programs to retain doctoral students
Yale is one of 21 U.S. universities that has received a $100,000 grant from the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) to develop programs to improve the retention of doctoral students in the sciences, engineering, mathematics, humanities and social sciences.
The initiative, supported by grants from Pfizer Inc. and the Ford Foundation to CGS, is part of a major national effort to improve the graduation rates for doctoral students.
Yale's Graduate School will work with nine academic departments to create programs that can be applied to all academic areas. Dean Jon Butler will serve as principal investigator for the grant and Associate Dean Martin Klein will serve as co-principal investigator and project director. The participating departments are African American studies; chemistry; computer science; engineering and applied science; English language and literature; molecular, cellular and developmental biology; neuroscience; political science; and sociology.
Approximately 68% of doctoral students who entered Yale between 1984 and 1993 earned their doctorates. The rest left Yale without completing their degree requirements. Nationally, upwards of 50% of all doctoral students leave their programs without obtaining the Ph.D. degree.
"While two-thirds completion may be acceptable and even laudable when compared to available national data, it is too high a percentage when the considerable costs of graduate education are calculated," the Yale grant application notes. "The one-out-of-three students who leave Yale without obtaining their degrees have lost time when they could have been pursuing other passions, self-esteem if they view the fault as their own, and the opportunity to move into academic or other careers suited for their high-level skills and abilities. The financial costs to the university and the unrealized time commitment of the faculty only add to the sum of losses."
Yale has already instituted a number of efforts to improve the completion rate. The CGS grant will allow for these to be enhanced and for new programs to be developed and implemented.
A major emphasis of the grant will be to build on the ongoing efforts to encourage faculty members and alumni to mentor current students, something which has been shown to increase student satisfaction and retention. Mentoring initiatives will also be launched focusing on underrepresented minorities and women.
Since existing studies on attrition offer ample evidence of the importance of the "fit" between student and department, the Graduate School will design ways to give more information to applicants about graduate education, in general, and the applicant's proposed program, in particular, and to ensure that applicants understand the challenges and rewards of doctoral training.
In addition, a Web-based tool will be developed for dissertation progress reports, so that advisers and students can stay in close communication, and the school can access a complete record of each student's progress toward the degree.
"The Graduate School's proposal lays out a series of interventions to support doctoral students at multiple stages of their education and training," says President Richard C. Levin. "We look forward, with great anticipation, to participating in this important and timely project. This will be an opportunity to sharpen our graduate training in ways that will better all of our superb students."
Butler adds, "The award to Yale recognizes our past and current efforts, and the promise of our planned initiatives to play a leadership role on an issue that is the top concern for many in the graduate education community."
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