University of Virginia Library

Ph.D. Production

The matter of Ph.D. production
interested us because it has been so
much in the news recently. We
interrupted to ask the Dean to
explain it. "We, educators and
administrators, have come to realize
that Ph.D. production is extremely
important. For one thing, high
production is almost a must to
attract outside fellowship
assistance, and especially to attract
Federal support. In one sense, you
can judge the graduate school by its
production of graduate degrees. I
am speaking now, of course, of
good graduate degrees. The Ph.D.'s
who go out from the University to
work in other colleges and
universities, or to enter the
professions, help to establish our
reputation. We need to produce
large numbers of Ph.D.'s for several
reasons, but they have to be good."

Dean Younger showed us a
chart listing Ph.D. production since
the second world war. "You see
that we produce 42 Ph.d.'s in all
departments of the Graduate
School of Arts and Sciences in
1962-1963, while we produced 90
in 1967-1968. That's more than
double the output in only five
years, and all of the graduate
divisions together produced 147
Ph.D.'s in 1967-1968, which is a
new record for total production.
When you combine the increase in
numbers with the improvement in
quality that our current faculty
represents, you can see just how
dramatically the University is
moving ahead in this area."

We asked whether it is possible
for a very good department to
produce only a few Ph.D.'s, while
remaining a good department.
"Yes, I think so," Dean Younger
replied, "and our Mathematics
Department would perhaps be an
example of a first-rate department
with great national prestige but
relatively low Ph.D. production,
although the Math Department has
rapidly accelerated its Ph.D.
production within the past few
years. But this is the exception
rather than the rule. In general, and
noting such exceptions as the Math
Department, you can expect the
best departments to have high
production. We have recognized
that fact here, and it is pretty well
accepted throughout the U.S.A."

We noticed in the chart that
total production fluctuated from
year to year, and we asked about
that. "Those fluctuations are
important," Dean Younger told us,
"because they illustrate another
point about the nature of graduate
education. A department has to
build up a large backlog of Ph.D.
candidates if it is to have
consistently good production.
Those fluctuations reflect years in
which the backlog was for some
reason wiped out. This has been a
concern to us for some time, and
we have tried to control the
backlog by offering first-rate
faculty and strong financial support
to our students.