UNM HISTORY DEPARTMENT SELECTED TO PARTICIPATE IN CARNEGIE INITIATIVE

November 4, 2003

UNM HISTORY DEPARTMENT SELECTED TO PARTICIPATE IN CARNEGIE INITIATIVE
Project focuses on doctoral education

The University of New Mexico History Department has been selected to participate in the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate, a multi-year research and action project aimed at improving doctoral education in the United States.

The initiative establishes partner departments in the areas of English, history, neuroscience, mathematics, chemistry and education. Partner departments will analyze all aspects of their doctoral programs and link specific activities to desired outcomes. Those departments will clarify their goals for doctoral education and commit to creating design experiments to meet those goals.

The initiative also establishes allied departments - the UNM History Department among them - to help form a network in each discipline to collect and disseminate information about the study. Allied departments have already begun deliberations and will be developing design experiments this fall.
Carnegie President Lee S. Shulman said the doctoral degree is critical to the continued improvement of all American education.

"If educators hope to change the character of undergraduate education, the Ph.D. is critical; doctoral programs prepare and socialize the next generation of undergraduate teachers. If we wish to influence the course of elementary and secondary schools, the Ph.D. is critical, for those who hold the doctorate also educate those who teach our nation's schoolchildren," he said.

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