Graduate Education at AEJMC Schools: A Benchmark Study

Interesting read regarding Journalism studies and student-learning outcomes.

Abstract – The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) Board of Directors charged the Standing Committee on Teaching to devise a set of metrics for assessing doctoral programs in journalism and mass communication. This directive was made with the strict proviso that the goal would be to offer suggestions for improvement-that is, how we can better prepare future faculty who may one day teach in journalism or mass communication programs. Exploring what schools are currently doing was a first step. The survey reported here covered the three primary areas important for tenure-track faculty- research, teaching, and service. It builds on the Task Force on the Status and Future of Doctoral Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.1 The article includes suggestions for metrics and student-learning outcomes.

Copyright Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Winter 2008

The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) for many years has sought ways of improving graduate education. For example, the Task Force on the Status and Future of Doctoral Education in Journalism and Mass Communication2 in 2006 presented a fifty-nine-page report that culminated several years of work. As a next step, AEJMC’s Board of Directors charged the Standing Committee on Teaching with devising a set of metrics for assessing doctoral programs in journalism and mass communication that would become suggestions to help better prepare future faculty. To do this, the committee decided to try to establish benchmarks by identifying normative practices in AEJMC-affiliated doctoral programs.

During the last fifteen years, doctoral education has been the focus of a number of national studies and reports including In Pursuit of the Ph.D.,3 the COSEPUP report,4 the Association of American Universities Committee on Graduate Education Report and Recommendations,5 studies by Golde and Door,6 the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation Responsive Ph.D. initiatives,7 and the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate (CID).8

More specifically, in 2004 Chris Golde and Timothy Dore9 studied the preparation of doctoral students in research, teaching, and service by surveying more than 4,000 doctoral students from twenty-seven universities. They found that while 74% wanted to do research and 65% were confident in their ability to do so, only 43% felt prepared to publish.

Yet while research is the central component of doctoral education, they note that overall it is not where most faculty will spend their time. “Research is the dominant focus of the doctorate, and it defines the life of most research university faculty, but it is not the primary work activity of most faculty at American colleges.”10 The National Center for Education Statistics11 reports that, on average, faculty spend 59% of their time teaching, 23% in service/administration, and only 18% in research. Golde and Dore’s study found that 83% said teaching drew them to being a professor. And while 54% said doctoral programs required they be teaching assistants, they note that being just a TA doesn’t necessarily prepare them for “running their own classes.”12 Only 36% of students felt they were “very prepared” to teach lecture courses.

If doctoral students have less preparation for teaching, they receive little, if any, for service that might one day be expected of them. Yet Golde and Dore note, “Service is usually the least respected of the three components of faculty life, yet in many ways the continued health of American colleges depends on faculty members taking an active role in campus governance and in service beyond the borders of the campus.”13

At a conference titled “Re-envisioning the Ph.D. to meet the needs of the 21st Century,” 200 participants devised seven propositions. One specifically addressed teaching: “Preparation for teaching (both within and outside the Academy) must be strengthened. Teaching must be demonstrated and assessed.”14 Nyquist and Wulff15 looked at national studies on doctoral education, finding some consistent themes from which they extracted recommendations. Two of eight recommendations were relevant to this study: to “provide adequate mentoring” and to “prepare students to teach in a variety of settings using a range of pedagogies based on research in teaching and learning.” Both studies emphasized teaching.

In 1998, the Association of American Universities (AAU) surveyed its institutions and developed guidelines on best practices for doctoral education.16 One point in its report was that critics say U.S. doctoral programs emphasize research at the expense of preparation for teaching. Pew Charitable Trusts funded the “Preparing Future Faculty” (PFF) program, cosponsored by the Council of Graduate Schools and the Association of American Colleges and Universities. PFF universities and other institutions adopted additional teacher preparation, which included mentoring, career counseling, and assessment of graduate student outcomes.17

Nyquist and Woodford had concerns about Ph.D. programs. “Although we found general agreement that doctoral education successfully prepares graduates to conduct quality research, there is wide disagreement about whether conducting research is sufficient training for a Ph.D. … Specifically, some in higher education argue that an overemphasis on scholarly research leads to inadequate preparation of future faculty for responsibilities such as teaching, collegial evaluation, collective and individual curricular planning, and service to the college, university, and community.”18 They continued, the “[l]ack of pedagogical training means that new faculty are not prepared to teach today’s students at these colleges and universities. The main preparation for new faculty has been teaching assistantships, so they are limited in their teaching repertoire by the nature of their particular assignment-usually in a discussion section or laboratory for a large lecture class, often without supervision or adequate mentoring.”19

