Graduate Process

One of the things that I found most frustrating at the beginning of my career as a graduate student was that there were many interesting classes being offered at other institutions (or even through different programs within my institution) that I could not easily take if I wanted them to 1. Show up on my transcript and 2. Count toward graduation.

There are clearly important academic reasons for this:  First, institutions have different entrance requirements and they may want to ensure that all students in a particular class meet that standard; second, classes are typically approved by faculty senate or other governing body to ensure that the syllabus meets acceptable standards within the institution — accepting an other institution’s classes means that the quality of the class must be taken on some level of faith; third, even if a student were able to easily take a graduate level course at another institution, there would have to be some grade reconciliation between the two schools.  There are also substantial financial disincentives to simplified articulation systems between institutions — and by preventing students from seeking extramural course work, universities are able to monopolistically control tuition fees.

At one end of the spectrum, loose articulation standards create one of the avenues for diploma mills to function.  However, at the other, the lack of efficient, flexible, yet academically rigorous articulation systems is one of the drags on innovation within the modern university system. 

While I do not fully agree with the sentiment offered by David Wiley that “Universities will be irelevant by 2020″,  the ability to rapidly integrate course work from multiple IHEs into a customized learning experience — that also meets home institution academic standards — seems like an achievable and necessary step.

While conducing interdisciplinary research is becoming increasingly commonplace and transdisciplinary work may seem like second nature to many students, deep questions remain about how to evaluate educational and research quality.  These questions become more complex as the traditional departmental evaluation of graduate student work has less and less relevance to the actual research being conducted.  There are some long-standing approaches to accommodate research that does not completely fit within one established discipline — for example, providing for consulting faculty or specialists from other institutions to sit on PhD committees in varying roles.

The defense of the dissertation is inherently a liminal space¹ — the candidate stands at the dividing line between being a student and entering the professional space occupied by his or her advisors. At the close of a successful defense, the student is in a small way transformed. The student also stands at the edge of their own knowledge, and if it is “done right” the student and committee have been brought to the edge of what is know in the field of study.

The metaversity concept suggest that another layer of liminality is added to this mix. In the process of defining and exploring the transdiscipline, the graduate student may come to posses an understanding of the disciplinary interesection that significantly exceeds the understanding of the committee (in terms of this narrow field of study), in effect inverting the structure of the committee. The student may have to use the committee members not so much in a pedagogical role, but rather as guides — using their accumulated knowledge and experience to structure lines of inquiry designed to address the developing transdisipline in a rigorous way, using established modes of inquiry while simultaneously working to integrate these approaches and innovating where necessary.

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1. Deegan, M. J. & Hill, M. R. (1991). Doctoral Dissertations as Liminal Journeys of the Self: Betwixt and between in Graduate Sociology Programs. Teaching Sociology, 19, 322-332.