中国新歌声冠军是刘欢组的学员，那英不能在说冠军都是她带的了！# Supershow - 超级秀场
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Reform the PhD system or close it down
There are too many doctoral programmes, producing too many PhDs for the job
market. Shut some and change the rest, says Mark C. Taylor.
Mark Taylor
The system of PhD education in the United States and many other countries is
broken and unsustainable, and needs to be reconceived. In many fields, it
creates only a cruel fantasy of future employment that promotes the self-
interest of faculty members at the expense of students. The reality is that
there are very few jobs for people who might have spent up to 12 years on
their degrees.
Most doctoral-education programmes conform to a model defined in European
universities during the Middle Ages, in which education is a process of
cloning that trains students to do what their mentors do. The clones now
vastly outnumber their mentors. The academic job market collapsed in the
1970s, yet universities have not adjusted their admissions policies, because
they need graduate students to work in laboratories and as teaching
assistants. But once those students finish their education, there are no
academic jobs for them.
“Most doctoral programmes conform to a model defined in the middle ages.”
Universities face growing financial challenges. Most in the United States,
for example, have not recovered from losses incurred on investments during
the financial fiasco of 2008, and they probably never will. State and
federal support is also collapsing, so institutions cannot afford to support
as many programmes. There could be an upside to these unfortunate
developments: growing competition for dwindling public and private resources
might force universities to change their approach to PhD education, even if
they do not want to.
There are two responsible courses of action: either radically reform
doctoral programmes or shut them down.
The necessary changes are both curricular and institutional. One reason that
many doctoral programmes do not adequately serve students is that they are
overly specialized, with curricula fragmented and increasingly irrelevant to
the world beyond academia. Expertise, of course, is essential to the
advancement of knowledge and to society. But in far too many cases,
specialization has led to areas of research so narrow that they are of
interest only to other people working in the same fields, subfields or sub-
subfields. Many researchers struggle to talk to colleagues in the same
department, and communication across departments and disciplines can be
impossible.
If doctoral education is to remain viable in the twenty-first century,
universities must tear down the walls that separate fields, and establish
programmes that nourish cross-disciplinary investigation and communication.
They must design curricula that focus on solving practical problems, such as
providing clean water to a growing population. Unfortunately, significant
change is unlikely to come from faculty members, who all too often remain
committed to traditional approaches. Students, administrators, trustees and
even people from the public and private sectors must create pressure for
reform. It is important to realize that problems will never be solved as
long as each institution continues to act independently. The difficulties
are systemic and must be addressed comprehensively and cooperatively.
Prestige is measured both within and beyond institutions by the number and
purported strength of a department's doctoral programmes, so, seeking
competitive advantage and financial gain from alliances with the private
sector, universities continue to create them. As is detailed on page 276,
that has led most fields to produce too many PhDs for too long.
The solution is to eliminate programmes that are inadequate or redundant.
The difficult decisions should be made by administrators, in consultation
with faculty members at their own and other universities, as well as
interested, informed and responsible representatives beyond the academic
community who have a vested interest in effective doctoral education. To
facilitate change, universities should move away from excessive competition
fuelled by pernicious rating systems, and develop structures and procedures
that foster cooperation. This would enable them to share faculty members,
students and resources, and to efficiently increase educational
opportunities. Institutions wouldn't need a department in every field, and
could outsource some subjects. Teleconferencing and the Internet mean that
cooperation is no longer limited by physical proximity.
Consortia could contain a core faculty drawn from the home department, and a
rotating group of faculty members from other institutions. This would
reduce both the number of graduate programmes and the number of faculty
members. Students would have access to more academic staff with more diverse
expertise in a wider range of fields and subfields. Faculty members will
resist, but financial realities make a reduced number of posts inevitable.
Higher education in the United States has long been the envy of the world,
but that is changing. The technologies that have transformed financial
markets and the publishing, news and entertainment industries are now
disrupting the education system. In the coming years, growing global
competition for the multibillion-dollar education market will increase the
pressure on US universities, just when public and private funding is
decreasing. Although significant change is necessary at every level of
higher education, it must start at the top, with total reform of PhD
programmes in almost every field. The future of our children, our country
and, indeed, the world depends on how well we meet this challenge.