Even doctoral students still in graduate school recognize that teaching is of less importance in much of academe. One student stated: “The longer I’m in the program, the more I know that teaching is not valued… it’s only research, and it’s not only here, but in the profession at large in academia. You don’t get any mileage out of teaching.”20

Some studies have specifically considered issues for doctoral programs in journalism and mass communication. In 2006, the Task Force on the Status and Future of Doctoral Education in Journalism and Mass Communication presented its final report.21 In the report, ten “recurring themes” were identified that “doctoral programs need to” do. Of these ten, two specifically concerned educating graduate students: no. six “Teach how to be a professor” and no. seven “Provide training in pedagogy and the scholarship of teaching.”22 Many recommendations were made to address these themes, including adding “required courses and workshops on teaching.”23 The study also reported that “slightly more than a quarter (26.5%) of programs require doctoral students to acquire teaching experience as part of their program.”24

When the Standing Committee on Teaching was charged by the Board of Directors of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) to develop a metric for assessing graduate programs, it was decided that an appropriate next step would be to develop a benchmark for what doctoral education programs were doing now in the areas of teaching, research, and service-the three areas on which most faculty are judged.

Method

The programs for this study were derived from a listing of AEJMC-affiliated universities offering JMC doctoral programs; AEJMC’s executive director provided a list of 41 schools and contact names. Surveys were initially sent to deans, directors, or chairs of these journalism/mass communication programs. In some cases, other faculty or administrators within these programs completed surveys. One school reported it no longer had a doctoral program. Of the 40 remaining schools, 39 nonduplicated responses were received for a 97.5% response rate. (See Appendix A.) E-mails were sent to contacts explaining the purpose of the study with a link to take respondents to the online survey. The survey was divided into five sections:

* General program information

* Research

* Teaching

* Service

* Contact information for respondents

Categories for open-ended questions (e.g., see Table 5) were derived from a content analysis of responses. The survey instrument is available on request from either author.

Results

This benchmark study surveyed the population of AEJMC-affiliated schools (40) with doctoral programs. The results use descriptive statistics reflecting the responses of the population. The survey’s first part gathered general information about the JMC programs and the universities in which the doctoral programs were housed. When asked how many students are in their university, most gave rounded numbers. The range was 10,000 to 79,958 (see Table 1). Respondents were asked where their program is located within the university’s units. The largest groups were in Schools (17) and Colleges (15). One program indicated it was a School of Journalism/College of Communication and another indicated it was a School of Communication within a College of Liberal Arts. Departments (5) were the smallest group. Because most of these programs are within stand-alone units (schools or colleges), one might assume they have more autonomy and, perhaps, a higher status within their institutions.

The most common designation for schools/colleges/departments was Communication(s), Communication Studies, or Communication Arts and Sciences (13), followed by Journalism and Mass Communication(s) (8), Journalism (5), Liberal Arts/Liberal Arts and Science/Arts and Science/ Literature, Science and the Arts (4), Communication and Information (Sciences) (2), Journalism/Communication (3), Mass Communication(s)/Media Arts (3), and Public Communications (1).

Most of the programs, 30 of the 38 responses (79%), were accredited by ACEJMC. Note that the accredited program could be either at the undergraduate and/or master’s level. (Doctoral programs cannot receive ACEJMC accreditation.) Because the list was from AEJMC-affiliated schools with doctoral programs, it is not surprising that 100% offered the Ph.D. Table 2 shows the types of master’s programs offered. There was quite a bit of variation in the numbers of graduate students (see Table 3).

Teaching Expectations for Full-time Faculty

Loads. Most new tenure-track faculty in these programs were on a semester system with a 2-2 teaching load (25). Four were on a lighter 2-1 load; heavier loads were 3-2 or 3-3 (6). A few were on a quarter system, 3 with a 4-course load per year and 1 with 22-2 load. Additional notes indicated that some new faculty were given the first semester off, presumably to kick start their research agenda and prepare for new courses, or the 2-2 load was for the first three years. Others indicated the 2-2 was for scholarly faculty, or someone with a 2-2 might also have an occasional research course release.

