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PHD-DESIGN  December 2009

PHD-DESIGN December 2009

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Subject:

Re: On the PhD thesis

From:

"Filippo A. Salustri" <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Filippo A. Salustri

Date:

Tue, 8 Dec 2009 20:10:32 -0500

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (119 lines)

I prefer to think of two problems here.  One is "what is a PhD."  The other
is the entrenched assumptions of how a PhD compares to other degrees.
There's nothing stopping us developing a definitive document - a charter, or
manifesto, or some such thing - that outlines the academic community's
position on PhDs vs other doctorates.  It might take years to get it
accepted by a majority of academics.  Given such a document, one can then
envision an educational program for the public at large.

There's a lot of history and societal baggage to fight, but nothing worth
doing is easy.

...hey, at least you can't accuse me of "thinking small." :-)

Cheers.
Fil

2009/12/8 Swanson, Gunnar <[log in to unmask]>

> There seems to be a fair amount of agreement that a PhD is a research
> degree and that a PhD should be granted as the result of a contribution to
> knowledge and that the contribution needs to be explained in a manner. The
> pressure to grant a PhD for other than research/analytical contribution to
> knowledge seems to be attributable to ignorance or jealousy. I'm wondering
> about another explanation (or another source of ignorance.)
>
> This is related to Fil's comments in favor of non-PhD, practice-based
> doctorates. Most people (at lest here in the US) believe that there are two
> kinds of doctors--people with MD degrees (AKA "real doctors") and those with
> PhD degrees. Most people will tell you about someone getting "an honorary
> PhD" when the honorary degree is almost invariably another sort of doctorate
> (usually one the university does not grant on a non-honorary basis. Stephen
> Colbert makes a big deal about having an honorary DFA. I don't think anyone
> in the US grants an earned DFA.)
>
> Despite the fact that people at universities should know better, the same
> attitude is prevalent. The Master of Fine Arts is the terminal degree in
> graphic design practice. I get addressed as "Dr Swanson" by administrators
> and staff who are not part of the School of Art and Design. (That's not the
> practice in the School of Art and Design because it is dominated by people
> with MFA degrees. The art historians have PhD degrees and the art education
> people split between PhD and EdD degrees but studio artists have the power.)
> It is assumed by many that anyone with a tenured teaching position must have
> a PhD. It's very common that university teaching jobs require a PhD degree
> even though they are primarily teaching positions and in areas without a
> research concentration.
>
> The PhD and other degrees are not generally seen as different; they are
> seen as unequal. In many (most?) universities (at least from what I've seen
> in the US), the people with PhD degrees are the "real" doctors. Even though
> an MFA is the terminal degree in a variety of practice fields, a PhD is the
> de facto requirement for administrative positions in most universities. It
> is also often the requirement for being taken seriously.
>
> Lubomir has it right when he says " the whole issue with the Ph.D. in
> design stems from the award and promotion culture in academia." If the PhD
> is limited to being a research degree (I don't have a dog in that fight)
> then other degrees have to gain similar respect.
>
> I heard a discussion on the radio a couple of days ago where an advocate
> for more science in psychology practice was objecting to PsyD degrees
> instead of the PhD. His claim was that psychologists need to be more
> scientific in their approaches and that the PhD teaches how to be
> scientists. But if the PhD teaches how to be a scientist and researcher and
> the PsyD spends the same time and effort on the practice of psychology,
> wouldn't the latter likely be better and more thorough training for a
> practitioner? I have no idea whether he was right about the comparative
> quality of PsychD and PhD degrees but his attitude was clearly that the PhD
> was "real" therefore whatever a PhD entailed was superior.
>
> The School of Communication here at East Carolina University has several
> people hired to teach video production. They are filmmakers with MFA
> degrees. They figured out that getting tenured and promoted was going to be
> impossible. (Some communication research people suggested that they should
> each make several films a year and then write articles about them as a
> starting point, for example. Making a film is, from some comm faculty's
> perspective, a trivial aside.) They are in the process of moving their
> program to the School of Art and Design for various reasons including
> general compatibility issues.
>
> If a university wants to teach filmmaking, it may make sense to have
> students spend some of their time with film researchers but I hope it goes
> without saying that they need to learn to make films from people who are
> good at making films (as opposed to people who are good at conducting
> film-related research.) The attitude toward degrees and worthwhile
> activities of the School of Communication at ECU is not unlike the attitude
> of many universities as a whole.
>
> It does not surprise me that some people see it as an easier project to
> broaden the definition of the PhD than to broaden entrenched assumptions
> that include the PhD being the only "real" professorial degree.
>
> Gunnar
> ----------
> Gunnar Swanson Design Office
> 1901 East 6th Street
> Greenville, North Carolina 27858
> USA
>
> [log in to unmask]
> +1 252 258 7006
>
> at East Carolina University:
> +1 252 328 2839
> [log in to unmask]
>



-- 
Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University
350 Victoria St, Toronto, ON
M5B 2K3, Canada
Tel: 416/979-5000 ext 7749
Fax: 416/979-5265
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/

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