The recent Provost's Task Force found that very few PhD degrees are completed in 4 years. As a result, departments have been busy amending, revising, cutting, merging, and re-arranging course requirements and increasing prerequisite requirements in order to comply with the 4 year Road Map. Check out your department's Home Page and their entry in the SGS Calendar . One of our main concerns is protecting the integrity of programmes which are being revised so that students can proceed more quickly through their academic requirements. The other obvious concern is the continuing lack of money, coupled with the increased deadline pressure and potential inability to work as a TA or GA because of these time pressures.
Important questions remain unanswered.
The main failure of the 4-year approach is the fact that it ignores the reality of the academic marketplace. The 4-year approach, however, makes no allowance for the fact that conferences, papers, teaching and presentations require time and support. The choice of a 4-year period is by no means arbitrary on the part of the University as it nicely corresponds to provincial grants which fund universities for every PhD student for four years of doctoral study. The fact that a PhD at this University takes an average of 5.75 years does not seem to trouble anybody except students who often find themselves abandoned in Year 5 and beyond. You see, new students equal new money while advanced students take up space.