Weighting of Work. Respondents were asked the relative value or weighting of teaching, research, and service for tenure-track faculty. The most common response from 37 respondents was 40% teaching (21 schools or 57%), 40% research (17 schools or 46%), 20% service (16 schools or 43%). The ranges, however, showed a great deal of variability:

* Teaching 10% to 60%

* Research 10% to 60%

* Service 0% to 45%

Annual Evaluations. As part of their annual evaluations, almost all faculty had to submit a curriculum vitae and teaching evaluations (34 of 37 programs or 92%). Most also had to submit copies, or a report, of published articles (26 of 35 programs or 74%) and a service report or portfolio (30 of 37 or 81%). Fewer (11 of 33 or 33%) were required to include a teaching portfolio, which might include a teaching philosophy, evaluations, syllabus, and other materials that pertain to teaching.

Research Experiences

Preparing Students to Do Research. A portion of the survey explored research, an area central to all tenure-track faculty. Respondents were asked which of the following experiences prepare master’s students and doctoral students to do research. In addition, they were asked whether these were required, expected, optional, or not expected (see Table 4).

Travel Funds for Graduate Students. Thirty-six schools indicated that travel funds were available for students who present at state, regional, national, or international conferences. There were several comments on how students might get funding. Many respondents indicated that students had to be the author or co-author of an accepted, peer-reviewed paper. Many programs require students to apply and submit an estimated budget and rationale.

Some programs provided funds or matching funds, or graduate students may receive funding from other areas of the university such as the dean of the graduate school or the vice president for academic affairs. Eleven schools gave dollar amounts that varied from “$200 from School for presentation of research at conference” to “up to $1,000 each to present papers at domestic conferences, up to $1,000 for international.”

Top Three Things to Prepare Students to Do Research. Respondents were asked what the Top Three things they do to prepare students to do research. All the comments were combined, and a content analysis showed the following results (see Table 5). Verbatim comments indicate more depth to some of the comments:

* “Requirement of a ‘research externship” for all doctoral students, in which they complete two independent research projects under direction of faculty and produce publishable papers.”

* “Encourage students to believe they can produce competitive research with graduate students and faculty nationwide.”

* “Annual school-wide research competition/presentation. ”

* “Help students polish their work before submission and polish presentation skills before presentation through seminar sessions and pre-conference sessions.”

* “Sponsor guest and in-house scholars to present their research at sessions open to graduate students.”

What else can be done to prepare students? The final question concerning research asked respondents what else they would like to see done to better prepare students to conduct research. Some comments reflected the responses to the Top Three question above focusing on research classes, publications, and presentations. However, the comment that came up most often concerned funding, whether that was for scholarships, funded research, or RA positions. Other comments (reported here verbatim), however, had other suggestions:

* “We would like to have our own statistical professor for the College to teach an in-house statistics classes. Currently our students take statistical courses outside the College.”

* “Get them to go beyond conference papers to publication. Too many are content with the former.”

* “I think expectations of productivity should be higher. It would be helpful if more faculty worked directly with students to help mentor them and to convey the importance on continued productivity.”

* “More focus on writing skills.”

* “Expect graduate students to do sustained course work and readings in a discipline outside of the department. For example, if students are studying political communication, we expect our students to study with members of our Political Science Department, not just our own specialists.”

* “Just more time to learn!”

* “I also think it would help to have required weekly research seminars that all graduate students would be required to attend and all faculty would be encouraged to attend.”

* “Overall change the culture of the program to balance professional/research tracks with the graduate learning experience.”

Teaching

The survey also examined the area of teaching for programs that prepare those who will become tenure-track faculty. As in the research section, the survey asked respondents which of the following experiences prepares master’s and doctoral students to teach. Again, they were asked whether these were required, expected, optional, or not expected (see Table 6).

Different Teaching Expectations between Ph.D. Candidates and Master’s Candidates. When asked whether teaching expectations and requirements are different for doctoral versus master’s candidates, it wasn’t surprising that most comments noted that more was expected from Ph.D. students. Doctoral students are more likely to teach and are expected to teach, while that is not always the case for master’s students. More often doctoral students are instructors of record while master’s students are teaching assistants. Following is a selection of the verbatim comments:

* “Doctoral students are teacher of record for classes. Master students are more of a teaching assistant. SACS rule calls for them to have eighteen hours in their teaching discipline before they can be teacher of record.”

* “Most of our master’s students teach skills courses to undergrade. Doc students teach both skills and theory/research classes.”

* “[Doctoral students] are more focused. Master’s students may not continue on in graduate education. Not as much of an investment takes place.”

