Commencement is a rite of passage for graduating seniors, but for Ph.D. students the ceremony is the final chapter in a much longer process. Most doctoral students leave College Hill for the challenging academic job market, and many already have teaching positions or postdoctoral fellowships lined up. But whether or not their career plans are clear, doctoral students interviewed by The Herald said doing their graduate work at an undergraduate-focused institution was a positive experience.
The research and writing required of a Ph.D. student varies between disciplines, making generalizing about the process difficult.
"It's just fundamentally different to write a really huge tome the way they do in the humanities, and to write discrete, empirically based papers the way I have been doing," said ecological and evolutionary biology student Jonna Hamilton Ph.D. '06. "But as far as support, I think we've had the same trials and tribulations."
Hamilton began her advanced degree after graduating from college in Florida. She chose to come to Brown because the University has one of the largest groups of functional ornithologists in the country. Hamilton's dissertation focused on how some birds' wings allow them to move through both air and water.
"My department is awesome," Hamilton said. "It's just a big family, basically."
Though Hamilton enjoyed the community in her own department, she said the University's research efforts may be underestimated by undergraduates. "Brown is not a small research institution in many ways, but it is definitely centered on undergrads," Hamilton said.
Rather than following a traditional path into academia, Hamilton will begin work as a science adviser to a member of Congress after graduating. The program is run by the American Academy for the Advancement of Science and is specifically designed to bring Ph.D. graduates into policy.
Just as specific faculty members drew Hamilton to Brown, some of the University's lesser-known centers of study attract graduate students. The Center for Population Studies drew Mara Leichtman Ph.D. '06 to Providence. An anthropology doctoral student, she said the center's interdisciplinary approach allowed her to pursue her interests in migration and demography. Better yet, the center consistently provided generous funding.
Though funding is a perennial source of complaint for doctoral students, Brazilian native Luciano Tosta Ph.D. '06 said the support he received at Brown exceeded whatever he could have found in Brazil. "When I think about my experience in Brazil, it's hard for me to understand (graduate students' complaints)," he said. "In Brazil you don't get any support."
Tosta first came to the United States to study comparative literature on a Fulbright Scholarship, but was told not to apply to Brown because it would be too competitive to get into coming from Brazil. The Fulbright sent Tosta to SUNY Buffalo, but he applied to Brown after completing his master's there.
"When I visited admission one woman said to me, 'Don't worry, we'll take care of you here,' and from my first day at Brown, to this day, I felt like that," Tosta said.
A comparative literature and Portuguese studies student at Brown, Tosta began teaching at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign after defending his dissertation earlier this year. "In the case of Portuguese studies, everyone knows (Brown) is the best place in the country," he said.
Like many students who defended their dissertations earlier this year, Tosta will return to campus to receive his degree officially at the Commencement ceremony. For some, the ceremony will mark the end of nearly a decade of study.
Amanda Burdan Ph.D. '06 entered the history of art and architecture graduate program in 1995 and spent two years in a Pennsylvania farmhouse finishing her dissertation on American women artists in the post-Civil War era.
Her dissertation came in at over 500 pages.
"I knew I'd never finish my dissertation if I kept teaching," she said, referring to the particularly heavy teaching load art history students face. Though it slowed her own academic pursuits, Burdan said teaching was one of the most rewarding parts of her Ph.D. program. While on campus she won an award from the Sheridan Center for Teaching.
"I can't imagine not teaching" further down the road, said Burdan, who is currently in a fellowship program at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Burdan said her teaching experience and interaction with undergrads made her a strong advocate for Brown's undergraduate program. She interviews applicants through the Brown Alumni Schools Committee and said she recommends Brown to "every single undergraduate."
In the future, long-term students such as Burdan may have a harder time financing their degrees. Though Dean of the Graduate School Sheila Bonde had firsthand experience advising humanities dissertations as a professor of art history, she said the Graduate School will continue stepping up efforts to encourage students to finish in five years.
"Students in their sixth, seventh and beyond years have long known that they're at the bottom of the pile to receive funding, and that's simply going to become even clearer," Bonde said. "But I'm not in the business of firing students. We want every student to complete (his or her degree)."
All Ph.D. students entering this fall will be guaranteed funding for five years of study. "That guarantee will attract even better students than we've been having," Bonde said.
But Burdan said programs such as art history take longer than average to complete. "Limitations to funding put in place seem more pertinent to other degree programs," she said. "Different fields have different research styles and take different lengths of time to finish."
Bonde said that clarifying departments' deadlines and giving students "clearer signals that there's a finite time we can fund them" will help limit the number of students who take longer than average. "But we're certainly humans, and we understand that life happens," she added.
Walter Harper Ph.D. '06, who will graduate this year after 13 years in the Department of Anthropology, began his graduate studies halfway through a career. Harper worked in the University's Office of Financial Aid before enrolling in the Graduate School and took time off from his dissertation to work.
"There were times I thought, 'Am I going to be able to finish this?'" Harper said. But he said his advisers and friends at the University remained supportive.
As Harper's experience indicates, the trajectory of a Ph.D. program varies considerably depending on a student's background and academic discipline. Some leave Brown to write their dissertations, others never live in Providence, and some may spend a year or more doing research abroad.
Leichtman, the graduate student who was drawn to Brown by the Center for Population Studies, spent a year doing fieldwork in Senegal for her anthropology degree. Leichtman said she had an easier time landing an academic position than others in her field because of her focus on Islam. She completed her defense earlier this year and is now an assistant professor at Michigan State University.
"The world political situation helped me get a job," she said.
According to Bonde, the job placement of graduating Ph.D. students is closely monitored. "We really look at how many students we have been able to place in the last year, and how many students we can sustain here at Brown, so it's part of a larger ecosystem," she said.
The interdisciplinary approach of Brown's curriculum and educational philosophy gives Ph.D. students specialized training that will help them in the competition for increasingly rare tenure-track positions.
"We're constantly looking at fields of study to say, what's the future? How should we be training our graduates and undergraduates?" Bonde said. "It's a process of crystal ball-gazing."
Tosta said that after more than five years at Brown, the Commencement experience would be a welcome one.
"I need this closure," he said.
This year, there may be a record number of Ph.D. students graduating, Bonde said in an April interview. "It looks like we're going to have a full tent."
