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The Contexts of Artistic Research Education
outside academia were just some of the problems which could be observed. The German Rectors’ Conference suggested the introduction of graduate programmes that would incorporate the model of graduate colleges.1 The Graduate School model is often seen, then, as the alternative to the master-apprentice model. However, the two models sometimes go together, and the problems that the German Rectors’ Conference identified in the master-apprentice model can also be found in some graduate schools. 2. A. 3 Criticisms of the US Graduate Schools In the US, a debate about doctoral education took place throughout the 1990s, and many of the problems that the German Rectors identified in relation to the master-apprentice model were also prevalent in US graduate schools. In 2000, this gave rise to an important conference in Seattle, Washington, called ‘Re-Envisioning the PhD’ (as part of a larger project assessing the doctoral level and its future development potentials). The criticisms made by some commentators at this time have been translated into the claim that doctoral students in the US were: • educated and trained too narrowly; • lacking key professional skills, such as working in teams; • lacking organisational and managerial skills; • ill prepared to teach; • taking too long to complete their doctoral studies and in some fields many not completing their degrees at all; • ill-informed about employment outside the academies; • having too long a transition period from PhD completion to stable employment.2 In response to these criticisms, many new initiatives were developed, such as ‘Preparing Future Faculty’ in the 1990s;3 the ‘Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate’;4 and the ‘Responsive PhD’ (established by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation).5 It is interesting to note the goals of the latter: 1. B. Khem, in M. Nerad, M.Heggelund (eds.), Toward a global PhD?: forces and forms in doctoral education worldwide. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008). p. 23. 2.
Nerad, 2008, p. 288
3. http://www.preparing-faculty.org/ 4. See http://www.ams.org/notices/200305/comm-carnegie.pdf and http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/previous-work/professional-graduate-education 5. The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, September 2005 (See: http://www. woodrow.org/images/pdf/resphd/ResponsivePhD_overview.pdf)