* “Doctoral students are required to participate in our Teaching Academy (take pedagogy seminar, supervised experience in teaching, etc.).”

* “MA students aren’t being prepared for the academy. Ph.D. students often serve as teachers of record, participate in curriculum reviews, supervise MA teaching assistants and are expected to participate in instructor development workshops and programs.”

* “As a program with a professional master’s program and few assistantships, most of our masters students do not teach. Also many are working fulltime. With the Ph.D. program, most are funded and expected to teach and research. We also require a pedagogy course of the Ph.D. students.”

Assessment. Another area that has become more important for accredited programs is assessment. Respondents were asked if their programs taught various methods of programmatic and/or course assessment. Fifteen programs (43%) said “yes.” Many mentioned pedagogy classes that included assessment. Others indicated that workshops cover assessment topics, as can be seen in the verbatim comments:

* “In the pedagogy class students are taught multiple assessment techniques.”

* “Ph.D. Students are encouraged to participate in all-university workshops related to assessment and to provide assessment goals on their syllabi.”

* “This is covered in the ‘Excellence in Teaching’ courses that the University provide. Most of our doc students take several of these classes.”

Respondents were also asked whether master’s or doctoral students participate in any assessment of undergraduate learning outcomes. Nineteen programs (51%) said “yes.” Following is a selection of comments:

* “If they are teacher of record, their syllabus is required to say how they expect to assess learning outcomes, not just by grade related.”

* “The doctoral students assign grades and also participate in faculty meetings related to setting learning objectives.”

* “Where appropriate, graduate students serve on the external assessment panels that review undergraduate work. For example, if we are assessing writing ability, a grad student with professional TV news experience may serve on the panel that assesses the quality of writing in the broadcast students’ ‘packages.'”

* “If you mean grading, yes.”

Top Three Things to Prepare Students to Teach. As in the survey’s research section, respondents were asked what the Top Three things they do to prepare students to teach. All comments were combined, and a content analysis showed the following results (see Table 7). The seminars/workshops/colloquium encompassed many different ideas, from a year-long teaching seminar to a two-week teaching orientation to two-day workshops at the beginning of each year. Others indicated workshops might be annual internal training or cover specific issues such as diversity. Four programs stood out in the comments:

* “Preparing Future Faculty” certificate program

* “Future Professoriate Program” with mentors and seminars

* Activities at the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning

* Attend diversity seminars

These seem to imply a focus either within the program or with the larger university that focuses on preparing future tenure-track faculty for the classroom.

The final question concerning teaching, as in the research section, asked if there is anything else respondents would like to see done to better prepare students to teach. Again, some comments reflected the responses to the Top Three question above focusing on pedagogy classes or teaching opportunities. Several comments, reported verbatim, stood out:

* “More informal, brown-bag discussions. More sharing of syllabi and teaching tricks between faculty and teaching graduate students.”

* “It would be nice to have more resources for team teaching with faculty.”

* “Teach different courses. Most will likely teach only one course… maybe two or three semesters.”

* “It would be helpful if I/we had more TIME to help students prepare better.”

Service

A third area of the survey examined service. As in the research and teaching sections, the survey asked respondents which experiences prepares master’s students and doctoral students for service. Again, they were asked whether these were required, expected, optional, or not expected (see Table 8). When asked if any incentives were given for master’s or Ph.D. students to serve either the university or the profession, only five programs said “yes.” Two of five comments addressed research stipends and funds for travel. Other comments were:

* “Encourage participation in Graduate Student Senate, on university committees, as officers in professional organizations such as AEJMC.”

* “Students serve on several of our school committees. The students appreciate having input on decisions and being a part of committees.”

* “Provide courses and service course options.”

Top Three Things to Prepare Students for Service. As in the research and teaching sections of the survey, respondents were asked what the top three things they do to prepare students for service. All the comments were combined, and a content analysis showed the following results (see Table 9). It should be noted that there were much fewer comments for service than there were for either research or teaching.

The final question concerning service, as in the research and teaching sections, asked respondents what else they would like to see done to better prepare students for service. The most common answer reflects the relative lack of importance of service when compared with research and teaching: “It’s all we can do to give them enough research and teaching experience.” With limited time, service is the area that will be short changed. However, comments, reported verbatim here, offered other insights into how service should be positioned:

* “Develop a systematic training program about service expectations for faculty.”

