Title  : NSF 96-30 Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Training in the
         Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Type   : Report
NSF Org: MPS
Date   : July 31, 1996
File   : nsf9630


                          SUMMARY REPORT



Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Training in the Mathematical and
Physical Sciences

Workshop report

Sponsored by the Directorate for
Mathematical and Physical Sciences,
National Science Foundation
June 5-6, 1995


   STEERING COMMITTEE FOR THE WORKSHOP ON GRADUATE STUDENT
           AND POSTDOCTORAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING



John Armstrong, Chair
Vice President, Science and
Technology, IBM (retired)

Arden Bement
School of Materials
Engineering
Purdue University

Peter Eisenberger,
Vice-Chair
Princeton Materials
Institute

Kumar Patel
Vice President for Research
University of California,
Los Angeles

Mark Wrighton
Chancellor, Office of the
Chancellor
Washington University

David Goodstein
Vice Provost
California Institute of
Technology

R Bruce Partridge
Provost and Dean of Faculty
Haverford College

Kurt Gottfried
Department of Physics
Cornell University

William Schowalter
College of Engineering
University of Illinois

Edel Wasserman
Science Advisor
The DuPont Company

Avner Friedman
Director of the Institute
for
Mathematics and Its
Applications
University of Minnesota


                      Table of contents

Preface
Introduction
Findings
Recommendations
Conclusion


                           Preface

On June 5 and 6, 1995, the Directorate of Mathematical and Physical Sciences
(MPS) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored a workshop on
graduate education in the mathematical and physical sciences. Its purpose was
to bring together leaders from MPS disciplines to examine the current
practices used to prepare young people for careers in science, and to suggest
strategies appropriate for the next decade. I am pleased to share with you the
findings and recommendations of the workshop.

In many ways, the environment in which today's graduate students and
postdoctorals will work is going to be very different from what we knew as
young scientist. Federal investments in research will remain constant or
decline, at least over the near term. The role of research in industry is
changing, especially the contributions expected of the central laboratories of
large companies. Added to this must be the realization that the long-sought
goal of greater participation by underrepresented groups is being achieved
more slowly than we might hope.

In response, we must recognize this new reality and optimize the use of
limited human and capital resources. Young scientists should not only be
trained to advance intellectual frontiers, but also to meet the changing needs
of the universities, companies, and research organizations that will employ
them. They should recognize opportunities in their own fields and connections
to other disciplines. They should be able to describe the beauty and
importance of their work as easily to a group of high school students as to
their peers.

John Armstrong, the former director of research at IBM who has given voice to
many of these concerns previously, provided skillful and creative leadership
both during the meeting and as chair of the steering committee which oversaw
its planning. The committee was ably supported by a working group of MPS
staff. The workshop also benefited from strong intellectual support by NSF
Director Neal Lane and Deputy Director Anne Petersen.

Discussion at the sessions was lively and thoughtful. It was not a "typical"
NSF workshop in the sense of being focused on a specific area of scientific
research. Yet it followed a model that has been used many times and in which
NSF believes strongly: identifying an important issue being discussed in the
scientific community and creating a forum that furthers the dialogue.

The workshop serves as part of a broader strategic planning effort within MPS.
While the opinions expressed in this report are those of the speakers and
invited participants and do not represent NSF policy, I consider them an
important step for developing an agenda that will help ensure the health of
the mathematical and physical sciences and provide greater opportunities for
the next generation of scientists. These recommendations are currently under
study within  NSF. I invite you to participate in this ongoing dialogue.



William C. Harris
Assistant Director Directorate for
Mathematical and Physical Sciences

                        INTRODUCTION

The heightened international economic and technological competitiveness of the
post cold War world and the growing influence of domestic fiscal stringency
are forcing the research university community to adjust to a changing
environment. In particular, these new forces affect the training of graduate
students in the physical sciences and mathematics, and so the Directorate of
Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) of the National Science Foundation
(NSF) convened a Workshop to examine these forces and to consider issues that
impact how MPS carries out its responsibilities as an important supporter of
graduate education and research.

Although the infrastructure for training Ph.D.'s in the mathematical and
physical sciences in the United States has been extremely successful, this
infrastructure has only now begun to respond to the demands of the changed
environment. The MPS sponsored Workshop included representatives of academia
(faculty, administrators, and students), industry, professional societies,
national laboratories, government agencies, and other stakeholder institutions
to examine current approaches to graduate and postdoctoral training. This
document is the Summary Report of that Workshop.

As is the case for all MPS sponsored Workshops, this report is meant to assist
the Directorate in its planning and interactions with the scientific
community. It was understood by the participants that any changes in MPS
programs and procedures will have to be discussed by the MPS Advisory
Committee and possibly approved by NSF management and the National Science
Board before going into effect.  It was moreover the consensus of the
participants that any eventual changes be gradual and be preceded by a period
of experimentation in which groups in the MPS community are invited to propose
innovations and changes in the conduct of graduate training.

After discussions in separate groups, the participants met in plenary session
and endorsed the following recommendations.

(1) Mechanisms should be found to encourage a broadening of the training and
educational experience of MPS graduate students.

