. It has hired several new faculty members in the last three years including two high profile professors, but this was too recent to affect its ranking. The Government Department fell one point to #40. For the first time GWU was ranked ahead of GU in Political Science in the U.S. News ranking, as well as the respected 2010 ranking by National Research Council (NRC). The Psychology Ph.D. program was ranked # 72 in the U.S. News ranking, which is actually not bad considering that the program is relatively new and small, and that the size of the faculty is smaller than peer universities and needs some further expansion. There was no new ranking of Sciences programs in 2013. Reputations change slowly, but one can identify general directions to follow. Graduate programs are generally ranked according to the prominence for their faculty, quality and quantity of their research, proportion of Ph.D. students receiving fully paid fellowships, and the placement of their graduates. GU has highly ranked undergraduate programs, law school, and some professional/terminal Master’s programs. However, Arts and Sciences Ph.D.s need to be noticeably strengthened if GU is to become truly great university.
Changing the structure of graduate education and research might improve things. However, I agree of those who feel that the important thing is how well the graduate education and research functions and their sub-functions are performed. Research needs better support and management, and the proposals made appear sound. Putting research activities under a Deputy Provost may improve things. However, taking too many functions away from the Graduate School Dean would leave that position with even less authority than it has now. In the book A History of Georgetown University, the author quotes a new Graduate Dean saying upon taking up his position that he realized: “There is no there, there!” GU is lucky that Dr. Mara has accepted to be dean at such a transitional time. However, should he decide to retire any time soon, the University may find it difficult to find a suitable replacement if the position is too watered down. The position of Dean of the Graduate School should be made interesting and challenging, and his authority and responsibility made clear enough to attract outstanding candidates. The University Leadership should ask frankly previous graduate deans the reasons why they chose not to serve more than one term.
Georgetown University Press has made significant progress in recent years, has found a niche for itself and is now well regarded in such fields as public policy, international affairs, applied ethics, and language learning. It will not change much if it is located elsewhere. The professional terminal degrees will inevitably and increasingly go to the professional schools. CCT has no corresponding school, unless it becomes an institute like GPPI. Therefore, it might as well stay put for the time being.
The functions the Graduate School and its dean are in the best position to perform are:
1.Set educational standards and academic objectives, arrange for external evaluation of existing programs, and give evaluative feedback and general direction for development to departments with the possible help of a Board of Advisors or Visitors.
2. Coordinate among programs and departments, oversee interdisciplinary and joint degree programs, and suggest new possible areas of collaboration, possible new interdisciplinary degrees and joint degree programs.
3. The Graduate School Executive Council should evaluate and scrutinize all proposed new graduate degree programs for consistency with the University’s mission, for comparative advantage, sufficient local and national demand, financial feasibility and chances of academic success. Even proposed new graduate degrees to be offered by SCS and on-line should be examined by the Graduate School Executive Council to assure academic quality. Alumni in particular are concerned that new continuing education and on-line degrees be of sufficient quality not cheapen Georgetown degrees in general. In view of the campus enrollment cap, the University Leadership should not press the departments and programs to expand their graduate enrollment beyond what is academically desirable for the sake of raising additional revenue. For added revenues GU should rely increasingly on executive degree programs and certificates offered off-campus and on on-line.
4. Administer fellowships, scholarships and grants available to more than one department, and program. In particular, propose how many additional fellowships and scholarship are needed, and revise their provisions to keep them competitive.
5. Provide student services common to all programs. SFS, MSB and GPPI have their own career counseling and job placement services. The Graduate School could help with the placement of students from other departments and programs. Departments are mainly responsible for placing their Ph.D. graduates, but the Graduate School could provide skills that are useful to all students including Ph.D. students from the various departments, such how to perform successfully in interviews and how to write an effective resume.
6. The Graduate School and its dean should give increasing support to graduate students organizations, assess the needs of students, involve graduate student leaders in decision making, and encourage a more active graduate student life.
Besides changes in structures and improvement in the performance of functions, other factors are needed for strengthening graduate programs. These include among others, university level commitment to excellence in these programs and proactive fund-raising for them. We can learn from peer schools. For example, Boston College has explicitly set the goal for its Economics Department to become one of the top 20 in the country, and is taking realistic steps to reach that goal including the hiring of quality faculty. GWU is trying hard to become a leader in Political Science, Public and International Affairs. It has significantly strengthened its faculty by hiring prominent and innovative faculty.
Serious fundraising is also essential in order to improve graduate programs significantly. The University Leadership and advancement mangers should better explain to alumni and potential donors that raising funds for faculty salaries, chairs, professorships, research, and graduate fellowships and scholarships is as important for the prominence of the University as raising funds for undergraduate scholarships. This will take some doing as undergraduate alumni and alumni from professional schools have been more used to contributing to GU than graduate alumni, and as the University is better known for its undergraduate and graduate professional programs than for its Arts and Sciences graduate programs. The Dean of the Graduate School could also play a role in such fundraising as he/she is well placed to explain to alumni and other donors the importance of contributing to graduate programs.