Planning document: Doctoral students give views of its effects on graduate education

Headrick told the students he had made a number of assumptions about graduate education when preparing his document.

"They may or may not be valid. I'd like to talk about your perceptions of the institution, of graduate education in the institution, of the strengths and weaknesses," he said. "I have a faculty accounting of what they think is going on (in the institution), but I don't have a studentŠit would be helpful."

Jim O'Loughlin, a doctoral student in English and president of the GSA, said that the planning document places a lot of emphasis on the GPA and GRE scores of incoming graduate students, but does not mention such quantifiable statistics as time to degree completion, placement records or GPA while attending UB.

"A concern I have is that it seems like the report talks about graduate students until they get here, and then nothing," O'Loughlin said.

Headrick said that that data is not available and he is working to build an information system that gathers it on a regular basis.

Headrick said the point he was trying to make in the report with regard to doctoral students is that UB has a faculty that's "spread too thinly." UB needs to cut the number of doctoral students admitted and increase the stipends of those students who are admitted "so they can be supported in a way that's appropriate.

"I would hope that with fewer students, they would get better mentoring and move to degree faster than they now do," he said.

John Floyd, a doctoral student in anthropology, said he sees a big difference in the quality of students who enter programs at UB and those who are in programs at UB.

"I think I've changed significantly since I've been in the (anthropology) program, and I'm probably one of the students who would not have been admitted" based on undergraduate GPA if the program was smaller, he said.

In his five years at UB, he has made steady progress toward degree, completing a master's degree and nearly completing his dissertation proposal, Floyd said.

Data on a student's activities while at UB "is an important chunk of data when evaluating an individual department; more important than who they let in is what they do once they're here," he said.

Scott Corrigal, a doctoral student in English and computer science, said he was impressed with the report's recommendation to make the master's degree the target degree for many students. But, he said, he was concerned that this emphasis on the master's degree will increase the number of students and physical size of departments.

"I'm concerned that we're going to get away from what the master's program (should be) and start producing something which is somewhat of the 'new bachelor's degree' of sorts, a new 'push-through' degree."

Jessica Nathanson, a doctoral student in American Studies, told Headrick she was worried about the future of her department and the programs within it.

She asked Headrick to consider maintaining American Studies as a department within the proposed Center for the Study of Cultures in the Americas and keeping Women's Studies as part of the department, while still funding the Institute for Gender.

He said he was still sorting through the issue of American Studies. Some faculty, he added, do not feel there is much interaction between those within American Studies and faculty outside of the department who are interested in these areas.

It is not true, he added, that he wants to get rid of departments, and it's not true that only departments can offer degrees.

Headrick asked the students to identify strengths and weaknesses of the university in terms of graduate education.

The main issue, Nathanson replied, is funding. There are many master's and doctoral students who are having trouble finding funding so that they can pursue their studies, she said.

The bottom line, O'Loughlin said, is the faculty that graduate students work with.

"There are good mentors, and then here are good mentors who all of a sudden have their class size increased 25 percent. You can't really hold that against them, but at the same time that hurts you.

"There are ways in which the quality of the people can go down, in a way; people who have been giving a lot get kind of demoralized," he said.

"If I have a fear for the future here, it's that good people get demoralized."

-Sue Wuetcher