I just read the Op-Ed in todays New York Times entitled End the University as We Know It. The piece was written by a member of the Religion Department at Columbia. I think that he makes some wonderful points and has some great ideas about ways to restructure departments. In general, he is advocating a move toward more interdisciplinary study of major subject areas.
I know that within the biomedical sciences at many major universities this has already started. When I was in my PhD program our department was in the second year of participation in a program called Integrative Biomedical Sciences. This was the core set of courses for several programs (i.e. Toxicology, Pharmacology, Physiology etc) and was an alternative path to the existing MBC (Molecular and Cellular Biology) program. It was a good set of courses that were team taught by faculty from each department. In the U.S. I believe that this is becoming the standard model for early Graduate training and too some degree this is the model that the Op-Ed discusses.
Now we could take that model and mix in other courses as well. At UAB (my alma mater and best point of reference for me)they had started a one year MBA program for PhD students (unfortunately for me it was right after I left). This was a great acknowledgment that students would likely need other skill sets to find employment in the future. What would be your ideas for restructuring the Graduate Program?
I agree it is an interesting article with some stimulating ideas. I particularly like the proposed switch to problem areas, eg “water”.
However, with all the vested and/or entrenched interests that exists, how could imaginative and radical reforms such as these ever happen in practice? Probably, we will continue to churn out too many qualified people for the jobs available, and the “cheap labour” to which he refers, because of the natural behaviour of systems.
Maxine – I agree that the entrenched interests will continue to stand in the way. However, maybe our “new economic climate” can be a catalyst for some of the changes we might like to try. I have heard rumors that Presidents of some Universities and Colleges (here in the States) are trying to get extra powers to reduce the size of their tenured faculty (Dinosaur Excavation Powers is one term I heard).
Perhaps we just make it a “hot cut”. Let everyone know that the rules are going to change and let it be so. The lure of tenure should not be the Why in someones choosing to pursue an academic position nor should it be a perk anymore. What we would need though is good oversight and governance to allow faculty to continue to have freedom to question and research. Will it be difficult to change, absolutely, so maybe we have a dialog to determine how many people are willing to try and change and go from there.
Female Science Professor did not like it much.
Pam Ronald also posted about the NYT article on her Nature Network blog today or yesterday.
Here is Pam’s post at Nature Network .
Maxine – Thanks for the link to FSP and Pam’s post ( I will cross-post this comment). I don’t agree with FSP. I had the pleasure of being in two very different science departments for graduate education. I was in a Department of Biology and then a Department of Pharmacology/Toxicolgy (Biomedical Research and therefore more aligned with the hospital). While in the Bio department we shared floors with the physics and psychology graduate departments. These groups, as well as Bio, had very different graduate experiences then those of the Bio-med disciplines (i.e. MCB, Pathology, Pharm/Tox, etc.). Even within the Sciences there are so many differences of Graduate training and I think they could all benefit from some transformation and re-alignment. I still think that tenure should be up for some revamping – provided there is good governance and oversight to protect the faculty.