Ph.D. Program Rankings Lack Safety Considerations

By Jyllian Kemsley • Posted in Academia, Education, In the News, Safety Culture

September 28th, 2010

The National Research Council’s assessment of graduate programs is out today. To quote from my colleague Carmen Drahl’s story, “The rankings cover doctoral programs in disciplines ranging from aerospace engineering to theater. Those for chemistry alone evaluate over 150 departments on each of 20 criteria, which fall under the broader categories of research activity, student support and outcomes, and diversity.” The goal is to provide data that can be used to evaluate the quality of programs. But it seems to me that the survey is woefully lacking on the occupational health and safety front.

On the student support front, here are some of the related questions on
the institutional questionnaire:

• Is university-supported health care insurance part of the financial support provided to enrolled doctoral students?
• Does the university-supported health insurance for doctoral students cover mental health services?
• Missing: Are students eligible for disability or workers compensation?

The program questionnaire asked individual programs (e.g. chemistry departments) whether their institution and/or program provides the following kinds of support for doctoral students or doctoral education:

• Orientation for new graduate students
• International student orientation
• Language screening/support prior to teaching
• Instruction in writing (outside of program requirements)
• Instruction in statistics (outside of program requirements)
• Prizes/awards to doctoral students for teaching and/or research
• Assistance/training in proposal preparation
• On-campus, graduate student research conferences
• Formal training in academic integrity/ethics
• Active graduate student association
• Staff assigned to the graduate student association
• Financial support for the graduate student association
• Posted academic grievance procedure
• Dispute resolution procedure
• Regular graduate program directors/coordinators meetings
• Annual review of all enrolled doctoral students
• Organized training to help students improve teaching skills
• Travel support to attend professional meetings
• Missing: Safety training, access to environmental health and safety information

The student questionnaire asked students to rate “the adequacy of the support that has been available to you in each of the following areas”:

• Computer resources
• Other research, laboratory, clinical or studio facilities
• Library resources
• Your on campus personal work space
• Space available for social interaction among students in your program (e.g., coffee nook, lunch room)
• University-provided housing or housing support
• University-provided child care facilities or child care support
• University recreational/athletic facilities
• Healthcare and/or health services provided by your program or university
• Missing: Occupational heath and safety support

Granted, centralized training is only one aspect of a good safety program, and safety concerns may not resonate so much with students in humanities or social science departments (although, as a Department of Homeland Security official recently pointed out to me, survey takers can face occupational safety issues). But not everyone needs support with language, writing, or statistics, either.

Readers, what else do you think the questionnaires missed?

Original post available HERE.