The University of Colorado at Boulder's Graduate School, considered one of the top graduate schools in the nation by rankings, has received another feather in its cap from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
CU-Boulder was one of 20 universities selected by the Carnegie Foundation for a multiyear project aimed at improving doctoral education at American universities, said Graduate School Dean Carol Lynch. CU-Boulder's department of chemistry and biochemistry and the School of Education were among 32 departments at the universities selected by the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate, or CID.
"Carnegie chooses universities and departments with excellent track records and forward-thinking faculty," said Lynch, who also is vice chancellor for research at CU-Boulder. "This prestigious selection should help us in recruiting the highest quality of students in Colorado and elsewhere in the country."
The CID project goals are designed to support and study experiments at schools with leading graduate programs in doctoral education, to document and analyze the character of the initiatives and to help the disciplinary community create models and evidence of success, said a Carnegie spokesperson.
The CU-Boulder Graduate School recently received the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award for Innovation in Humanities Graduate Education and grants from the Pew Foundation and the National Science Foundation for preparing future faculty, said Lynch. The campus also recently received two awards from the NSF program on Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training worth nearly $3 million each.
"My belief, which is shared by CU President Elizabeth Hoffman, is that CU is regarded as one of the top research universities in the country," said Lynch.Ìý
The key to the CID program is to train doctoral students to be "stewards of the discipline," said George Walker, dean of Indiana University's graduate school and leader of the five-year study for the Carnegie Foundation.
CID administrators believe doctoral recipients should be capable of generating new knowledge and conserving the legacy of their most important work ideas and findings. The graduates also must be able to transform teaching into methods of engagement, understanding and application, said Walker.
The selection criteria for participation in CID include being a respected, quality program with a track record of placing doctoral graduates in tenure-track faculty positions at doctoral granting institutions. Criteria also include strong institutional support, including resources and a critical mass of students and faculty willing to experiment, engage in assessments and share outcomes.
"This is very exciting news," said chemistry and biochemistry department Chair Veronica Vaida. "The credit for focusing our attention on the Carnegie Initiative goes to Dean Lynch.
"Our department is at a very interesting crossroads regarding graduate education because of our establishment of interdisciplinary ties with biology, atmospheric and environmental science, astrobiology, physics, the newly created Institute for Public Policy and centers to improve excellence and diversity."
Margaret Eisenhart, director of graduate studies at the School of Education, said, "We are thrilled to have been invited to join the CID program. We believe it will strengthen and broaden the quality of our doctoral program and enhance our ability to recruit nationwide for the very best doctoral students."
Founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1905 and chartered in 1906 by an act of Congress, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is an independent policy and research center dedicated to improving higher education.