University of Virginia Library

The Need For Ph. D.'s

The report of a Virginia State Chamber
of Commerce committee declaring that Virginia
needs more Ph.D.'s, and obviously
the additional facilities to produce them,
is hardly startling. It would have been news
had the Chamber's Committee on Ph.D.
Education found otherwise.

The report says there is a real need by
business and industry for more personnel
at the doctorate level, that not enough
Ph.D.'s are being produced in Virginia and
not enough can be imported to make up
the difference. Furthermore, it suggests that
nothing can be done toward solving these
problems until more adequate and quality
facilities are made available to produce the
needed Ph.D.'s.

If Virginia industry and business cannot
obtain all the Ph.D.'s they want, the
shortage in this area is complicated by the
fact that colleges and universities also want
more professors, with doctorates. They will
require more if their facilities are ever
enlarged to produce more holders of the
advanced graduate degrees. It becomes in a
way a vicious circle but obviously the
starting point is to provide the needed
facilities first.

The lack of additional, and quality,
facilities is the heart of the problem. Too
many Virginians go to other states for
those degrees and decide to remain where
they are. One reason for this is a broader
intellectual association in other states where
facilities are more numerous and perhaps of
higher quality.

In the 1965-66 year only 158 doctor's
degrees were conferred in Virginia, despite
the fact this was a 36 per cent increase
over the number in the previous year. Of
these degrees, the University granted 90,
Virginia Tech, 65, and the Medical College
of Virginia, three.

Thus for all practical purposes only two
state-supported institutions of higher
education granted this advanced degree in
any number and that number was hardly
impressive in view of today's requirements.
Virginia colleges could probably snap up a
year's production of Ph.D.'s and call for
more, leaving nothing for industry and
business.

Improvement is being shown in this
phase of graduate education in Virginia but
the improvement can hardly be enough.
Other states are improving too and many
of them at a much faster rate than is the
Old Dominion.

The problem will ultimately wind up in
the lap of a gentleman who is being
bombarded with problems and very few
solutions. Gov. Godwin has our sympathy
in the forest of dilemmas which surrounds
him, but increasing the production of
Ph.D.'s is surely one problem to which he
must pay more than passing attention.