Members of the Tufts faculty are proposing to broaden the scope of graduate education by offering new doctoral programs in philosophy, economics and political science.
Lynne Pepall, the interim dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, said that the faculty is also discussing a global history concentration under the history doctoral program.
"Graduate education is very exciting right now here at Tufts," Pepall said.
These changes aim to develop research strength in the graduate programs. The programs, however, are still in the initial proposal phase.
Tufts currently offers graduate study programs in economics and philosophy, but only through the master's degree. It offers no graduate study program in political science.
Currently, Pepall is working with faculty from each department to develop curricula for the programs and to make sure they are properly funded.
Both Pepall and Dean of Undergraduate Education James Glaser stressed that the addition of new programs will only be successful if there are sufficient resources to accommodate them. "It's really important that when grad students come to work with departments, that the departments can support them," Pepall said.
To do this requires sufficient funding. "It can only be accomplished if it's an expanding pie, not if it's a fixed pie," Glaser said.
According to Pepall, fundraising for the new programs, combined with curriculum development, will take time. "My personal goal is to have one program up and running by September '09," Pepall said.
Reaction from seniors who are thinking about pursuing graduate-level education appears to be positive.
Sarah Newton, a senior majoring in international relations and Russian and East European studies, would like to continue on to graduate study following her undergraduate degree.
She said that graduate study in political science would "absolutely" be an asset to Tufts. "I think it would help build up the department and the prestige of program," she said.
Newton also said that more graduate programs would help with faculty recruitment and provide added resources in the form of qualified graduate students to help professors foster undergraduate research.
While Tufts "has a strong research tradition," faculty members only have finite amounts of time to mentor students, she said.
Senior Jose Condor, who is a co-president of the Tufts Economics Society, is also considering graduate-level education, although in the form of a master's degree rather than a Ph.D.
He said that adding a doctoral program in economics will allow more students to take advantage of what he called an excellent department. "I'm an economics major, and all of the professors that I have had so far have been amazing," he said.
The real challenge, he said, is not whether such a doctoral program can or should exist, but rather how to make it as good as possible.
Despite the large amount of resources that would need to be funneled into the programs, Glaser and Pepall said that they will not detract from Tufts' traditional focus on undergraduate education.
According to Pepall, faculty and administrators are looking to "see how we can make graduate and undergraduate education work together."
Also, she said that adding more graduate students will enhance the community. "It will make the student population more diverse because graduate students come from all over," she said.
Glaser agreed that these new developments could potentially improve the undergraduate program. "All of us benefit by having smart graduate students around," he said.
The addition of graduate students in different fields should not change the way that undergraduate classes are taught, Glaser said. "The point is not to hand off the teaching of undergraduate courses to graduate students," he said.
According to Pepall, the goal is instead to bring the graduate programs up to the same level as their undergraduate counterparts.
"We want to have the same excellence that we have in our undergraduate education in our graduate education," she said.