* “Help them better understand the role of service in the academy. ”

* “Perhaps more mentorship on how to avoid [service] taking over their lives. They need to be strategic in their service obligations, especially if they go into academia. We value service highly, but want them to be strategic.”

* “Creative a more formal structure to encourage service projects among the grad students, especially the doctoral students e.g., becoming officers in the GEIG [Graduate Education Interest Group] of AEJMC.”

Discussion

This study is a first step in addressing the charge by the AEJMC Board of Directors to the Standing Committee on Teaching to develop graduate education metrics for evaluating graduate programs. As a benchmark study used to show normative practices, the results can help us, first, by raising important questions and, second, by beginning the process of developing recommendations and/or metrics and student-learning outcomes. The discussion will be organized around the four areas in the survey: the program, research, teaching, and service; followed by sections on metrics and student-learning outcomes.

Program. Not surprisingly, doctoral programs find themselves within a wide range of schools and colleges. Most programs (79%) contained units that were ACEJMC accredited. Less than one-fourth of all U.S. journalism and mass communication programs are accredited by ACEJMC, so one might assume that those with doctoral programs are larger schools who value accreditation. It should be noted, however, that these schools do not reflect all the doctoral programs teaching media. While acknowledging the variety of institutional structures for graduate education, the Woodrow Wilson initiative on doctoral education argued that their first of four principles is that “the Ph.D. degree requires strong graduate schools and graduate deans with real budgets and real scope-a far stronger central administrative structure than typically exists at present” [emphasis in original].25 As metrics are developed for graduate education, questions such as “How administratively and financially strong are our graduate programs?” might be asked. Is there a minimum level of support that would mean a program should not continue? Should programs be set up to prepare faculty for life after graduate school? (See www.preparing-faculty. org)

One of the biggest surprises in this study was the number of students in professional master’s programs: 2/3 of responding programs (21 of the 32) indicated more than 20 students in their professional programs (with five schools having more than 100 students). As one respondent wrote, “We have two different MA programs with very different goals.” These two missions can put a strain on graduate program resources. While research-track master’s programs would normally stress goals linked to the academy (e.g., research papers, presentations), a professional-track master’s would not. Schools with two-tracks need to evaluate their two-track systems to determine how they impact the education of their students and the cultures of their programs. What are the student-learning outcomes for master’s students in the two-tracks? Do professional master’s programs train students to fit into the industry while the research-track educate students to challenge the status quo? What do the two-tracks mean in terms of resource allocation (e.g., money, faculty, facilities)?

The 2006 JMC task force identified three approaches to doctoral education among AEJMC doctoral programs: generalized, specialized, and individualized:

Generalized programs dominate and are characterized by offering four or more areas of specialization to doctoral students…. Specialized programs focus on a single or very limited number of specialization options…. The customized approach is best exemplified by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.26

The variety of Ph.D. programs suggests the need to look for commonalities when developing metrics and outcomes.

With regard to teaching loads for new tenure-track faculty, 28 of 39 (72%) programs had new faculty who taught four courses a year, while only four programs had faculty who taught three courses and seven that taught five or six courses per year. Programs with heavy teaching loads could use these results to make an argument that four courses a year is the norm in communication/journalism/mass communication doctoral programs. Should a four-course load/year teaching load become a metric for judging our graduate programs? Or might this unintentionally penalize smaller schools with smaller budgets while rewarding bigger schools?

As noted above, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, professors on average spend 59% of their time teaching, 23% in service/administration, and only 18% in research,27 yet according to this study, when considering the value of research/teaching/service (in that order), the most common workload weighting is 40-40-20. It is very important that graduate students be given a realistic idea about their workload when they move to their first job in academe. They should understand that time they spend doing teaching, research, and service may not reflect the expectations of how time should be spent. Perhaps the survey of 4,114 doctoral students by Golde and Dore suggests that the students do understand the pressures of the academy:

They found college campuses appealing places to work and appreciated the lifestyle of faculty; however, the conditions of faculty work gave them pause. They found the tenure process problematic, the workload expectations onerous, the research funding difficult to obtain, and the salaries low.28

Even if programs are so different that there cannot be a norm for teaching, research, and service, should expectations be placed in writing when someone is hired? For example, when looking at service and its relative importance in tenure decisions, it might be beneficial for junior faculty, especially in the first years of employment, not to have to commit to more than 10% service. Once a faculty member is promoted and tenured, his/her service load would increase to 20% of their workload, which is close to the 23% reported in the National Center for Education Statistics study.29

