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PhD students concerned about cuts
by Miranda Neubauer
Senior Writer
News | 4/28/09
Posted online at 9:00 AM EST on 4/28/09
Some Ph.D. students are wary about plans by the Curriculum and Academic Restructuring Steering committee to reduce the number of Ph.D. students who receive University stipends by 20 percent in order to increase the number of master's students.
The CARS proposals also recommend enforcing higher academic standards for admitting or readmitting Ph.D. students. The proposals also explore the possibility of increasing the amount of courses in which both graduates and undergraduates can enroll and seeking more outside funding.
"We had to reduce our graduate school deficit, which is already fairly substantial and would increase next year because we are adding fifth-year funding to be competitive with other universities," Dean of the GSAS Prof. Gregory Freeze (HIST) explained. "The graduate school needs to reduce costs through fewer paid doctoral students and increase revenues through more master's students."
Ph. D. students have already expressed concern about the effect the changes will have on the quality of teaching.
Christian Gentry, a Ph.D. student in Music Composition and Theory, said though he hasn't read the report, he has heard that the report recommends cutting the size of the Music Ph.D. program. He believes that the decrease in the program will mean that more master's students would have to teach classes or be teaching assistants, saying that "in general the lack of experience is … [not] the type of educational or pedagogical paradigm that I think Brandeis is really all about."
"On the one hand, I'm worried about cuts because it does hurt the overall prestige of the University to have less talented graduate students," Mikel Parent, a Ph.D. student in English, said.
"I think the way it stands right now there's a lot of Ph.D. students that teach, and if that number decreases, I would wonder who would be teaching all those courses," Parent said.
Emily Canning, a Ph.D. student in Anthropology, said that she thought Ph.D. students are sometimes seen as a "drain" because they don't pay tuition. "It's spelled out in very blunt terms in the report that master's programs generate the funds that can fund Ph.D. students," she stated.
However, Freeze feels that the proposals are reasonable. "It would have been nice not to have to cut so deeply, but they only cut as much as they possibly cut without impairing the programs," he said. "There have been times in the past when there was talk about going much further, much more draconian changes." In this case, Freeze said, "they've really hit the bottom on what they can cut." CARS had explicitly decided "not to abolish or suspend any graduate programs," he noted.
"If things turn around," said Freeze, "it's a lot easier to recover than to reestablish a program so tactically that leave us much more maneuvering room to rebuild the graduate school."
Graduate students can meet with the CARS committee members and the Provost this afternoon to discuss the proposals.
The CARS proposals also recommend enforcing higher academic standards for admitting or readmitting Ph.D. students. The proposals also explore the possibility of increasing the amount of courses in which both graduates and undergraduates can enroll and seeking more outside funding.
"We had to reduce our graduate school deficit, which is already fairly substantial and would increase next year because we are adding fifth-year funding to be competitive with other universities," Dean of the GSAS Prof. Gregory Freeze (HIST) explained. "The graduate school needs to reduce costs through fewer paid doctoral students and increase revenues through more master's students."
Ph. D. students have already expressed concern about the effect the changes will have on the quality of teaching.
Christian Gentry, a Ph.D. student in Music Composition and Theory, said though he hasn't read the report, he has heard that the report recommends cutting the size of the Music Ph.D. program. He believes that the decrease in the program will mean that more master's students would have to teach classes or be teaching assistants, saying that "in general the lack of experience is … [not] the type of educational or pedagogical paradigm that I think Brandeis is really all about."
"On the one hand, I'm worried about cuts because it does hurt the overall prestige of the University to have less talented graduate students," Mikel Parent, a Ph.D. student in English, said.
"I think the way it stands right now there's a lot of Ph.D. students that teach, and if that number decreases, I would wonder who would be teaching all those courses," Parent said.
Emily Canning, a Ph.D. student in Anthropology, said that she thought Ph.D. students are sometimes seen as a "drain" because they don't pay tuition. "It's spelled out in very blunt terms in the report that master's programs generate the funds that can fund Ph.D. students," she stated.
However, Freeze feels that the proposals are reasonable. "It would have been nice not to have to cut so deeply, but they only cut as much as they possibly cut without impairing the programs," he said. "There have been times in the past when there was talk about going much further, much more draconian changes." In this case, Freeze said, "they've really hit the bottom on what they can cut." CARS had explicitly decided "not to abolish or suspend any graduate programs," he noted.
"If things turn around," said Freeze, "it's a lot easier to recover than to reestablish a program so tactically that leave us much more maneuvering room to rebuild the graduate school."
Graduate students can meet with the CARS committee members and the Provost this afternoon to discuss the proposals.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
George Patsourakos
posted 5/07/09 @ 5:45 PM EST
The Brandeis plan to reduce the number of Ph.D. students who receive University stipends by 20 percent, in order to increase the number of master's students, seems like a reasonable plan which should not have much impact on Ph. (Continued…)
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