(2) Mechanisms should be examined for shortening the average time to the Ph.D.
degree in the MPS fields.

(3) Increased use should be made of periods of off-campus experience, such as
industrial internships.

(4) Efforts should be made to decrease gradually the proportion of graduate
students funded as Research Assistants and to increase gradually the
proportion funded by other mechanisms, including traineeships and fellowships,
as well as novel, collective modes of support.

We now discuss the findings and recommendations of the Workshop in more
detail.

FINDINGS

In the discussions at the MPS Workshop, participants identified a number of
concerns about graduate training as it currently exists:

(1) The public resources available to support these activities are likely to
decrease in the immediate future.

(2) The skills and knowledge acquired by new Ph.D.'s are too narrowly focused,
and are not adequately applicable to the diverse business and industry
environments in which most Ph.D. scientists actually work.

(3) Over the past several decades, an increasing emphasis has been placed on
the research component of the graduate experience, sometimes at the expense of
the best interests of the student.

(4) Diversity among students in graduate school has not been achieved to a
satisfactory degree. Specifically, women, minorities and other
underrepresented groups have yet to achieve parity within this population.

These findings are discussed in detail below.

(1) Resources

An overarching concern for all involved in graduate education and postdoctoral
training in this country is the decline in Federal R&D budgets.

However, the participants strongly affirmed the importance of continued
government support of these endeavors, even at a somewhat reduced level.
Research done as part of graduate training directly affects areas important to
all Americans and is justifiably supported by taxpayers. These areas include
the environment, health care, safety, national security, and the technical
infrastructure that is crucial for the innovation and increases in
productivity that are the ultimate sources of a rising standard of living.

Thus, given both the crucial importance of graduate research and of education
and the impending fiscal austerity, the workshop affirmed that it was a matter
of the highest importance for the NSF/MPS to find ways to increase the return
to the Nation on its investment in our fields.

(2) Breadth of Skills and Knowledge

There is no doubt that MPS students who obtain Ph.D.'s from the
research-oriented universities in this country are among the best prepared and
most successful scientists in the world. The emphasis over the past
half-century on physical sciences research has borne fruit, not only in
spectacular advances in science, but also in the form of a myriad of new
technologies and industries and in a cadre of highly trained individuals with
the analytical and problem-solving skills needed to perform cutting edge work
in many fields.

Often, however, these students are unaware not only of the options available
to them outside of academia, but also of the applicability of the skills they
have acquired through their graduate education to fields other than the one
they have "trained" to enter. Moreover, students are finding that the jobs
they have trained for are not as abundant as in the past in a number of the
MPS disciplines.

On one hand, students are becoming increasingly specialized and
compartmentalized in their educational and research pursuits. On the other
hand, they are not usually encouraged to acquire the particular skills
(interpersonal communication, management, or business-oriented skills) that
would help them succeed in careers outside their field of preparation.

(3) The Balance between Education and Research

Many of these trends have been exacerbated by the funding process used at NSF
and in other Federal agencies. Since the main criterion for judging grant
applications has traditionally been the quality of the research to be
performed, along with the success of past research, this is necessarily where
the attention of grant applicants must be focused. Not only does this affect
the principal investigators, who may believe they are expected to give lower
priority to other aspects of the education of their students in order to keep
the funding pipeline open, but it affects graduate and postdoctoral students
themselves, who perform most of the labor involved in such research and who
are often effectively discouraged from spending time on other educational
pursuits not directly involved in their advisor's research project.

The current funding mechanism (where graduate students are supported primarily
by Research Assistantships) also has the effect of allowing a lengthening of
the time to obtain a Ph.D. Successful researchers are understandably unwilling
to lose graduate students when they have finally become highly productive, and
these students may, in turn, prefer the protected, known world of the
university over a usually unknown "outside" world. In neither case does the
proposal and grant process take time to Ph.D. into account.

The Workshop participants also noted that a "Ph.D. or nothing" atmosphere has
developed, so that the doctoral degree is often considered a minimum
requirement for meaningful employment in the MPS fields. In addition, the
perception of the master's degree in MPS fields as a second- rate achievement
probably deters many students from entering these fields.

(4) Diversity of the Graduate Student Population

The limited involvement of women, minorities, and other underrepresented
groups in mathematical and physical sciences is a long-standing phenomenon.
While the Workshop participants recognized that much progress has been made to
include these groups in the graduate experience, much work remains to be done.
Specifically, it was noted that colleges and universities are increasingly
able to attract these students into the "pipeline," but are less successful in
shepherding them into and through the graduate and postdoctoral stages.

The mix of foreign and U.S. students going to graduate school was also a
concern. While the scientific achievements and contributions to the country of
both groups are strong, there has been a noticeable decline in the fraction of
U.S. students participating in the graduate experience. This trend, coupled
with the dwindling availability of resources for the support of all graduate
education, has disturbing implications for the long-term health of the U.S.
graduate programs in the MPS disciplines.

