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From an MA-PhD to a PhD Structure Despite
the innovative intellectual orientation of our PhD program, we retained
the MA in English as the gateway to this program for those students
applying with a BA; these students were then required to reapply to
enter the PhD program. We found that this outdated structure decreased
our attractiveness to the best students and placed us at a disadvantage
to those programs we routinely competed with for students. In addition,
this structure greatly increased the normative time to degree. The old
structure required students to spend at least 7 years earning the MA and the PhD, and between 1991-2001, the average time to degree was 8.5
years. Below are some documents that were produced to demonstrate these
disadvantages and to argue for a 5-6 year PhD program that admits
directly from the BA. We
quickly realized, however, that average enrollments in graduate courses
would decline as a result of changing course requirements from 18 in the combined MA-PhD structure to 13 in
the new structure. To address this problem, the department debated
several scenarios by which we could maintain an average of 22 MA/PhD
courses per year (see the document below). We concluded that we should
retain the MA not only to maintain our curricular vitality through
stable enrollments, but also as an important graduate alternative to a
direct-admission PhD.
Proposal to Change the PhD
This document lays out the rationale for structural change to the PhD
program and provides concrete proposals, all of which were adopted.
Enrollments and Structural Change
This
document addresses the problem of reduced course enrollments as a
consequence of requring fewer courses for the PhD. It lays out
different scenarios in order to maintain our average of 22 MA/PhD
courses per year.
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Linking Coursework to Research and Teaching In
1997 we instituted four core courses required for the MA and PhD. Three
of these courses focused on the departmental programs that fed into the
graduate curriculum (Film Studies, Literature, and Composition), while
the third aimed to link all three. When we reduced the course load for
PhD students from 17 to 13 in 2002, we also felt that four core courses
may be too many. We also felt that there needed to be better
preparation for students across programs in criticism, an
activity we broadly conceived as an essential link between teaching and
research. Accordingly we created two new core courses requried for all
PhD students: History of Criticism and Seminar in Pedagogy. Below is a
link to full descriptions of these courses, as well as sample syllabi
for History of Criticism and Seminar in Pedagogy.
Revised Core Curriculum
This document, from the original approved by our department, describes
the two new core courses and the teaching and research field
requirement.
History of Criticism, fall 2003
This is a syllabus for the first History of Criticism course taught in fall 2003.
Seminar in Pedagogy, fall 2004
This is a syllabus for the Seminar in Pedagogy taught in fall 2004.
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Assessing Change One
of the best measures of the success of the changes we have made to the
PhD program is admissions data. Below is a link to data compiled since
2001 that we believe demonstrates, in at least one resepct, the success
of these changes. The data reveals dramatic increases in acceptance
rates as well as average GRE Verbal scores and GPAs of entering
students. In the years to come we will compile data on average time to
degree for our students, a key component in assessing the success of
the changes we made.
PhD Admissions Data 2001-04
Graph of Admissions Data
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Goals of the Core Curriculum For
both practical and intellectual reasons, we believe that rather than
have the core curriculum largely mirror the separate programs that make
up the curriculum in cultural and critical studies and the department
in general, it should rather be made up of two fundamental components:
first, core courses that address issues of criticism,
scholarship, and pedagogy that PhD and MA work in each program
presupposes, in one way or another; and second, elective courses
grouped by each student, in consultation with his or her advisor, into
a "teaching and research field." In this regard we believe the core
curricular requirements should aim to be both "pre"-programmatic and
forward-looking with respect to each student's professional
development. Our
students have been particularly known for their training as teachers,
for their knowledge in critical thought both in and beyond what is
professionally validated, and their knowledge of, if not expertise in,
not only literature but also film, television, literacy textbooks,
philosophy, etc. We wanted to use these strengths to address what we
perceived as a weakness: that our students sometimes lacked both a
shared, pre-programmatic preparation and self-designed "area"
preparation that informs and enhances their participation in other
courses, their project and dissertation work, and their future work as
scholars and teachers. While
a core curriculum cannot completely prepare each and every student for
each and every area of study -- nor should it try -- the goal of a core
curriculum should be to minimize the need to fill in gaps by providing
opportunities (rather than an "exhaustive" survey) that help students
more adequately prepare for their own research and practice. And this
should be done in a way that both provides a solid intellectual and
scholarly foundation for advanced work in specific fields of study, and
continues the forward-thinking study and teaching of cultural
expression for which our department has become well known.
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