DRAFT Stage I Proposal, PhD in Applied Sociology
UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTSBOSTON
COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS
NEW ACADEMIC PROGRAM APPROVAL
PRELIMINARY PROPOSAL
Program Title: PhD in Applied Sociology
Check as Appropriate: Graduate _X_ Undergraduate___
College/School:UMassBostonCollege of Liberal Arts
Dean:Donna Kuizenga, PhD
Department:Sociology
Chair:Russell K. Schutt, PhD
Submission Date:January 30, 2011
Proposed Starting Date:09/01/13 (depending on resource allocation for faculty, office space, and research assistantships)
Degree to Be Awarded:Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Russell K. Schutt, PhD, Chair, Department of Sociology
Donna Kuizenga, PhD, Dean, College of Liberal Arts
DRAFT
I.)Purpose and Need
The University of Massachusetts Boston’s Department of Sociology in the College of Liberal Arts seeks to establish a PhD Program in Applied Sociology. In doing so, the department will add to its current strengths, increase opportunities for external funding, and support the university’s strategic plan to become a major research university by 2025. In addition, a PhD program will improve the department’s ability to recruit faculty with the strongest scholarly potential and graduate students who aspire to the highest levels of professional accomplishment, as well as ensure the most supportive environment for both research and instruction.
The Department of Sociology has the largest enrollments of any academic department at UMass Boston, with more than 1,000 students in three majors—sociology, criminal justice, and social psychology—and in our current two graduate programs (an MA in Applied Sociology and a Graduate Certificate Program in Forensic Services). Our growth to this size reflects both the sustained popularity of the subjects about which we teach and our ability to respond to our changing social and academic environments. We began our undergraduate major in Criminal Justice more than ten years ago in response to increasing popular interest in this major and the rapid growth of related career opportunities. We began our MA in Applied Sociology 25 years ago as the need for graduate-level preparation in social science increased and the opportunities for sociological research applied to current issues multiplied. More recently, we launched our Forensic Services Graduate Certificate Program as government agencies recognized the particular difficulties encountered by mentally ill persons within the criminal justice system and sought assistance in understanding this problem and training professionals to respond to it. We have managed our growth in each of these programs, as well as in our majors in sociology and social psychology, by recruiting highly qualified faculty members. Our proposed PhD program will build off our strengths in our MA program byensuring rich faculty lead seminars as well as applied internship opportunities for students, maintaining supportive ties with other related academic departments and employers in the Boston area.
Our proposed PhD program is designed to build on our department’s record of accomplishment maintaining high standards in order to ensure our success. Once again, our environment has changed in fundamental respects. The use of sociological research in program design, implementation and evaluation has multiplied in the last 25 years. The number and sophistication of research methods and sensitivity to the research quality have increased many times. The complexity of the social world that sociologists study has grown exponentially due to processes of globalization, immigration, diversification, and crises at the sociopolitical, public health, economic and environmental levels. It is abundantly clear that those who would help to solve the problems of tomorrow must develop today a sophisticated understanding of the social world and a high level of mastery of social researchmethods.
II.)Alignment with Institution’s Mission
This proposal represents the sociology department’s response to our changing environment and to UMass Boston’s overall Strategic Plan to extend our efforts in light of these changes. Our PhD program will build on the substantive strengths of our faculty in criminal justice, health and health services, and immigration; it will offer advanced training in research methods and social theory; it will engage students in applied research in the community and in interdisciplinary investigations of social issues. As it improves in these ways our connections with and contributions to the larger community, it will also enhance the support we provide to our current students and faculty. We will expand our successful graduate seminar on teaching and prepare our advanced PhD students to teach successfully undergraduate courses. Extending our extensive experience with our MA students, we will engage PhD students in innovative research projects and as coauthors on applied reports and scholarly articles. We will incorporate within our PhD program a new Graduate Certificate Program in Survey Research, thus providing rigorous training in the most widely used social science method and ensuring supportive relations with UMass Boston’s highly regarded Center for Survey Research. Our doctoral degree recipients will leave UMass Boston well prepared for successful careers in applied settings as well as qualified for academic jobs if this becomes their focus. Their legacy will include increasing the capacity and research opportunities of the department through faculty research and scholarly productivity as well as teaching assistance that will support our undergraduate program. Specifically, students undertaking doctoral study will provide teaching assistance to large sections (TAs), teach their own seminars in a mentored way (TAIIs), lead vertical research teams for student and class projects, and advise undergraduates.
The University’s strategic goals through the year 2025 include increasing graduate enrollments and offerings, particularly at the doctoral level, and increasing levels of external funding and scholarly productivity. The sociology department is well situated to contribute to achievement of these goals with an innovative doctoral program focused on key urban institutions and social problems. Our existing MA program has a strong research methods core, a social theory requirement, and substantive concentrations that would need only to be expanded, rather than created de novo, in order to achieve an innovative and attractive doctoral program focused on research about pressing social problems. Current accomplishments of our faculty in the areas of external funding and scholarship have been possible in part due to successful mentoring relationships with our MA students; these relationships would grow in depth and duration with the addition of doctoral students and so would support even greater success with grant proposals and scholarly publications.
