Thursday, October 22, 2015
5:00-7:00 p.m.
The Incubator, The Institute for the Arts and Humanities, Hyde Hall

This seminar meeting provides attendees with the opportunity to discuss ways in which doctoral education can reshape its requirements, rethink its purpose, and creatively train its students for an array of career options and a diversity of possible futures. We will engage in discussions of the professionalization of a traditionally research-oriented profession and the implications of this for contemporary doctoral education at public universities. Professor Bernard Herman, chair of the Department of American Studies, will provide examples of aspects of the department’s newly minted doctoral program, including the requirement of a professional portfolio, a shortened time-to-degree, and flexibility in the approach to the dissertation, as a case study. Graduate students and Directors of Graduate Studies are especially encouraged to attend.

We request that attendees read these brief articles and scan through the MLA report prior to the event:

The Dissertation: Then, Now, and What Next? Leonard Cassuto, The Chronicle,
November 24, 2014.
The Problem of Professionalization, Leonard Cassuto, The Chronicle, March 23, 2015.
The Ph.D. Problem, Louis Menand, Harvard Magazine, November/December 2009
Report of the Task Force on Doctoral Study in Modern Language and Literature (2014)

Light refreshments will be served. Attendance is limited to 40 people. Please register to attend.