I have been following this discussion for a while and I would
like to...hmmm...what's a good metaphor? "Throw gasoline on the
fire?" Yes, yes, that's probably about right...
Tell them no.
Tell them to stay away from the Ph.D.
Tell them that unless they want to teach on the college level, and
do research that will lead to publication, that they should stay
out of the game.
Tell them that if they are not absolutely sure this is what they
want to do for the rest of their lives, they should stay out.
Actively discourage them from entering Ph.D. programs. Use B.A. and M.A.
programs as a way to prepare people for other professions (K-12 teaching,
public relations, professional communications, law, sales, etc.) so that
they will have a CHOICE.
The market is glutted. We need to cut back, take on fewer graduate
students, turn out fewer Ph.D.'s so the ones who graduate will be able
to find a job without having to wait two or three years. Yes, this means
a lot of us will have to teach more lower division courses since there
will not be as many graduate instructors providing cheap teaching labor,
but is that really such a terrible price to pay? And some of us will be
teaching fewer graduate seminars, since there will be fewer graduate
students to fill those courses, but we do not have to actually give up
our seminars...is there really any reason why a senior-level course
cannot be taught as a senior seminar (many schools already allow such
courses to be taught with both seniors and graduate students...I took
such a course as an undergraduate and learned from it, I think)?
Yes, education should be more than professional training, but education
that ignores the importance of professional training in the name of some
blind idealism does our students a gross, even vicious disservice.
As for the few who decide to go on for the Ph.D., make sure they have the
tools and the experience they need to succeed. Badger them. Hound them.
Make them publish. (This isn't hard. Think of all the projects we would
like to do but we do not have time. Get your graduate students to do
them, give them advice on how to shape the article and where to send it,
help them edit it, and take a co-authorship listing or an acknowledgement,
depending on how much work you actually do, and be honest about it, too.
Or get them hooked up with faculty at other schools with the same problem:
too many ideas and not enough time). Make them work on their teaching,
not only what they should teach, but how to teach. Make them join and
become active in professional organizations. Make them work on commit-
tees. Make them get involved in programs and projects that allow them to
apply what they know outside the university because the public needs to
know how much good we can do, that we are not just elitist prigs sitting
in our offices, or they will not support us.
Well, I've probably said enough. Does anyone have any marshmellows? I
have a feeling I'm going to be able to use some in the near future...
Mark Gellis
Assistant Professor of English
Department of Humanities
South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
Rapid City, SD 57701
Phone: (605)-394-2686
E-mail: mgellis@silver.sdsmt.edu
The Rhetoric Page: http://www.sdsmt.edu/www/rhetoric/rhetoric.html
"Small children think I'm a genius."