UMass Boston has also committed itself to global diversity in our student body and to international connections in our scholarship. The Department of Sociology has already distinguished itself in this respect, with seven of the current 17 tenured and tenure-track faculty (41%) having significant international experience and engagement in scholarship that is global in its scope. The international character of our faculty will ensure introduction of diverse international perspectives into our PhD courses and research on global issues by our faculty, as well as recruitment of a diverse international student body.
III.)Alignment with System’s Priorities
A.)Workforce needs
Our PhD in Applied Sociology will meet demonstrated workforce needs of the nation and the Commonwealth, it will be relatively unique in the local area and in the United States as a whole, and it will complement rather than compete with existing doctoral programs at UMass Boston.
The American Sociological Association documented a 95% increase in advertised openings in Sociological Practice positions between 2008-09 and 2009-10, even as opportunities in the academic job market declined (Spalter-Roth, Jacobs, Scelza 2010). Furthermore, sociology PhDs working in applied settings earn more money and find greater satisfaction in their jobs than do doctoral graduates in non-applied settings (Spalter-Roth et al, 2010). The National Academy of Sciences and the National Science Foundation concluded that skills attributed to applied sociology’s focus on methods including research, grant writing, organizing information, interpreting and analyzing data, and writing reports are marketable and necessary in today’s economy (Van Vooren, Spalter-Roth, Scelza 2009). In consequence, the NAS/NSF proposed that universities develop applied sociology programs that have a strong disciplinary foundation accompanied by internships and research experiences to prepare students for non-academic careers in businesses, non profits and government agencies. This would be a central feature of our Applied Sociology PhD program.
Prior to the start of the PhD program, we expect to launch a Graduate Certificate Program in Survey Research in collaboration with UMass Boston’s Center for Survey Research. Our certificate program proposal highlights the strong demand for advanced training in survey research and courses in this program will become part of the required and elective methods courses in our PhD program. We anticipate that some of the survey research certificate students will become applied sociology PhD students, and we know that potential PhD students throughout the world will be attracted to our program because of the specialized training and practical experience it will offer in survey research.
Accountability has become a concern of both state and national government officials and agencies. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts now expects that state-funded agencies and programs adopt evidence-based programs and collect data to document their outcomes. Similar criteria have been mandated at the federal level for social service, health care, criminal justice and educational institutions. Advanced training in research and the substantive issues that social programs address is required to develop the type of evaluations that these criteria anticipate. Building on our successful record of training at the Master’s level, our PhD program would provide such advanced training and so prepare our students to assess needs, evaluate programs, advance their research oriented careers, and analyze related social processes in a wide variety of settings.
Finally, there are very few PhD programs in Applied Sociology elsewhere in the nation. Two new PhD programs with an applied focus are at Louisville and Central Florida. Other programs with some special focus in Applied Sociology are at Baylor, University of Maryland (in Gerontology), GeorgeMasonUniversity, and the University of Arizona. None of these programs has the set of substantive concentrations that we will offer and the limited number of such programs indicates that there would not be much competition for students with an interest in applied programs in these areas.
B.)Contrast with other programs in the area
None of the sociology PhD programs in the Greater Boston area define themselves as “applied” programs. Most are traditional PhD programs that train students for positions in academic settings, including UMass Amherst, BostonCollege and BostonUniversity. NortheasternUniversity’s PhD in Sociology has very general areas of focus –globalization, urban sociology, gender, inequality, and conflict and violence. None of these universities include a professional survey research organization and thus none can offer the advanced training in survey methods that we will provide to PhD students through our collaboration with UMB’s Center for Survey Research and our new graduate certificate program. Our program will emphasize training in applied research techniques, the body of substantive knowledge and theoretical perspectives required to understand social processes related to criminal justice, health and health services, and immigration, and the application of research, through internship and applied research experiences, to social problems in these substantive areas.
C.)Contrast with other programs at the university
Currently, the Department of Psychology has the only PhD programs in the College of Liberal Arts. The Clinical Psychology PhD program trains clinical psychologists, with a focus on the clinical needs of individuals and the theory and methods required to understand and investigate these needs. Applied sociologists use a wider range of methodologies, including survey and comparative research, to address group and larger social processes, in addition to individual behavior and attitudes. The new Developmental and Brain Sciences PhD program recently approved by the Board of Trustees and awaiting Board of Higher Education approval focuses on scholarship and research in neurosciences and human development, neither of which overlap directly with the types of courses that our PhD program will include. There will be opportunities for cross-listing advanced statistics courses with both Psychology PhD programs and to some elective opportunities with substantive courses in these programs. In the near future, a PhD in Applied Linguistics and a MA in Applied Economics will begin in the College. Here again, this provides opportunities for shared elective courses, particularly in statistics and policy. We would also welcome their students in our elective courses.