Mark C. Taylor is chair of the department of religion at Columbia University
in New York and the author of Crisis on Campus: A Bold Plan for Reforming
Our Colleges and Universities (Knopf, 2010). e-mail:m***[email protected]
There are too many doctoral programmes, producing too many PhDs for the job
market. Shut some and change the rest, says Mark C. Taylor.
Mark Taylor
The system of PhD education in the United States and many other countries is
broken and unsustainable, and needs to be reconceived. In many fields, it
creates only a cruel fantasy of future employment that promotes the self-
interest of faculty members at the expense of students. The reality is that
there are very few jobs for people who might have spent up to 12 years on
their degrees.
Most doctoral-education programmes conform to a model defined in European
universities during the Middle Ages, in which education is a process of
cloning that trains students to do what their mentors do. The clones now
vastly outnumber their mentors. The academic job market collapsed in the
1970s, yet universities have not adjusted their admissions policies, because
they need graduate students to work in laboratories and as teaching
assistants. But once those students finish their education, there are no
academic jobs for them.
“Most doctoral programmes conform to a model defined in the middle ages.”
Universities face growing financial challenges. Most in the United States,
for example, have not recovered from losses incurred on investments during
the financial fiasco of 2008, and they probably never will. State and
federal support is also collapsing, so institutions cannot afford to support
as many programmes. There could be an upside to these unfortunate
developments: growing competition for dwindling public and private resources
might force universities to change their approach to PhD education, even if
they do not want to.
There are two responsible courses of action: either radically reform
doctoral programmes or shut them down.
The necessary changes are both curricular and institutional. One reason that
many doctoral programmes do not adequately serve students is that they are
overly specialized, with curricula fragmented and increasingly irrelevant to
the world beyond academia. Expertise, of course, is essential to the
advancement of knowledge and to society. But in far too many cases,
specialization has led to areas of research so narrow that they are of
interest only to other people working in the same fields, subfields or sub-
subfields. Many researchers struggle to talk to colleagues in the same
department, and communication across departments and disciplines can be
impossible.
If doctoral education is to remain viable in the twenty-first century,
universities must tear down the walls that separate fields, and establish
programmes that nourish cross-disciplinary investigation and communication.
They must design curricula that focus on solving practical problems, such as
providing clean water to a growing population. Unfortunately, significant
change is unlikely to come from faculty members, who all too often remain
committed to traditional approaches. Students, administrators, trustees and
even people from the public and private sectors must create pressure for
reform. It is important to realize that problems will never be solved as
long as each institution continues to act independently. The difficulties
are systemic and must be addressed comprehensively and cooperatively.
Prestige is measured both within and beyond institutions by the number and
purported strength of a department's doctoral programmes, so, seeking
competitive advantage and financial gain from alliances with the private
sector, universities continue to create them. As is detailed on page 276,
that has led most fields to produce too many PhDs for too long.
The solution is to eliminate programmes that are inadequate or redundant.
The difficult decisions should be made by administrators, in consultation
with faculty members at their own and other universities, as well as
interested, informed and responsible representatives beyond the academic
community who have a vested interest in effective doctoral education. To
facilitate change, universities should move away from excessive competition
fuelled by pernicious rating systems, and develop structures and procedures
that foster cooperation. This would enable them to share faculty members,
students and resources, and to efficiently increase educational
opportunities. Institutions wouldn't need a department in every field, and
could outsource some subjects. Teleconferencing and the Internet mean that
cooperation is no longer limited by physical proximity.
Consortia could contain a core faculty drawn from the home department, and a
rotating group of faculty members from other institutions. This would
reduce both the number of graduate programmes and the number of faculty
members. Students would have access to more academic staff with more diverse
expertise in a wider range of fields and subfields. Faculty members will
resist, but financial realities make a reduced number of posts inevitable.
Higher education in the United States has long been the envy of the world,
but that is changing. The technologies that have transformed financial
markets and the publishing, news and entertainment industries are now
disrupting the education system. In the coming years, growing global
competition for the multibillion-dollar education market will increase the
pressure on US universities, just when public and private funding is
decreasing. Although significant change is necessary at every level of
higher education, it must start at the top, with total reform of PhD
programmes in almost every field. The future of our children, our country
and, indeed, the world depends on how well we meet this challenge.
Mark C. Taylor is chair of the department of religion at Columbia University
in New York and the author of Crisis on Campus: A Bold Plan for Reforming
Our Colleges and Universities (Knopf, 2010). e-mail:m***[email protected]