Annual faculty evaluations are an important part of faculty life. Research (documented through CVs, copies or reports of published articles), teaching (primarily student evaluations), and service reports are all required by almost 75% of programs. However, only 33% of respondents indicated that they required a teaching portfolio that would include a teaching philosophy, evaluations, syllabi, and other teaching-related materials. If teaching is to be valued in the doctoral programs, then evaluations that go beyond student/teacher evaluations would not only prove beneficial but would also signal to students that good teaching requires extensive preparation. Should all programs require teaching portfolios as part of a teacher’s evaluation? Should graduate students learn how to do teaching portfolios? Should they be required to articulate their teaching philosophy before they leave a program?

Research Experiences. The Woodrow Wilson report argues, “many doctoral initiatives appear to view scholarly research as the Evil Empire, overwhelming other concerns. In fact, there is no reason to apologize for the fact that scholarship is the soul of the Ph.D….”30 The report goes on to ask, “In each discipline and among them, what encourages adventurous scholarship? What retards and discourages it?”31 In this study, the programs surveyed indicate that their Ph.D. students were required or expected to present papers (100%), publish papers (84%), attend group research meetings (86%), and hold research assistant positions (70%). Based on comments about what is needed to improve research (mentoring, classes, etc.), should all programs require their Ph.D. students to hold research assistant positions sometime in their graduate career? Should students be required to attend research symposia? (See www.gsc.upenn.edu/programs/lecture/symposia.htm.) Should there be faculty awards for outstanding mentorship? (see www.asu.edu/graduate/outstand ingmentoraward.html.)32

Thirty-six schools indicated that travel funds are available to graduate students, with some funding levels being very generous. That was higher than anticipated and would be an important advantage when recruiting graduate Ph.D. students.

When asked about the Top Three ways to prepare students to do research, the top responses were to have students take more research, theory, and/or methods classes, be involved in more mentoring, and have students do more writing, research, and presentations in their seminars. The first suggestion is a curricular matter, the second an issue of faculty initiative, and the third, a course issue. Since all three are within the purview of faculty governance, should they be implemented in all graduate programs?

Teaching Experiences. As noted above, Nyquist and Wulff stated that doctoral education needs to “provide adequate mentoring” and “prepare students to teach in a variety of settings using a range of pedagogies based on research in teaching and learning.”33 In its 1998 report, the Association of American Universities suggested that “[apprenticeship teaching and research activities that, under faculty mentorship, provide progressively increasing levels of responsibility are effective ways to teach graduate students how to teach and conduct independent research.”34 Yet, reports back from graduate surveys do not support this. The Woodrow Wilson report35 cites a Davis and Fiske study that states “a disheartening 63 percent of respondents report ‘their program or institution does not carefully supervise teaching assistants to help them improve their teaching skills.'”36 Golde and Dore indicate, “Students reported being ‘very prepared’ by their programs to lead discussion sections (57.9 percent), teach lab sections (44.7 percent of science students), and teach lecture courses (36.1 percent).”37 These numbers can be considered low considering these doctoral students often do this kind of teaching. Golde and Dore add, “Even smaller proportions reported being prepared by their programs to advise students, develop teaching philosophies, incorporate information technology (IT) into the classroom, and create inclusive classroom environments.”38 This study’s findings were similar to the JMC Doctoral Education Task Force Report, which found “slightly more than a quarter (26.5%) of programs require doctoral students to acquire teaching experience as part of their program.”39 This study found that 30% of programs required Ph.D. students to act as teaching assistants. The difference is that this study found another 54% of the programs expected their Ph.D. students to act as teaching assistants. Combined, 84% of programs either require or expect their doctoral students to be TAs. Teaching experience is certainly an articulated priority by most of these graduate programs as it should be based on recent critiques of graduate education.

The top four ways to prepare students to teach included mentoring/faculty supervision/shadowing/ advising, classes, workshops/colloquia, and opportunities to teach. All four suggestions, if done well, require a time commitment from faculty and institutional support. The first suggestion appears to be less formal than the other three. The question programs face is how formally they want to address teaching concerns. As one respondent wrote, he would like to see “more emphasis on teaching in all doctoral programs.”

One intriguing idea that came from this study is the concept of a separate program that focuses on preparing future tenure-track faculty for the classroom. At its most expanded form, it might be some sort of certification program for newly minted tenure-track faculty that would have a base curriculum that would prepare them for their new positions in academe. (see www. gs.howard.edu/pff/certificate.htm.) Or it might be something less than a certified program housed either in the JMC unit or the larger university.

