The Graduate School will submit demographic information about its students and faculty to the National Research Council this week to be considered in the government advisory group's rankings of the quality and composition of doctoral programs across the nation.
How the University fares in the surveys, which are published about every 12 years, is a significant measure of its standing as a research institution, especially as Brown continues increasing its faculty and expanding graduate programs as part of the Plan for Academic Enrichment.
"It's not 'the test' of the Plan for Academic Enrichment," said Dean of the Graduate School Sheila Bonde, "but it is an important indicator."
"This survey has historically been more important than the U.S. News and World Report rankings, in part because it comes from within the academy," Bonde said. "It's important for recruiting faculty, identifying resources and recruiting graduate students. ... We take it very seriously."
All of Brown's doctoral programs will be examined in the study. In the past, the study compared academic departments, rather than universities, based on the quality of faculty, time needed to earn a Ph.D., the percentage of graduate students who work as teaching assistants and the number of women faculty as well as other criteria.
Updates of the Web sites of the Office of the Vice President for Research and those of academic departments are part of an effort to better present the University's research programs, Bonde said. The new Web site for the Office of the Vice President for Research has a database of faculty with links to their curricula vitae and briefs on their research. Additionally, administrators have stressed the importance of the study in Graduate Council and faculty meetings.
In the next few weeks, the NRC, which is a branch of the National Academies, will take lists of faculty and grad students from the nation's universities and use them to send out individual surveys to all graduate professors as well as some grad students at each institution.
According to a 1995 University press release, respondents to previous surveys rated each program's "scholarly quality of program faculty" and the "effectiveness of program in education research scholars and scientists."
In addition to the surveys, each university will provide data on its demographic makeup, which will help gauge the presence of women and minorities in graduate programs. The 1995 survey revealed women and minorities were underrepresented in grad programs but were no less likely to earn a degree than their white, male peers.
Individual surveys will be sent out some time next semester and should be returned to the NRC this summer. The final report should be published next fall, Bonde said. The University has already provided some of the survey data, "but it will be up to grad students and faculty to voluntarily fill out those surveys," she said.
Bonde said the University has been preparing for the survey for over a year and has spent more time on it than other schools. She said the advance preparation and institutional support will likely benefit Brown's performance.
"I've been in almost daily touch with the NRC, and I've been down to Washington to meet with organizers," she said.
The survey's methodology likely will change from when it was last published because universities are given a voice in how the study is conducted each time. "The universities themselves get a little bit of say in how the survey is formed, and, of course, we get some pushback, too," Bonde said.
"This survey will value interdisciplinary research in a way the last one really didn't," Bonde added. "There probably won't be numerical rankings this time. ... There's probably going to be banded rankings, so a department is in the top five or top 10."
The 1995 survey paid little attention to differences in graduate schools' sizes. A greater consideration of size could benefit Brown, which has a much smaller graduate school than many of its peers.
"There's been a lot of discussion about 'What's the necessity of comparing apples and oranges?' as far as size," Bonde said.
In the last survey, two of the University's Ph.D. programs - classics and Portuguese and Brazilian studies - made the top 10 in ratings of faculty quality. Four programs made the top 10 in program effectiveness ratings, and 14 departments placed in the top 25.
Based on its departmental rankings, the University of California, Berkeley, was ranked as the country's top research institution in 1995, followed by Stanford and Harvard universities.
Bonde said even if comparative feedback isn't provided, preparing to participate in the survey has been a valuable experience for the Grad School because it has allowed administrators to look critically at the quality and makeup of its programs.
"We'll be looking at the results critically," she said. "A bad or middling ranking wouldn't be cause for immediate action, but we would assess what the problem is and ask questions."
