Educating Scholars

Ronald G. Ehrenberg is the Irving M. Ives Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Economics at Cornell University and director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute. Harriet Zuckerman is senior vice president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and professor emerita of sociology at Columbia University. Jeffrey A. Groen is a research economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Sharon M. Brucker is a project coordinator at the Survey Research Center of Princeton University.

• List of Figures ix List of Tables xi Preface and Acknowledgments xv List of Abbreviations xix Chapter 1. Introduction 1 Part I. Data, Methods, and Context Chapter 2. Data Collection, Outcome Measures, and Analytical Tools 25 Chapter 3. The Departments 41 Part II. Influences on Attrition, Completion, and Time-to-Degree Chapter 4. The Impact of the Graduate Education Initiative on Attrition and Completion 95 Chapter 5. The Influence of Financial Support 113 Chapter 6. The Influence of Doctoral Program Designs 140 Chapter 7. The Role of Gender and Family Status 156 Part III. Transition from Graduate Study to Career Chapter 8. Attrition and Beyond 169 Chapter 9. Early Careers 186 Chapter 10. Publications: Patterns and Influences 206 Part IV. Lessons and Findings Chapter 11. Redesigning Doctoral Programs: Lessons Learned 223 Chapter 12. Principal Findings and Implications 249 Appendix A. Data Collection 273 Appendix B. Questionnaire for the Graduate Education Survey 280 Appendix C. Outcome Measures 300 Appendix D. Methodology 304 Appendix E. Additional Tables and Figures 309 References 331 Index 337

"The right combination of money and policies can make real progress in reducing the time to degree for earning humanities doctorates, but the six-year humanities Ph.D. is probably not in the cards. Those are among the key findings of one of the most ambitious efforts ever to reform the humanities Ph.D., as discussed in one of the most thorough (and frank) evaluations of such an effort... [Educating Scholars] closes by noting that 'intensive critical attention' to graduate education has been shown to make a difference in completion and time to degree. And the book notes just how formative graduate education can be: 'The education scholars receive stays with them; its influence flows into their teaching and research and finally to the successive generations of their students.'"--Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed "The lessons Ehrenberg and his colleagues draw from the successes of the program seem like common sense until one considers how many departments fail to follow them."--Steven Brint, American Journal of Sociology "The future of Renaissance scholarship ... depends upon the recruitment and training of graduate students in an improved and efficient system. The Mellon Foundation invested in that admirable and necessary business and the results, harder to achieve than was at first expected, are produced and honestly analyzed in [Educating Scholars] ... essential reading for all involved in the enterprise."--Bibliotheque d'Humanisme et Renaissance "In covering a wide spectrum of important practical aspects of degree completion, this book is valuable for all those who are involved in doctoral programs either as supervisors or as decision-makers and administrators. More broadly, it comprises extremely useful material for those affected by, interested in, or aspiring to effect change in postgraduate studies in the humanities."--Marianna Papastephanou, European Legacy "Administrators and faculty in doctoral programs in the humanities would do well to read this book. Likely many of the conversations they have had regarding improving their own doctoral programs will be represented in the pages. But the book's utility goes beyond the humanities... Educating Scholars can help departments and doctoral programs of all stripes reconsider what is known about graduate education and provide important context for the conversation around improving the experience for all involved."--Jeffery Bieber, Journal of Higher Education