Given the low numbers of graduate students on national surveys who feel prepared to teach, should all Ph.D. students be required to be teaching assistants sometime during their program? Should courses and/or seminars be offered for professional preparation? (see web.princeton.edu/sites/mcgraw; www.crlt.umich.edu/gsis/teaching_se minar.html.) Should units develop certificate programs that systematically, through courses and field experiences, develop professional skills? (See www.biology.duke.edu/teachcert.) Should they reward graduate students for innovative teaching/learning ideas? (See www.gs.howard.edu/pff/certifi cate.htm.) Should teaching fellowships or grants be given to future teachers? (See www.indiana.edu/~grdsch/fftf. php; www.grad.washington.edu/pff/ huckabay.htm.) Should some kind of formal mentorship program be established? (see www.upenn.edu/almanac /v45/n18/conversations.html.) Should informal programs, such as ongoing lunches between faculty and students, be launched? (See Yale University example.40) Should all schools provide graduate centers with teaching, research, and career resources?

Assessment is an important part of evaluating individual students, and has become an important part of programmatic evaluation. Assessment, especially how it applies to studentlearning outcomes, has become critical to JMC programs as regional accreditation bodies and the Accrediting Council for Education in Journalism & Mass Communications (ACEJMC) now require the direct and indirect measurement of outcomes. Fifteen programs indicated that they taught assessment with most indicating that they taught classroom assessment. Assessment was rarely mentioned being used for programmatic evaluation. It will become increasingly important for new faculty to understand student-learning outcomes and programmatic assessment. Classroom and programmatic assessment can be taught in the pedagogical classes, as suggested by several respondents. Should all Ph.D. students understand the complexities of both classroom and programmatic assessment and be able to develop a wide range of student, course, and programmatic assessment strategies and techniques?

Research Experience vs. Teaching Experience. One interesting way to compare research and teaching is to look at the positions of research assistants compared to teaching assistants. In the programs surveyed, 70% required or expected their doctoral students to be RAs compared with 84% who required or expected their students to be TAs and 57% who required or expected their students to be instructors of records. This suggests a number of possibilities. First, there is probably more money for TAs than RAs. Second, it indicates that without counting the classes they take, more students are being exposed to systematic teaching opportunities than research opportunities. Finally, it suggests that the majority of Ph.D. candidates are expected or required to be both TAs and RAs. This is an important finding and suggests that most graduate students are getting the opportunity to teach and help with faculty research before they graduate with their terminal degrees. Should all students be required to be both research and teaching assistants?

Service Experiences. As noted above, Golde and Dore noted that “[s]ervice is usually the least respected of the three components of faculty life…”41 even though “students reported strong levels of interest in activities such as spending time with undergraduates outside of class (69.0 percent are interested), serving on a university governing board (52.3 percent), and providing service to the community (52.1 percent).”42 With the importance of faculty governance, this lack of preparation for service should give all of us in academe pause.

The Woodrow Wilson report said that “among doctoral students attending the 2003 National Conference on Graduate Student Leadership, social responsibility emerged as the top agenda item,”43 even though “one in five report being prepared to do so [provide community service].”44

Just as service is of the least importance in the evaluation of almost all tenure dossiers, it is not surprising that service was of the least importance to study respondents. When looking at research/teaching/service and what was required/expected/optional/ not expected, service was most often either optional or not expected. While many in academe may recognize the importance of service to the university, profession, and community, promotions and raises are rarely, if ever, weighted heavily on such contributions. Relative to research and teaching, only lip service is paid to service, with service for Ph.D. students being either optional or not expected in 78% of the responses. As one respondent wrote, “We concentrate on teaching and research and advise them to do the same.” How much service should our graduate programs require of their students? What is it about university and professional service should students know before they graduate?

