ELON COLLEGE – Dr. Leo M. Lambert, president of Elon College, has been named to a national advisory board for a project that is re-examining doctoral education in the United States.
The two-year project, “Re-envisioning the Ph.D.,” is responding to criticism and calls for reform in doctorate degree programs. Concerns about graduate education have been raised from within higher education and from those representing business, industry, government and others who hire people with doctorates.
Some leaders in industry and the public sector believe that the doctoral degree in several fields poorly prepares its graduates for productive work outside of academia. Several prominent national education leaders also want to see new opportunities developed to allow graduate students to use their learning and abilities to benefit aspects of society beyond the classroom.
Project leaders have spent the past year gathering information about U.S. doctoral programs. Lambert and other board members, who represent education, business and the private sector, will review the information, commission position papers, and develop new models for doctoral education. The goal is to develop recommendations, strategies and incentives for improvement in graduate programs. The board’s findings will be shared at a conference in Washington D.C. in April 2000.
Lambert has been recognized as a national leader on examining and defining the role of graduate education. As associate dean of the graduate school at Syracuse University, he developed the Teaching Assistant Program and the Future Professoriate Program to prepare graduate students for successful careers as college professors. The Future Professoriate Program became a model for institutions nationwide and was awarded a certificate of excellence in the Theodore M. Hesburgh Prize for the Faculty Development.
-30-