Rankings of doctoral programs are typically unidimensional: They consider only the scholarly reputations of the faculty. Yet whether a graduate department effectively serves its students depends in part on other factors that are equally ascertainable but typically neglected.
Here are 10 critical questions, the answers to which would aid in judging the quality of a doctoral program:
(1) Does the curriculum contain not only specialized studies but also core courses, designed to survey the major issues in central fields of philosophy, including metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics?
(2) In which major subject areas does the department rarely, if ever, offer courses, e.g. Asian philosophies, phenomenology, aesthetics, philosophy of religion, etc.?
(3) Can students enroll in a practicum where they are guided in developing skills for instructing undergraduates?
(4) Does each student systematically receive personal, ongoing advice to promote advancement towards the degree?
(5) What percentage of entering students complete their degrees?
(6) How many years on average do students take to finish the program?
(7) Are students provided with strong support in their search for positions?
(8) Is information made available regarding the current employment status of all recent graduates?
(9) Are safeguards in place to ensure that no faculty member is engaging in sexual harassment or coercion?
(10) Do students have a means of seeking redress of perceived faculty malfeasance?
Granted, such information is not of special concern to faculty members, whose primary interest in ratings is to measure the prestige of their own department compared to that of others. For students, however, knowing the publication record of the faculty should be only part of assessing a program. Students should also be able to learn whether the curriculum is balanced and more than a sum of faculty specializations, whether students receive substantial preparation before assuming teaching responsibilities, whether degrees are usually earned within a reasonable time period, whether significant help is provided in searching for positions, and whether protection is available against faculty misconduct.
To the best of my knowledge, no evaluation system currently in use seeks such critical information. Yet merely collecting it would encourage doctoral programs to be more self-reflective and better serve the interests of their current and future students.
Steven M. Cahn
Steven M Cahn is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Among the recent books he has authored are Teaching Philosophy: A Guide (Routledge, 2018); Inside Academia: Professors, Politics, and Policies (Rutgers, 2019); Navigating Academic Life: How the System Works (Routledge, 2021); Professors as Teachers (Wipf and Stock, 2022), and, most recently, From Student to Scholar: A Candid Guide to Becoming a Professor, Second Edition (Wipf and Stock, 2024).
