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CIRGE

Tag: doctoral education

Degree Completion in Doctoral Education

One of the main concerns for graduate schools is the attrition and completion of doctoral students. CIRGE has carried out diverse studies to analyze the patterns that intervene in the doctoral completion.

Review here the main studies

Doctoral Education at the University of California and Factors Affecting Time-to-Degree

This study examined time-to-degree at the University of California in order to determine if students took longer on average to complete their doctoral degrees than they did 20 years ago. It presents factors which may have led to long time-to-degree, addresses underlying structural reasons for prolonged time-to-degree among all students and examines whether or not these factors influence ethnic minorities and women in particular

Nerad, M. “Doctoral Education at the University of California and Factors Affecting Time-to-Degree.” In response to the California State Senate (SRC 66). Report to the Office of the President. Oakland, CA. June 1991.

Download: Introduction and Parts I to VII – Bibliography, Tables and Appendices

Feasibility of International Comparisons of PhD Program Time-to-Degree and Completion Rates

In attempting to compare doctoral times-to-completion and completion rates for institutions in different countries, it was found that issues of definitions and data availability are major stumbling blocks.  National and institutional contexts also complicate matters.  Because of these complications, comparisons are difficult to make, but it might be possible to account for these confounding issues to gain some insights from such comparisons.

Hall, F., Evans, B. and Nerad, M.  2006 Feasibility of International Comparisons of PhD Program Time-to-Degree and Completion Rates.  Unpublished article.

Download:  Feasibility of International Comparisons

 

Doctoral Education: Gender and Family Issues

  • Graduate Women’s Expectations in Doctoral Programs and Beyond: Marriage, Family and Career. Download: 

 

Director

Maresi Nerad is the founding director of the Center for Innovation and Research in Graduate Education (CIRGE) and Professor for Higher Education, in the Leadership in Higher Education Program, College of Education, at the University of Washington, Seattle.  

A native of Germany, Dr. Nerad received her doctorate in higher education from the University of California, Berkeley; directed research in the central Graduate Division of UC Berkeley for 15 years; spent 2000 as Dean in Residence at the Council of Graduate Schools, the professional Association of US Graduate Deans, in Washington, D.C; joined the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle in 2001, and opened CIRGE in 2002. 

Dr. Nerad has served on many national and institutional doctoral education reviews including the German Excellence Initiative (2006, 2011), the U.S. National Research Council (2002-3) to examine the Methodology for the Assessment of Research Doctorate Programs.  She served and still serves on US and international advisory boards, such as International Advisory Committee for Science and Engineering of the US National Science Foundation (NSF) (2011- 2013); the Presidential Innovation Broad of the University of Bremen, Germany (2014-19), the Graduate Academy of the Goethe University of Frankfurt (2011-16); and undertakes formative and summative research for flagship interdisciplinary doctoral programs of NSF (IGERT/NRT), the German Excellence Graduate Schools (Materials MAINZ), or the European Commission (UNIKE).

She has written and edited 5 books and published numerous articles on doctoral education.  The latest book appeared 2014, Globalization and it Impact on the Quality of the PhD, Sense Publishers, and received the outstanding publication award from the American Education Research Association (AERA) SIG 168 in 2015. 

See complete CV

 

What We Know about the Dramatic Increase in PhD Degrees and the Reform of Doctoral Education Worldwide: Implications for South Africa

Theories of the “knowledge economy” view knowledge, and particularly new knowledge, as a critical resource to enhance a nation’s economic growth. Governments around the world have invested in doctoral education expansion. Reforms in doctoral education are being shaped by the changing needs of society, of research modes, and of a changed labor markets for PhD holders. The reform elements strive for excellence, expansion, quality assurance, accountability, and international and inter-sector network building. The expansion in doctoral studies has gone hand in hand with an increased flow of international doctoral students, the wish to become a world-class university, and the adoption of more standardized structures and practices of doctoral education. This paper ends with a number of promising reform practices that may be useful for South Africa’s expanding doctoral systems, such as the introduction of postgraduate schools that help implement and initiate innovations in doctoral education on a campus with an eye to high quality.

