Doctorate education shifting from academia to broader workforce

To get on a track for tenure, aspiring professors typically need a doctoral degree or the like — which is why graduate programs for generations have focused on educating for academia.

But student ambitions and plans are evolving, and a growing number of University of Iowa Ph.D. earners are taking post-graduation positions either outside higher education, in an ongoing training opportunity, or within academia but without tenure.

Over the past decade, in fact, only 23 percent of the 3,105 students who graduated from the University of Iowa Graduate College immediately took academic tenure-track positions.

Moreover, according to Graduate College statistics:

• About 34 percent went on to additional postdoctoral training

• 21 percent landed non-tenure-track academic positions

• 14 percent took business or industry jobs,

• 6 percent transitioned to a government or non-profit post

• 4 percent ended up in the kindergarten-through-grade-12 system or self-employed.

That shift requires a response from educators, UI Graduate College Dean John Keller said.

'The whole notion is that graduate education needs to move away from the preparation of doctorate students for the traditional mode of becoming intellectual individuals who are researching and creating new knowledge,' Keller said. 'We need to develop Ph.D. students who are publicly engaged scholars.'

Among other skills, that means teaching students how to translate research findings to the public; communicate the value of their work to a broader audience; and function in the digital realm.

'Are we helping them do that the best possible way?' Keller said. 'Are they getting these other jobs by accident? What can we do on campus to better organize our graduate programs to enable students to better do what they want to do?'

Grad student 'toolbox'

The UI Graduate College in the fall will undergo a formal review of its programming, and it's participating in the university's strategic planning process in hopes of reshaping its educational offerings. In the classroom, Keller said, changes could come in the form of new curriculum expectations and updated dissertation and thesis requirements.

Some changes already are afoot, including the requirement that all student complete a 'public abstract.'

Similar to a scholarly abstract, a public abstract provides a summary of the research or work but is 'translational' and functions as a sort of elevator pitch. The university explains the public abstract requirement as a 'professional development opportunity' to gain experience communicating the value of the work to broader audiences.

'Most students can do this — figure out why they are doing what they are going,' Keller said. 'But we need to articulate that better. The public wants to know why we are doing this.'

He pointed to one recent UI doctoral graduate who landed a job working at the Field Museum in Chicago. In the application process, her would-be superiors requested writing samples related to her work.

'One of the examples she provided to the museum was her public abstract of her dissertation,' Keller said, showcasing her ability to 'translate this work into something that's understandable.'

Public abstracts also enhance students' teaching, communicating, and writing skills — all of which are valuable across multiple disciplines both in and outside academia.

'We are trying to think of a consortium of activities that all students need to be better prepared,' Keller said. 'These are graduate competencies and familiarities that people are going to have to have in their toolbox to be able to move into different positions.'

The Graduate College last year launched an annual Three Minute Thesis competition challenging participating graduate students to share their dissertation research in an oral presentation lasting no more than three minutes.

About 10 students participated the first year, and that number this year swelled to 40 in the first round. The field has narrowed to 10 finalists who will compete for prize money and bragging rights March 26.

'The idea,' Keller said, 'is to improve their communication and get them thinking outside academia.'

The Graduate College is assessing ways to enhance its digital training and educating for students, which likely will involve 're-envisioning the future of the dissertation.' Typically thought of as a monograph book that students present at the end of their work, Keller said it will include digital aspects in the future — likely involving things like video, photo, music and graphics.

'We have done this in other areas of graduate education,' Keller said, pointing to fine arts presentations such as painting, music or poetry.

'Why are we always holding researchers to submitting a dissertation in a format that has been used for 100 years?' he said. 'Is that still a valid thing for the types of careers that Ph.D. graduates are moving into?'

'What else can we be doing with our degrees?'

Overall enrollment in the UI Graduate College has been trending down in recent years, hitting its lowest point since at least 2003 in the fall — with 4,947 students, compared with a high of 5,645 in 2009. Keller has cited tightening university budgets and rising student costs, in part, for those drops.

And, he said, budget issues also might be involved in the shift of doctoral students away from tenure-track jobs in academia. Keller cited a dearth of those opportunities across the higher education landscape.

'These positions have to be available to pursue, and increasingly they're not,' he said.

Because many students don't want to take non-tenure-track jobs, Keller said, they are left wondering, 'What else can we be doing with our degrees?'

They are finding those answers outside academia, where a growing number of employers are requiring advanced degrees.

'People out in the workforce are looking for highly-prepared and highly-educated people with research skills to do multiple kinds of jobs in various positions,' Keller said.

Ben Gillig, a UI graduate student pursuing doctorate degrees in both education policy and law, said he's one student planning to focus his post-graduation job search outside higher education. Academia, and the prospect of teaching, was one reason he launched into a double doctoral pursuit.

'And I certainly might come back,' he said. 'But I'm sort of eager to practice and see how I enjoy that.'

His peers have expressed similar interests — with some struggling right now about whether to go for a tenure job. In fact, Gillig said, he's heard more engineering and medical students of late thinking seriously about pursuing Master of Business Administration degrees in hopes of becoming more marketable.

'More and more people are coming to graduate school with broader interests,' Gillig said. 'More people are coming to the Ph.D. program with an open mind — thinking either, 'Yes, I could become a professor,' or 'I could go work in an analogous think tank or policy center.''