Blueprints, Tools, and the Reality Before Us: Improving Doctoral Education in the Humanities

This article by Joseph Heathcott is from the September/October 207 issue of Change magazine. The editor has chosen it as the article from this issue that is shared with the world at large, without password protection, and you can find it here. Note that SCUP members are entitled to a discounted subscription to Change magazine. Request the discount code by emailing membership@scup.org.

In graduate education we work with blueprints too, although we are seldom clear about where they come from, and we are rarely willing to brush them aside. But occasionally we notice that the blueprint fails to conform to the reality in front of us, and we rethink our approach. During the six years that I served on the graduate faculty in the Department of American Studies at Saint Louis University, I worked with my colleagues to redesign our graduate programs, with special attention to the Ph.D. Our modest efforts may contribute to the national conversation about doctoral education in the humanities.