The intention of the program is to rely as much as possible on currently appointed members of the CUNY faculty for their research and expertise. We believe this is the most cost-effective way to leverage the strengths of the existing CUNY faculty, both at The Graduate Center and from the colleges. Core courses, area and program seminars, and program electives will be taught by faculty with appointments or joint appointments in the Ph.D. Program in Urban Education, but drawn mainly from the existing CUNY faculty. Many elective courses in the various studies specializations will be drawn from the regular course lists in other doctoral programs and taught by their existing faculty.
Distinguished faculty members in education now teaching on the campuses, but not already members of the CUNY doctoral faculty, will be nominated by the program as members of the new doctoral faculty in Urban Education, but retain their current appointments. Colleges will be compensated for courses taught and students supervised by these faculty members through the distribution of lines paid for by The Graduate Center under the current CUNY allocation system. In addition, the University has identified the development of this doctoral program as a key component of the overall effort (the Teacher Education Initiative) to strengthen the colleges' teacher-education offerings. This initiative is a University budget priority that is expected to provide support for future faculty who will have significant participation in the proposed doctoral program. The opportunity for such participation will also assist in recruitment of the best available faculty candidates for programs at the colleges.
In Section 12 we list the CUNY faculty members who have already expressed their desire to participate in the proposed program. We will continue to identify and enlist the assistance of additional members of the CUNY faculty.
Leadership of the program will be the responsibility of an Executive Officer, appointed by the President of The Graduate Center. The EO will be a senior faculty member, initially someone familiar with the University and the development of the proposed program, and subsequently a nationally distinguished scholar in the field of urban education who will be recruited to the Graduate Center faculty.
To strengthen faculty resources for this new program, we propose two new appointments to the Graduate Center faculty. These will be on reallocated lines within the University and will not require the allocation of new faculty lines. National searches for outstanding candidates to fill these two critical positions will be conducted after approval of the program, aiming for effective dates of appointment during the academic year 2001-2002. These senior scholars will be expected to take on leadership roles within the program. We have identified priority research specializations for these two appointments. One position would be filled by a specialist in the field of urban education policy, who also has a demonstrated interest in research in schools and/or curriculum issues, and whose work seeks to integrate policy analysis with the school-based data and insights needed for policy formulation and with analysis of the likely school-level consequences of policy choices. The second position would be filled by a specialist in curriculum and school-based research with demonstrated skill in incorporating ethnographic, linguistic, critical, and/or sociological methodology in their scholarship and whose research program is also oriented to broader issues and concerns of educational policy.
Realistically, and in the view of our outside consultants, two Graduate Center faculty specialists in Urban Education even with the support of existing campus-based faculty may not be sufficient to provide the needed critical mass of faculty with primary and continuing time and effort commitments to the new program as it grows in student enrollment. By the end of the first 5-6 years of program operation it is possible that additional appointments would be needed. There are, however, distinct advantages to making co-ordinated appointments with the larger college-based teacher education programs. These would be senior scholars with national recognition who would each have continuing part-time commitments to the Ph.D. program; their salary lines would reside in their home colleges. This approach would be consistent with the university’s current initiative for ‘cluster hiring’ in critical areas, including in our case Teacher Education. We believe it would be in the best interest of the colleges, The Graduate Center, and the University as a whole to make such appointments. Both the appointing college and the doctoral program should be represented on the search committees for these positions.
These commitments of faculty resources seem very modest for the creation of a major new doctoral program. It is hoped that the CUNY colleges will continue to appoint promising and recognized research scholars in the field of Urban Education to their own faculties. The affiliation of these colleagues would add greatly to the diversity and depth of the consortial doctoral faculty.
Existing faculty, nevertheless, do provide a sufficient basis in expertise to launch the program in Fall 2000, even before any additional new appointments. We have identified outstandingly well-qualified members of the prospective doctoral faculty, who are already at CUNY, as prospective instructors for each of the five core courses and for initial area seminars in each of the three studies specializations (see Section 12 for details).
Because we will rely heavily on existing faculty resources, this program should produce relatively modest added costs to CUNY's budget. We also anticipate a small program initially in terms of student enrollment. The first-year entering cadre of students will not exceed 15 students, some of whom are expected to be part-time students. We anticipate limiting admissions of new students each year over the first five years of the program, with the number of part-time and full-time, self-supporting students growing within these limits according to demand, and a smaller number of full-time students needing financial support increasing only as funds for student aid become available. We anticipate that after six years of operation, with a maximum of 15-20 admissions annually, the total number of headcount students, including those at Level III (maintenance of matriculation, dissertation work only), could reach approximately 100-120 students (see Table 1). The number of FTE students would be substantially less because of the relatively large number of part-time students expected, and the costs of student support would be borne largely through teaching fellowships and adjunct teaching in the colleges' large and understaffed teacher-education programs. Many students would be part-time and self-supporting.