Metrics

The original charge to the AEJMC Standing Committee on Teaching was to develop a metric for evaluating doctoral programs. This study concentrated on establishing benchmarks for graduate programs with the hope that these results would lead to interesting questions and suggest potential metrics. Based on this survey and previous studies, there would need to be program metrics that include such issues as leadership, financial strength, facilities, teacher-student ratios, diversity, and curriculum. However, since the impetus for this study was how to better prepare future faculty, the metrics of interest here was what should Ph.D. students experience over the course of their doctoral programs:

Teaching

* should be Teaching Assistants and, preferably, a teacher of record for more than one class;

* should take teaching (pedagogy) classes, workshops, seminars, etc., which include sections on student learning outcomes and programmatic assessment;

* should have teaching mentors; mentorship should be a formal part of a graduate program and not left to chance;

Research

* should be Research Assistants, preferably on research using a variety of methods;

* should take research classes which include research, methods, and theory;

* should have research mentors; mentorship should provide a research culture;

* should have travel funding available to present at conferences;

Service

* should be prepared for the importance of service and faculty governance before they accept their first jobs in academe.

The above metrics are “input” measures of success. That is, they can be measured by looking at what programs provide to students.

Time and money are at least two challenges facing the implementation of these metrics. Do students have the time to be both teaching and research assistants? Do schools have the resources to give doctoral students research, teaching, and travel support? If students plan on careers outside the academy, should they be required to become competent teachers? Do faculty who have been trained in Research One institutions and who now teach in research institutions understand the challenges of smaller universities and other career paths than the academy? Do faculty, under their own pressures to research, teach, and serve, have the time to mentor all their students and offer more classes? What is the proper weighting of these metrics? If graduate programs see developing researchers as their primary mission yet reports suggest that teaching is equally, if not more, important, how will this dynamic play out in terms of commitment, time, and resources? These are important questions that should not simply be dismissed if we are to develop useful metrics to determine how best to prepare future faculty.

Student-learning Outcomes

In an age of assessment, establishing benchmarks and “input” metrics is just the beginning. Eventually, these metrics will need to be turned into student-learning outcomes. As a first step, turning the benchmarks/metrics into student-learning outcomes suggest the following.

Ph.D. graduate students should be able to:

* demonstrate an ability to teach undergraduate students (this would probably require mentors, classes, workshops, etc.);

* demonstrate an ability to perform research (this would probably require mentors, classes, workshops, etc.);

* demonstrate an understanding of the importance of service in the academy and the professional world;

Specifically, Ph.D. graduate students need to:

* demonstrate the knowledge and ability to develop and measure student learning outcomes for student, class, and programmatic assessment (this might be considered a subset of the first outcome).

Student-learning outcomes, though they appear commonsensical, have a number of important ramifications for programs. For example, what does it mean to “demonstrate an ability to teach undergraduate students”? What is competent teaching? Who does the evaluation? When is teaching evaluated? How will the evaluation be used? What happens if students do not demonstrate an ability to teach? What measures will be used to evaluate the teaching? What does “an ability to perform research” mean? Will all Ph.D. students be allowed to leave their programs only if they have published a single-authored article in a peerreviewed journal; given a co-authored conference paper; finished their Ph.D. and had it evaluated by outside reviewers? What does it mean to be able to “demonstrate an understanding of the importance of service”? Will formal classes need to be instituted to be sure that students understand what it means to be in the professoriate in a variety of settings? Do service expectations vary depending on the size of the unit and other required duties? And, again, what should the ramifications to students/programs be if they fall short?

The point is, as we try to develop metrics for evaluating graduate education in our field, we will need to grapple with not only input metrics, but student-learning outcomes.

Limitations. While this survey sought to build on previous studies by looking at how graduate programs are educating those who will one day work in academe-primarily in research, teaching, and service-this is only a small piece of what one might look at. In fact, some respondents suggested ideas for future studies. Issues, among others, that might be examined include the time to degree, methods training, professional skills experience, degree requirements, interdisciplinary trends, dissertation funding, the decline in domestic student applications, diversity, and core curriculum. Other questions could be of interest as well in a follow-up to this study.

Conclusion

In summary, it appears that most AEJMC-affiliated graduate programs, which are educating the next generation of faculty, appear to be preparing many, if not most, doctoral students for research and teaching but not service. Yet, even among graduate schools that responded, what kind of research and teaching experiences were expected and/or required differed greatly. As AEJMC moves forward in developing metrics for evaluating graduate education in our field, we will have to decide if “preparing most students for research and teaching” is enough or whether we want or need to commit to a systematic approach to teaching and learning, research, and service with demonstrable metrics and measurable outcomes.

It is clear from the previously mentioned studies that the issues facing journalism and mass communication graduate programs are issues facing graduate education in general. It would be impressive if a discipline dedicated to communication could be on the forefront in articulating and implementing an evaluation system that strives to make all of its Ph.D. students proficient in teaching, research, and service.