                       RECOMMENDATIONS

The participants at the Workshop were divided into four groups to discuss
issues in particular areas of concern with respect to the graduate experience:
career issues, support mode issues, educational issues, and demographic
issues. Although these groups were charged with examining supposedly different
aspects of the problem, a final presentation of the recommendations from each
group showed a high degree of uniformity about what are the key issues and
widespread consensus on recommendations.



Each general recommendation is listed below, followed by a brief supporting
discussion.

(1) There should be a move to broaden the intellectual content and increase
the diversity of skills acquired during Ph.D. training.

The Workshop participants noted that a more diverse mix of skills and
abilities would better enable new Ph.D.'s to take advantage of the changing
career market. This diversity could be fostered through encouraging the
reinstatement or reinvigoration of breadth requirements, such as "minors." In
these programs, schools could offer courses designed to foster
interdisciplinary training or facilitate experiences that provide preparation
for specific, nonacademic technical careers.

Another way to adapt graduate training to fit current requirements would be
the development of professional-level master's programs in MPS disciplines,
which Workshop participants likened to professional engineering degrees or the
MBA. Such programs could well be linked to specific industrial or commercial
career paths and would thus require significant participation from
stakeholders in these sectors.

Finally, in an effort to increase the ability of MPS graduate students to
choose a broader range of careers, the participants stressed that the
education of these students should involve more attention to the development
of "soft skills," such as ethics, business, and financial skills, and most of
all communications skills, such as writing, presenting, and listening.

(2) Mechanisms for shortening the average time to Ph.D. should be examined.

The Workshop participants noted that the average time required for the
completion of doctoral study has increased during recent decades. This was
also a finding of the recent COSEPUP report on graduate education. Although
this observation at the Workshop was based mostly on anecdotal evidence and
the time-to-degree constraint would naturally differ from field to field (and
even from school to school), this was nonetheless identified as a general
trend.

The concern over the time required for completion of degrees centered both on
the welfare of the student and on the additional cost to the Nation of long,
publicly supported stays in graduate school. While these long stays may not
pose a problem to those students pursuing positions in academia, students
attempting to enter commercial or other sectors often find themselves at a
disadvantage to those without Ph.D.'s but with a number of years of practical,
on- the-job experience.

The Workshop participants did not agree to recommend that time constraints be
placed on the completion of doctoral degrees across the board because longer
periods of study and research appear to be necessary in some fields. Rather,
they suggested that NSF examine "best practice" data from programs around the
country and encourage the shortening of time-to-degree periods where feasible.

(3) Increased use of off-campus internships and other real- world experiences.

In the interest of producing more broadly educated students with more
wide-ranging career expectations and capabilities, the participants
recommended the incorporation of an option for some sort of internship, or
real-world work experience, into the traditional education of graduate
students.

Particularly relevant to this recommendation is the success of the NSF "GOALI"
program (Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison with Industry), as well as
government laboratory exchange programs, which have enabled students to gain
firsthand knowledge of the culture, environment, and intellectual challenges
present beyond academia. These programs have been particularly useful within
the framework of the undergraduate engineering experience, but the
participants believe they are applicable to the broader spectrum of MPS
disciplines and to Ph.D.-level training.

To facilitate the development of these programs, the participants recognized
that a significant commitment on the part of both industry officials and the
university research community must be obtained. To this end, NSF should be
encouraged to experiment with awards to grant applicants who propose such
arrangements in a realistic and effective fashion.

(4) Gradual shift in graduate student support mechanisms.

Currently, the bulk of graduate student support provided by the Foundation is
in the form of awards to individual investigators, who use these funds in part
to support graduate students. Many participants agreed that this often has had
the unintended consequence of limiting the areas in which students take
courses and acquire experience.

The Workshop recommended that MPS experiment with means to increase gradually
the fraction of graduate students supported on fellowships and traineeships.
Further, NSF should encourage members of the MPS community in academia to
propose new institutional, "thematic" funding mechanisms for graduate student
training and support that would involve collective responsibility for groups
of students.

Funds could be awarded to entire departments, to combinations of departments,
or to theme-oriented entities that would allocate resources to students
themselves. This would have the effect of allowing departments, or other
groups, to take greater ownership of the overall quality of graduate
education. The criteria for making awards would have to guarantee that
special, new efforts would be made to achieve the desired educational
improvements. In addition, NSF could reward and encourage such "collective
proposals" that exhibit success in the recruitment and retention of students
from underrepresented groups, including women, minorities, and, where
applicable, domestic students.

                         CONCLUSION

Above all, the Workshop offers these recommendations with the intention of
stimulating further debate in the MPS community and experimentation by the NSF
on ways and means to improve graduate education. These suggestions are not
intended to be the final word on any particular issue, and the participants
stressed that they did not endorse a "one size fits all" analysis or
treatment. Improvements to graduate education can be structured in many ways.
To be effective, most changes must come from within the universities and
academic departments themselves. However, it was also the conclusion of the
Workshop that NSF should play a constructive role in sponsoring experiment and
change in graduate education.

As the world of science and engineering is changing, so, too, must the
Foundation adapt to these changes. The workshop participants hope that their
findings and recommendations will be helpful to the NSF community as a whole.