Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States: Continuity and Change

We are also grateful for the thoughtful responses we received from over 8,000 university faculty who participated in the National Survey of Graduate Faculty conducted in 1993. Their review of programs in each of the 41 fields included in the study generated the core statistics from which many other analyses were made possible.

We would also like to thank the members and representatives of the Conference Board of Associated Research Councils who provided useful guidance throughout the study. The committee also benefited from the wise counsel of Drs. Harriet Zuckerman, Michael Teitelbaum, and Sheila Biddle, representing several of the sponsoring agencies.

At key stages of this project, the committee sought and received information and advice from many more individuals than it is possible to list here. The help of some of these experts is acknowledged specifically in the series of endnotes found throughout the text. In addition to these individuals, we would like to thank representatives of a number of organizations who offered their expert views at various times throughout the study process. These include Ms. Elizabeth Aversa, Institute for Scientific Information, and Ms. Sarah Pritchard, Association of Research Libraries, who spent considerable time explaining the intricacies of their data systems to the committee. Dr. John Vaughn, Associa tion of American Universities, and Dr. Jules LaPidus, Council of Graduate Schools, kept the committee informed of important developments in the graduate education sector and facilitated committee and staff contact with their members. The committee also benefited from suggestions by representatives of the U.S. Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health relative to their plans for gathering and presenting statistics on trends in graduate education. Other federal staff, such as those at the U.S. Department of Defense, provided statistical information directly utilized by the committee.

In looking back on this four-year project, it is remarkable to consider that every one of the committee members assisted with some aspect of the work. In particular, however, we all came to depend on a number of members for their technical guidance in the organization of the statistics found in this report. We are specifically thankful to Drs. Jonathan Cole, Norman Bradburn, and Stephen Stigler for their help in this regard.

The staff of the National Research Council are to be commended for their diligence in designing the data collection plan, and in gathering and analyzing the statistics. We were especially fortunate to have the assistance of Mr. George Boyce and Ms. Eileen Milner, both of whom were closely involved in the data processing activities of the 1982 assessment.

Dr. Paula Ries, former Manager of the Doctorate Records Project, and her staff, most notably Ms. Delores Thurgood, played a crucial role in making data available to the committee in a timely fashion.

Mr. Alan Fechter, Executive Director of the Office of Scientific and Engineering Personnel, wisely guided the committee and staff in completing the project. We are grateful for his help.

We would also like to acknowledge the careful work of Dr. James Voytuk who formulated the electronic files and created the charts and tables found in this report. Together with our administrative assistants Mr. Anthony Quinn De Santis and Ms. Patricia Kirchner, Dr. Voytuk made it possible for all of us to review quickly and efficiently the vast amounts of information collected by the committee over the past four years. His hard work and diligence played a crucial role in this undertaking.

Ms. Elaine Lawson played an important role in keeping the committee informed during critical phases of our work. We are also indebted to Mr. De Santis for his tireless attention to the many details involved in producing this volume. Ms. Ellen Hoffman is to be commended, too, for her expert editorial assistance; her suggestions for organizing the material in this report were gratefully received.

We recommend this report to educators, students and policymakers alike, and look forward to its use in policy and planning activities.

Marvin L. Goldberger,
Brendan A. Maher,
and
Pamela Ebert Flattau,
Editors.

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