Q&A on ​“Canadian Ambitions and Experiments in Reforming Doctoral Education”

Since its beginnings, the research PhD has served to nurture the scholarly habits of mind and deep subject-matter expertise to enable individuals to extend the boundaries of knowledge, moving society beyond a reliance on received wisdom. Clearly, it is no longer solely a vocational degree for the professoriate, but otherwise, I believe its original purpose is still relevant; what has changed quite dramatically, though, are the definitions of ​‘scholarly’ and ​‘knowledge’.

I very much appreciate the term ​‘the formation of scholars’ as the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate’s description of the purpose of the 21^st century PhD. They make the case that our graduates in all societal sector are ​‘scholars’, in that they rely on highly developed intellectual expertise and knowledge, and have common obligations and commitments. Our task is to ensure that we are effectively preparing our graduates for scholarly work that may look very different from traditional academic forms.

We’ve seen a shift in the last few decades of our understanding of the role of the research university, away from one focused on creating and transferring new knowledge to society, to one more engaged in partnership with society, often co-creating and mobilizing new knowledge with external collaborators.

While basic and curiosity-driven research is still essential, there has been a great diversification in approaches to research; its subjects, goals, and partners; how its quality is assessed; and what ​‘counts’ as scholarly work. We face in our era a host of extraordinarily complex and urgent problems, and this diversification of research approaches is critical if we are to have any chance at addressing them.

Ernest Boyer played an important role in the 1990s in arguing for a more ​‘capacious’ view of scholarship in the academy, in part to address these challenges, but also to restore the vitality of the professoriate and to reverse what he considered overly narrow faculty reward systems developed after World War II. I believe we need to revisit these arguments, particularly with respect to doctoral education.

I wouldn’t want to generalize about PhD identities, but I do know that many view themselves quite differently than is common in the academy. Perhaps traditionally, students were driven to do a PhD because they had a passion for learning and the subject and because they desired a place in the academy in which to follow those passions.

While the former, I hope, continues to be true, so many students I see also enter their programs wanting to change the world; to use their learning to make tangible impacts; to teach the next generation (as a primary goal). These identities are not always valued or supported in the academy, nor are the identities necessarily given room to flourish through traditional modes of disciplinary scholarship.

We will continue to need the deep intellectual expertise, habits of mind, and knowledge that the academy has always inculcated in our graduates, but I, and most prognosticators of this century, believe that much more is required. Our graduates will need to be broad-thinking and cognitively agile – able to see and use different perspectives and ways of thinking; they will need to be adaptable and to thrive in diverse environments; they will need higher-order thinking abilities to enable them to navigate and move forward highly complex and often volatile problems; they will need wisdom more than ever, which encompasses practical, creative, and moral forms of intelligence in addition to analytical abilities. It’s a pretty tall order!

Robert Weisbuch and Leonard Cassuto have written a helpful summary of changes to doctoral education over the last 25 years, which, for the most part, shift the focus of practices towards the student. Depending on the problem they are designed to fix, they have been successful and sustained to varying extents.

In terms of career development, most are familiar with the addition of professional development and experiential learning elements to the traditional model of doctoral education. As learning through these is generally neither assessed nor required for the degree, though, they are arguably not significant ​‘reforms’ to the degree itself, nor do they necessarily enable the development of broader scholarly expertise and thinking.

The dissertation is still the sine qua non of the degree, and reforms in some disciplines were promoted starting about 10–20 years ago. Manuscript-based formats, for example, are now accepted in many disciplines, and creative artefacts are more common in some fields. In terms of doctoral research, that, of course, has changed as academic scholarship has changed, and in particular, interdisciplinary, applied, and community-engaged scholarship have been promoted in some fields for up to 40 years.

The reforms that we at UBC and more broadly have encouraged can also be classified as student-centric, but could be considered more radical in that they re-examine the core of doctoral education in all disciplines, the research itself and its documentation.

The goal was more than different-looking dissertations (although that was encouraged), but a broadening of what counts as doctoral research and its scholarly products, as well as its documentation (the dissertation) With a group of like-minded faculty and students, and support from the relevant administrative bodies, we sought a way to encourage and legitimize for all disciplines a stretching of the boundaries of traditional modes of inquiry. Given the urgent needs of the 21^st century and the diverse types of scholarship our students will undertake after graduation, we prioritized rigorous, collaborative work with external partners (or with other spheres in the academy) in ways that were mutually beneficial and directed toward positive social contribution.

