The University will form a working committee to investigate expanding the size of the Graduate School's student body and course offerings, Provost David Kertzer '69 P'95 P'98 announced Tuesday at a faculty meeting.
Kertzer said the committee is expected to release its final report at the end of the Spring 2008 semester and deliver budget recommendations to the University Resource Committee earlier that semester.
The expansion of the faculty has "put pressure" on the Grad School to expand its student body, Kertzer said.
But as this new committee examines the possibility of expanding the graduate student population, the Grad School student body is shrinking - its size will decline by about 12 students next academic year to compensate for the introduction of a new plan of guaranteed doctoral support.
The working committee will include four administrators - Dean of the Graduate School Sheila Bonde, Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron, Vice President for Research Clyde Briant and Associate Dean of the Graduate School William Heindel - four faculty members and two grad students, Kertzer said. Bonde will chair the committee.
Bonde told The Herald that the dean of the College will serve on the committee to assess the effects any changes would have on undergraduate teaching. Faculty and students will be chosen over the course of this semester and the summer, and the committee will begin meeting in the fall, she said.
Bonde said it is "a good moment" to address the issues before the working committee because extensive data on the Grad School has recently been compiled for the University's internal census study and a National Research Council survey.
The internal census was an in-depth study of doctoral students' semester levels and expected time needed to complete their degrees and was designed to predict how much the five-year support plan would cost the University. The NRC survey is conducted by individual departments to prepare for a national ranking of the Grad School.
The committee's formation comes on the heels of a new plan for doctoral student support, which will be implemented next semester and guarantees a five-year financial package to all incoming doctoral students, along with support for current students in their first five years at Brown. The package will guarantee tuition remission and health insurance coverage along with a stipend of $18,000 for doctoral students who become teaching assistants, research assistants or enter into fellowships.
The committee will ensure that students are supported under the new doctoral support plan, Kertzer said.
The plan has raised concerns among some students that doctoral candidates will not be supported beyond their fifth year. Kertzer addressed this concern - which he called a "misperception" - at Tuesday's faculty meeting, saying that some students will be supported for more than five years.
Kertzer praised the new plan for doctoral support, adding that the quality of the Grad School student body and the school's selectivity has improved due to recent increases in stipends.
"For Brown to be a great university, we need a flourishing graduate school," Kertzer said.
Several history department graduate students argued in a letter to the editor published in The Herald Feb. 7 that the average time to complete a degree in the department is six years and that the plan would cause doctoral students to devote more of their time to completing their studies instead of assisting in undergraduate courses.
Kertzer said at the faculty meeting that the new plan will not reduce the number of TAs or RAs. "That is not true," Kertzer said, addressing concerns to the contrary. "We are expecting the same number of RA-ships" and TA-ships.