Although in some fields part-time doctoral study is not encouraged, it is our belief that in the field of education, as in other fields where professional experience provides an important basis for research work, a mix of part-time and full-time students in the program is desirable. So also is the anticipated mix of local-area students and those recruited nationally. We expect that a significant proportion of the local-area students will be part-time students who are continuing to pursue their careers; others will be educators on full-time leave. Most part-time students who are continuing their professional careers during doctoral study will be largely self-supporting, as will some full-time students who are on sabbatical leave for professional development, thus greatly reducing the otherwise pressing need to raise supplementary funds for full-time student support. The committee is acutely aware of the shortage of such funds. The Graduate Center administration is committed to aggressively seeking external support for the program.
Another resource for student support is the large demand for adjunct teaching faculty in the undergraduate and master's-level courses in education on the CUNY campuses. Because of recent retirements, colleges with large education programs currently have the ability to utilize Graduate Teaching Fellows and to hire more advanced doctoral students from the new program as adjunct teaching faculty. This close connection to predoctoral programs in education on the campuses is also an anticipated benefit from the new program.
In addition to the costs already mentioned, there will also be a need for one Assistant Program Officer and for the normal operating costs of a program office. Fortunately, because of the capital budget already allocated for the new 365 Fifth Avenue facility, there will be no additional costs incurred for office space or most normal operating equipment. Provision already exists in the new building for the needs of the program. OTPS costs for Urban Education will be comparable to those associated with all doctoral programs.
Finally, some modest costs will be associated with library collection development. There is already a substantial collection that can support doctoral work in education in the CUNY libraries. The Graduate Center's Mina Rees Library will incur a one-time cost to acquire a core collection of volumes not already held there to support the core courses and readings for the First Examination, as well as acquisition of standard reference works (e.g., handbooks, encyclopedias) in the field that are not already in its collection. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the program's curriculum offerings, many elective courses would already be supported by collections developed for other doctoral programs. Beyond the first year's initial acquisitions, there is a continuing need to support subscriptions to academic journals. We support a library policy of providing access for all doctoral students and faculty to as many essential journals as possible in online, full-text form. Long-term costs for new acquisitions and particularly for serials will depend on a plan for coordinated collection development of materials to support advanced study and research in education among the CUNY libraries. Discussions of such a plan have already been initiated. Development of the CUNY Digital Library (already funded at $10 million from the capital budget) should also provide support. (See Section 11 for detailed budget projections.)
Research and doctoral education in the fields of curriculum and policy studies in education tend to be generously supported by governmental and private agencies. In such fields as mathematics and science education and urban educational policy, national, state, local, and charitable foundation priorities make it very likely that the proposed program will be able to obtain substantial outside funding to support fellowships for doctoral students, internship programs, and research projects of the faculty. The 1999 research support budget of the U.S. Department of Education (excluding the $60 million for the National Center for Educational Statistics) was $108 million. The Higher Education Act of 1998 provides specifically for an additional $120 million in new funds for Teacher Quality Enhancement Grants. The federal Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education also provides grants ($25.2 million for 1999) to support innovative new programs. The National Science Foundation (currently seeking an 8 percent increase for mathematics and science education, including graduate fellowships) and many programs in the U.S. Department of Education provide for fellowship support for doctoral study in science and mathematics education and other fields, particularly for students from traditionally underrepresented groups. It is hoped that a significant proportion of doctoral students with such backgrounds can be recruited for this program, and conversations with the Graduate Center Office of Development indicate that several private funding sources will be interested in helping to provide opportunities for these students to become prepared for research and leadership positions in urban education.
The philanthropic priorities of organizations such as the Kellogg Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts closely parallel many of the objectives of the proposed Ph.D. program; agencies such as the Spencer Foundation are expected to support research initiatives in key priority areas of the proposed program, and one such is already under development in conjunction with the new CUNY Research Institute for the Study of Language in Urban Settings (RISLUS). The new program would also work closely with the Center for Advanced Study in Education (CASE), which has an outstanding record of success with funded research proposals in the field of education.
Locally, current initiatives by the New York State Education Department and the New York City Board of Education seek to provide support for continuing professional development of senior educators, of whom those with strong research and policy analysis interests can be attracted to the new doctoral program.