The McCormack Graduate School of Global and Policy Studies’ PhD in Public Policy focuses on political economy and policy making. Substantive courses focus on the generation and application of policy in diverse areas, but generally lack a sociological analysis of the generation of problems or the social processes that affect responses to public policies. There is some overlap in the types of research and statistical skills taught in the program with what would be required in doctoral level training in sociology and we expect that we would cross-list some methods courses with the McCormackSchool. Nonetheless, the Public Policy PhD is not primarily oriented to applied research and does not offer the range of methods courses that will be available in our program. The McCormack School’s Gerontology PhD program also includes courses in methodology that overlap with those we anticipate in applied sociology; in fact, one of our courses, Qualitative Methods, is currently cross-listed with Gerontology and we expect additional such cross listings. However, all of the substantive courses in the Gerontology PhD Program focus on aging and so cover different content than those we expect to offer. Neither McCormack PhD program has an internship or applied component similar to the one we envision for our program.
Finally, we have found some potential for collaboration with the graduate program in Nursing. Students in the Nursing MS program have taken courses in our Forensic Services Graduate Certificate Program. Nurses preparing to work in emergency rooms have an interest in our health and crime related courses as electives. In turn, some of our students may be interested in health policy courses in the Nursing PhD Program.
IV.)Major Resource Implications
PhD programs range from total post-BA credit requirements of 72 to 96. We propose a 78-credit hour (minimum) PhD program, including a 12-credit dissertation requirement. Our current MA program is 36 credits, so we would be adding 45 credits (12 of which would be earned for the dissertation). The courses added for the Survey Research Certificate would be included within the additional courses that we would offer for doctoral students.
A.)Network and Research Initiatives
We are forming an advisory board composed of research and program directors in state, local and private agencies like those that are likely to hire our graduates. Most of the advisory board members have collaborated on research projects with sociology faculty and will continue to offer applied research experiences to our doctoral students.
We anticipate our new survey research certificate program will strengthen our ties with the Center for Survey Research and will lead to the type of collaborative research proposals that resulted in some of the largest extramural research grants that UMass Boston has received (with sociology faculty member Sue Gore). Current and recent externally funded research projects led by sociology professors Hartwell, Bersani, Morabito, Benson and Schutt will each be facilitated by access to doctoral student research assistants who will develop more advanced skills and be available to work on research projects for longer periods of time.
B.)Proposed PhD course of study (in addition to 36-hour MA)
1.)Comprehensive Exam
2.)Four core courses (12 credits)
One course in theory/policy (3 credits)
Three required courses in methodology and statistics (9 credits)
3.)Two courses (6 credits) in one of the following areas of emphasis:
Immigration, Institutions and Inequalities
Criminology and Criminal Justice
Health/Mental Health
4.)Four elective courses (12 credits)
Elective courses may include substantive courses in one’s area of emphasis and in other areas of specialization, as well as additional courses in methods, statistics and theory. Students may take up to two elective courses (6 credits) outside sociology, chosen in consultation with and approval of their faculty mentor and the graduate director.
5.)Special Qualifying Exam(in area of emphasis)
6.)Dissertation Seminar (3 credits)
7.)Dissertation (12 credits)
Both the special field exam and the dissertation must focus on the candidate’s substantive area of concentration.
C) Admissions Criteria
Students will be selected on the basis of the quality and relevance of their prior education and their research and career interests. Applicants will be expected to have a Master’s degree in sociology or a closely related field. For students admitted to our MA program,PhD program acceptance will be contingent on completing course work and passing the comprehensive examprior to admission, while individuals who seek to begin the PhD program after having completed another MA program must document completion of an equivalent exam or submit a score on the GRE Sociology subject test. A GPA of at least 3.2 at the undergraduate level and 3.5 at the MA level will be required. All applicants must submit GRE scores obtained within the previous three years. Three letters of recommendation and a personal statement must document the applicant’s academic capabilities and interest in applied sociology. Applicants with undergraduate majors and/or MA degrees in other disciplines will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
D.)Faculty and Staff (including TA/RAs)
To offer the PhD in Applied Sociology, we would require two additional full-time professors in addition to the half-time survey research hire. Similar to other PhD programs on campus we anticipate supporting 6 PhD level graduate assistants (in addition to our MA assistantships) for a first-year total cost of $120,000 (in subsequent years it is expected that faculty grant funds or perhaps a training grant would reduce this sum) We would also require one additional full-time professional staff person at $41,000 per year and an ongoing operating budget of $7,500 per year for basic computer equipment. The program will also require space and teaching loads reflective of the intensive mentoring required by faculty mentoring dissertations. Course load reductions (CLRs) will be allocated to support the program based on documented faculty role on dissertations and other support activities.