CID Summer 2005 Convening: Supporting Intellectual Community

Topic 1: Creating and Nurturing Robust Intellectual Communities

Arizona State University

Education: Division of Curriculum and Instruction

This Snapshot describes how the Interdisciplinary doctoral program in Curriculum and Instruction helps create and nurture an intellectual community.

Teachers and researchers benefit from developing in an intellectual community with many opportunities to interact with a wide range of colleagues. Many departments deliberately create these opportunities with formally sponsored events. Other community-building activities are initiated by individuals and groups within the department. There are challenges to insuring broad participation in these activities, and multiple communities may flourish in a department without achieving inclusiveness of marginalized individuals (e.g., part-time students, parents of young children, dissertation writers, emeritus faculty, foreign students).



CREATING AND NURTURING INTELLECTUAL COMMUNITY AT ASU

We want to foster an intellectual community that:

1) Promotes collaborative learning among students and faculty

2) Moves the field of educational research forward

Why?

  • Education is an applied field, but application must flow from sound research, that informs both practice and policy

    • Who?

  • Faculty, administrator and students should participate with faculty and administrators serving as models and students serving as legitimate peripheral participants who over time become less and less peripheral and more and more like their mentors.


    • HOW DO WE KNOW?

  • We have regular meetings of the steering committee which represents the concentration areas across the degree
  • This steering committee works with the concentration area (e.g. math ed, science, ed, special ed) mentors
  • We have used the work of the Carnegie to also examine and revise the EdD
  • We have used the work of the Carnegie to create a mechanism for better oversight of masters programs and to articulate masters programs with the PhD
  • We are using the Carnegie work to inform our program review
  • All activities are done by committees of faculty that include almost all of the department faculty. Those who are not approved mentors are not included in these activities
    •


    WHY HAS THIS BEEN OUR FOCUS AND HOW DOES IT FIT?

  • Good doctoral programs attract good students.
  • Good students are fun to work with and contribute to faculty research.
  • We want to move up into the top ten best colleges of education in the US.
  • As an applied school, we want to make a difference and to do so we must provide the best education to our students at all levels but especially at the doctoral level.

  • This fits very well but can always be improved to meet the changing demands and expectations of the field

  • We have doctoral students working on research that will improve the educational achievement and opportunities for students K-16, that test models of learning and teaching and promote equity
  • We have students working alongside faculty on many research projects and mentoring each other.


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    CURRENT TOOLS AND RESOURCES FOR INTELLECTUAL COMMUNITY

  • PFF (Preparing Future Faculty)
  • Colloquia series (Differs in each concentration area)
  • Financial support (Almost $2 million provided in tuition waivers, research and teaching assistantships)
  • Sponsored social events (By the graduate college and individual concentrations)
  • Peer mentor programs (By college and concentrations)
  • Mentoring by other faculty (cross disciplinary as well as in students' concentrations)

    • Preparing Future Faculty

    HOW IS INTELLECTUAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPED AT ASU?

  • Working with students on research grants
  • Offering core courses in which students from all concentration areas participate
  • Offering colloquium courses where faculty and students showcase their research
  • Social events are held at the college and the homes of faculty
    •


    NEW IDEAS TABLED IN THE SPRING

  • Reduce courses and increase authentic experiences
  • Create a Division or College PFF (Preparing Future Faculty) program
  • Appoint PhD students to all Division committees as ad hoc members as a means of developing an awareness of a professorial life
  • Create guidelines for the teaching and research internships and require a product (i.e research project, portfolio)
  • Consider moving toward a full time student population and directing part-time student toward the EdD
  • Selective investment in the strongest programs
  • Use the Carnegie data for an upcoming program review
  • Increase support for full-time graduate


    • UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

  • We will continue discussing how we can make our future plans a reality
  • Still working to address the two areas on the Carnegie survey where ASU falls 5 percentage points below the group mean: 1) Our students do not feel a sense of community, and 2) They prefer employment after the PhD in teaching institutions rather than in research institutions
  • Is this a function of size?
  • Is this representative of how students feel in their individual concentrations?
  • Is our communication and selection process not in accordance with our goals (the goal of the interdisciplinary PhD as a research degree)


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    CONTACT INFORMATION

    Contact Person(s):

    Dale Baker - Dale.Baker@asu.edu

    Rob Rutherford- Rutherford@asu.edu

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