-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
Behalf Of Dennis Roberts
Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2002 9:19 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: dissertation results
there are many reasons or possible reasons ... consider some of the
following
1. standards for what constitutes quality work in graduate school have
declined over the decades
2. pressure (explicit or implicit) to make graduate school easier and "more
user friendly" has increased over the years (as we focus on making higher
education more accessible)
3. having more students and more graduates FASTER looks good for programs
(especially DEANS of colleges)
4. mechanisms for monitoring student progress and what faculty/programs
insist students do have declined over the years
5. graduate programs have increasingly catered to students who want to come
back to school but, have less and less time to do so
6. faculty committees, for whatever reasons, have increasingly allowed
students to get more and more assistance with their projects (for design,
analysis, writing, editing, etc.)
7. and finally, as institutions pressure faculty more and more to bring in
money and produce "income" for the school and make the school look good,
there is less in the reward structures and, less desire on the part of
faculty .... to spend more time WITH students (it is not in the faculty
member's best P and T interests)
anyone want to add to the list?
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I agree with everything you say here.
We are also finding quite a few for profit corporations going into the
business of giving a Masters Degree and a PhD in a variety of subjects. The
most important requirement is to get students to enroll, since it is tuition
that represents corporate earnings. As with any for profit corporation,
reduction of costs is important and salary/pay for
teachers/instructors/class rooms are all costs that have to be minimized.
Your item 5 is a main source of the students here.
Several other factors here are that the degree is more important than the
institution giving it.
Another factor is that the prestigious schools are at saturation levels with
students, not able to meet the demands. This is true of many of the
University of California Universities, with all being saturated except the
Riverside and Santa Cruz locations.
Another factor is the faculty measure of "number of citations" to published
articles as primary measures of salary and retention. Spending time
supervising graduate students on their "dissertations" takes time away from
original research and extends the time of publication of the "next very
important paper". This is your point number 7.
Another factor has to do with the fundamental problem of communication
between the "teacher/lecturer...." and the student. This is not the right
place to go into the Herman Brain Dominance and Thinking Style, but the
heavy cerebral left thinking style of stat teachers, very effectively
inhibits understandings from cerebral right, limbic left and limbic right
thinking students. The professor may think that he provided the right
directions and instructions, but the student perceived it in an entirely
different form. This is very much like Wiley's daily cartoons, "Why we'll
never understand each other, what they hear and what you said". The
difference in thinking styles is easily illustrated in the tribal conflicts
between medical doctors, hospital administrators, nurses and psychiatrists.
DAHeiser
.
.
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