Correction appended.
A new Graduate School initiative, which the University announced yesterday, will allow doctoral candidates to pursue a master's degree in a secondary field while they are earning a Ph.D., beginning next fall. A $2 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation that will fund students pursuing a degree in the humanities provided an impetus for the program's launch.
The Grad School provides financial support for five years of study, and the Mellon grant will fund the sixth, according to a University press release.
Known as "Open Graduate Programs: Graduate Education — Uniquely Brown," the initiative will target the set of students who are interested in two often distinct areas of study and help them prepare for careers, said Peter Weber, dean of the Graduate School.
"We say that our undergraduate students are in charge of their education — they're the architects of their education," Weber said. "So the thinking is, ‘Well, could some graduate students be interested in being the architects of their graduate education?' And it's very much a Brown way of thinking."
There will be no formal prerequisites for applying, and Weber said the Grad School will select about 14 students for next year's incoming cohort. He emphasized that though the Mellon grant covers only students pursuing degrees in the humanities, any graduate student will be eligible to pursue a master's degree in any other field. Weber has also secured additional funding to support non-humanities students, said Matteo Riondato GS, president of the Graduate Student Council.
The effort is part of a University goal to allow 48 doctoral students to pursue secondary degrees, according to the release.
But specific numbers are not especially important, Weber said. He added that the pilot program might be altered in response to student interest and available funding.
Weber said the application deadline will likely be in February, but he said he hopes to announce further details in a month. He added that he has been examining the possibility of an open graduate program since he started as dean of the Grad School and applied for the Mellon grant last year.
Weber presented the program at a meeting of the Graduate Student Council last night, and student response was "very positive," Riondato said.
"Although the doctoral degrees are meant to be very focused on your very narrow field of interest, I think more and more students realize that a breadth of interest is useful, and more and more research is going toward mixing different fields that were not considered to be similar," Riondato said.
The grant follows a $498,000 gift from the Mellon Foundation in January to fund an international humanities program through the University and comes at a time when the University is seeking to strengthen its connection to the humanities, according the release.
A representative of the Mellon Foundation declined to comment.
A previous version of this article incorrectly identified the dean of the Graduate School. Peter Weber holds the position. The Herald regrets the error.
