English department offers new Ph.D. program for students in HASS
The Department of English will admit four students into the new doctoral program, the theory and practice of professional communications, Fall 2005.
The new doctoral program will be the second Ph.D. program within the college of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. Four students per year will be admitted into the program, Keith Grant-Dave, director of graduate studies, said, until the program holds 16 students.
The program will intentionally incorporate a limited number of students, Mark Zachry, assistant professor, said. The concern is not in increasing the number of students within the program, rather the objective is to “have a high quality program,” Zachry said.
“We want to give them the attention they need and be sure they get the mentoring and development,” Zachry said.
The size of the doctoral program will be comparable to other institutions such as Purdue and Texas Tech, Zachry said.
There is an unfilled need in the state of Utah for Ph.D.s within this specific area of communication, Zachry said, and this will be the first Ph.D. program in professional communication in the state.
“Primarily, we are trying to train people to fill assistant professor positions as specialists in communications around the country,” Grant-Davie said.
Nationwide, there is a shortage in Ph.D.’s to fill the number of advertised positions, such as specialists in rhetoric and communications, Zachry said.
“We’ve experienced this when we have tried to higher new assistant professors in that area,” Grant-Davie said. “We’ve just found that we are competing with a lot of other schools around the country for a very small pool of people.”
Students have shown interest in Utah State University developing the doctoral program, Zachry, who completed several research studies, said.
This program is not only focused on in-state applicants, Zachry said, but also national and international students as well.
The addition of the Ph.D. program will allow more students outside of the major to take courses in technical writing, which were previously unavailable to non-majors, Zachry said. The number of English teachers in the department will increase due to the program, Zachry said.
Currently, the Department of English hires adjuncts to teach classes and will need fewer adjuncts with Ph.D. students teaching instead.
Ph.D. students will teach the undergraduate technical writing courses, Grant-Davie said, which will increase the number of teachers available for the department and offer training for students.
To be a credible assistant professor, Grant-Davie said, a student must have teaching experience in professional communication at a college level.
“This is going to open up the opportunity for students across campus to classes they have a great interest in taking,” Zachry said.
No additional funds were needed to create the program, Zachry said, rather the money within the department was shifted around.
“It is almost certain that the program would not have been approved if we had to ask for a significant amount of funds to put it on,” Grant-Davie said. “It is only because we demonstrated we can do it with existing resources.”
Even with the shortage of faculty in the department, the program is still feasible, Grant-Davie said.
“On the one hand, we have made the argument that we can launch this program with existing faculty resources,” Grant-Davie said. “That wasn’t an empty promise. On the other hand, it would be a lot easier to do it if we had more faculty.”
The Department of English has been preparing resources and hiring with anticipation of the addition of the new doctoral program, Zachry said.
The proposal development began in 2000 and several faculty members at USU have conducted several studies to understand the demand for Ph.D.’s in the nation.
-kcashton@cc.usu.edu