Nerad, M. (2011). What We Know about the Dramatic Increase in PhD Degrees and the Reform of Doctoral Education Worldwide: Implications for South Africa. Perspectives in Education. Vol. 29. No. 3, pp.1-12.

Download: What We Know about the Dramatic Increase in PhD Degrees and the Reform of Doctoral Education Worldwide: Implications for South Africa

Paths and Perception: Assessing Doctoral Education Using Career Path Analysis

Uses the results from the PhDs – Ten Years Later survey in two disciplines, English and mathematics, to demonstrate the assessment value of understanding student career paths and student evaluations of doctoral programs in light of their career paths.

Aanerud, R., Homer, L., Neard, M., & Cerny, J. (2006). Paths and Perceptions: Assessing Doctoral Education using Career Path Analysis.” In Peggy L. Maki and Nancy Borkowski, Eds., The Assessment of Doctoral Education, Sterling, pp. 109-140, Virginia: Stylus.

Download: Paths and Perceptions

 

From Rumors to Facts: Career Outcomes of English PhDs

The cohorts of English doctorates sampled for this study have been called “the lost generation of humanists.” But were they really lost? This article traces the often difficult transition from receiving the PhD to stable employment, examines the level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction English PhDs have with their current employment, and discusses the value they place on their doctoral education.

Nerad, M. & Cerny, J., (1999). Communicator, Vol XXXII (7). Reprinted in ADE Bulletin no 124, winter 2000. Association of Departments of English, New York: the Modern Language Association.

Download: From Rumors to Facts: Career Outcomes of English PhDs

 

 

The Cyclical Problems of Graduate Education and Institutional Responses in the 1990s

When in January, 1900, five university presidents–Charles William Eliot of Harvard, William Rainey Harper of Chicago, Benjamin Ide Wheeler of California,  Seth Low of Columbia, and Daniel Coit Gilman of Johns Hopkins–invited nine other United States university presidents to meet in the  following  month in  Chicago  for the purpose of forming a permanent organization devoted to  “matters of  common  interest  relating to graduate study,” none of them guessed that  graduate education would become a major enterprise in the United States.

Spearheaded by President Wheeler, this group of fourteen created the American Association of Universities (AAU)  and set out to unify  and improve the standards for the award of  higher degrees at American  universities. These  men had received  their  advanced education abroad, most of them in German universities–the world’s leading scholarly institutions at the turn of the century, and were eager to transplant the new form of scholarship they  encountered there into their own institutions, In so doing, they hoped to stem the flow of able graduate students abroad and attract them to American universities for advanced study  instead. Little did they know that some eighty years later graduate education in  the United States would  become a much sought after commodity and that students from countries all around the world, including Germany, would flock to American universities for their graduate education.

Nerad, M., June, R., & Miller, D. (1997). The Cyclical Problems of Graduate Education: Institutional Responses in the 1990s, In M. Nerad, R. June, & D. Miller, Graduate Education in the United States, pp. vii-xiv, New York: Garland Press.

Download: The Cyclical Problems of Graduate Education

Beyond Traditional Modes of Mentoring

This chapter describes the four major strategies developed at the University of California Berkeley to assist faculty in advising graduate students. Examples of the strategies in action are included from the In Balance Program.

Nerad, M. (1995). Beyond Traditional Modes of Mentoring. In Nancy A Gaffney, Ed, A Conversation About Mentoring: Trends and Models,  Washington, D.C.: Council of Graduate Schools, pp. 18-24.

Download: Beyond Traditional Modes of Mentoring

Doctoral Education at the University of California and Factors Affecting Time-to-Degree

This study examined time-to-degree at the University of California in order to determine if students took longer on average to complete their doctoral degrees than they did 20 years ago. It presents factors which may have led to long time-to-degree, addresses underlying structural reasons for prolonged time-to-degree among all students and examines whether or not these factors influence ethnic minorities and women in particular.

Nerad, M. (1991) Doctoral Education at the University of California and Factors Affecting Time-to-Degree. In response to the California State Senate (SRC 66). Report to the Office of the President. Oakland, CA.

Download: Introduction and Parts I to VII    Bibliography, Tables and Appendices