What should doctoral training in the humanities and humanistic social sciences look like in the 21st century? This question has prompted a steady stream of foundation inquiries over the past two decades, including "The Graduate Education Initiative" (Mellon Foundation), "The Responsive Ph.D." (Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship…

The crisis in humanities graduate education is coming to an end. But academic jobs are still few and far between, and graduate education remains on shaky ground both institutionally and socially. Nevertheless, two generations of "crisis thinking" are finally giving way to the idea that graduate education is not in a crisis. Instead, it…

Atlanta University launched its doctor of arts in humanities (DAH) programs almost 40 years ago, and, since the 1988 merger with Clark College, Clark Atlanta University has continued to award the degrees. This fall, for the first time, its students will be able to earn Ph.D.s in humanities instead. In DAH programs around the country, there's been…

This article explores the role of the Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC) in facilitating and encouraging a collaborative community of junior and senior scholars on issues of technology and humanistic learning. As a result of its emphasis on collaboration and discussion, HASTAC encourages a form of collective…

Graduate education in the humanities is in crisis. Every aspect, from the most specific details of the curriculum to the broadest questions about its purpose, is in crisis. It is a seamless garment of crisis: If one pulls on any one thread, the entire thing unravels. It is therefore exceptionally difficult to discuss any one aspect of graduate…

PhDs by publications are a relatively new model for doctoral research, especially in the context of the Humanities or Education. This paper describes two writers' experiences of conducting doctoral studies in this genre and in these faculties. Each discover alternative ways of employing a body of published research papers in development of an…

Previous research suggests that it is the department, not the graduate school that bears the greatest responsibility for doctoral students' progress and success (Ehrenberg et al., Doctoral education and the faculty of the future (pp. 15-34). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, "2009") dictating the need to examine and understand how doctoral…

This article discusses the timeframe of programs of doctoral study. By the time the 10th anniversary of their enrollment in a Ph.D. program has rolled around, about 57 percent of doctoral students have their terminal degrees in hand, according to new data from the Council of Graduate Schools. Perhaps the most interesting of the council's findings…

Doctoral programs in the humanities and related social sciences are characterized by high attrition and long times to degree. In 1991 the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation launched the Graduate Education Initiative (GEI) to improve the quality of graduate programs and in turn reduce attrition and shorten time-to-degree. Over a 10-year period, the…

The Carnegie Foundation commissioned a collection of essays as part of the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate (CID). Essays and essayists represent six disciplines that are part of the CID: chemistry, education, English, history, mathematics, and neuroscience. Intended to engender conversation about the conceptual foundation of doctoral…

The central feature of doctoral training in the humanities, according to this author, must remain the organization of curricula to support the mastery of disciplines, the development of rich conceptual frameworks, and a demonstrable attainment of research skills. The work of transmitting these capacities is only partially done by the curriculum. A…

This study was undertaken as a report on a relatively new kind of graduate program. It is intended to present the characteristics of existing general education programs in the humanities for comparison and appraisal. Since this study deals with a relatively new and still experimental field, it should be regarded as a status report, or perhaps even…

Unlike most other fields, business school Ph.D. production has declined in the last decade. Data from the National Science Foundation (NSF) reveal that business and management doctorate production decreased by 6.9 percent between the first and second half of the 1990s. Over the same period, humanities (18.9 percent increase) and life sciences…

This paper is organized around a single interview with an academic colleague who was asked to reflect on his changing experience of Ph.D. supervision. Material from the interview is used to raise some questions about the nature of responsible supervision in the humanities and social sciences, and the ways in which the possibilities for responsible…

This article presents findings from a national study on doctoral education undertaken at a time of new government policies on funding of higher education and doctoral research in particular. The article discusses the overall policy developments in Australia and then examines the impact of policy on practice in doctoral education. Particular focus…