We first conducted a ​‘proof of concept’ pilot (the Public Scholars Initiative) that encouraged and supported PhD students to broaden their research as above and to include that research and any potential artefacts or knowledge mobilization products in their dissertations. Participation was a competitive process open to PhD students across all disciplines, and about 40 students were chosen annually, receiving financial support for their research and/​or stipends, academic support as needed, and professional development opportunities. They comprise a ​“PSI” community and have opportunities to present their work to a diversity of audiences. At the same time, we added wording to both the description of UBC dissertation requirements and the instructions sent to the dissertation external examiners.

Over the 5 years of the project, 184 PhD students from all major disciplines at UBC have participated. The students have collaborated with over 100 partners from all societal sectors – NGOs, governments, industry, communities, the public sector, and non-research academics – in over 20 countries around the world. Over 30 have graduated, and are currently doing postdoctoral fellowships or are employed across all societal sectors including the academy. Most, but not all, scholars incorporated their PSI work in their dissertations.

Some scholars expanded their research in new directions (e.g., into the policy realm or through creative expression), some undertook wholly different, but subject-relevant, research (e.g., in bench sciences, the scholarship of teaching and learning, or engaged, qualitative research; in creative disciplines, empirical quantitative research), some mobilized their research more broadly and tangibly than they would have otherwise (e.g., through resources for organizations and communities, software, or creative products). Some were already doing broad, public scholarship, and the PSI supported them to complete or expand their work. Of the dissertations including PSI research, embedded and contextualized scholarly products included policy papers, art, film, organizational reports, and essays – all non-traditional for the discipline. Several used creative formats and writing styles.

The major challenges of the initiative were, and continue to be: effective communication of its intent and existence, discomfort with or lack of interest in the idea for some disciplines, and a lack of perceived opportunities to broaden research in some disciplines.

We would say the initiative was an enormous success in terms of proving the concept as viable and beneficial. Students have highlighted significant intellectual and practical gains from their experience, and for many, a profound nurturing and legitimization of their professional identities, including their desire to make a positive difference in the world. They frequently say they see the ​‘bigger picture’ of their research and their fields more clearly and can be surprised and enriched by the new perspectives they’ve gained. Virtually all partners expressed enthusiasm for the initiative, and virtually all examiners of non-traditional dissertations praised its concept and the quality and impact of the research. Although it is impossible to quantify, we also believe that it has helped pave the way for acceptance of the concept more broadly. One indicator of that is its inclusion in the university’s strategic plan. More broadly, and likely influenced by numerous factors including the CAGS report and the PSI, most of the 23 Canadian graduate schools responding to a recent survey indicated that they are either considering or actively engaged in promoting an expanded concept of the dissertation.

Canadian faculty and students were consulted on the subject over a period of two years, and the range of perspectives were documented in the report: overall, we judged that we heard ​‘nervous excitement’ about the prospect of expanding the notion of the dissertation. Many legitimate concerns were articulated, as well as great interest and even urgency to change (or to continue changing).

The task force made ten recommendations to help facilitate broadened conceptions of doctoral research and the dissertation, including encouraging student supervisory committee membership from outside the academy, altering policies on the dissertation, providing additional courses or learning opportunities for broadened scholarship, and valuing non-traditional scholarship in faculty reward systems. Perhaps most importantly, it recommended continuing and expanding the conversation (such as through this blog!).

As across Canada, I’ve seen a diversity of perspectives worldwide. Several major publications from the United States have called for a reform of the dissertation, and many international colleagues have expressed keen interest. It’s one of the hardest reforms to introduce or extend, however, as it challenges fundamental viewpoints of the nature of scholarship and the purpose of doctoral education.

In the spirit of continuing to ​‘reimagine’ the PhD, we’ve introduced an annual competition to develop a public scholarship focused, interdisciplinary, graduate course; we’re exploring concurrent learning opportunities to address curricular gaps related to diversified scholarship; and we’re investigating the possibility of a highly transdisciplinary, collaborative PhD model. We also continue to promote culture change through all available avenues.

CAGS has created a suite of resources and examples of broadened dissertations and is intending to expand its range of resources. We are also considering how we might reach out more proactively to our community, encourage conversation, and share best practices.