Oceanography | September 2016
After taking a break for the beach and a fair share of summer
reads, it is time to get ready for another semester. My immedi-
ate focus is on preparation for my fall undergraduate course, but
graduate education is never far from my mind these days. It has
been a focus of TOS Council meetings for the past year, and I
have been involved for some time in efforts to reimagine gradu-
ate education in the sciences here at Duke. In previous columns,
I discussed the motivation for this reimagining, namely, the cur-
rent job market for PhDs in science. Nationwide, only about
10% of PhD students in science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics (STEM) fields go on to academic careers, a sober-
ing statistic given that most graduate student training empha-
sizes such careers. In this column, I turn to thoughts on how
changes in graduate education might be approached.
A main challenge to reconfiguration of graduate education
is its financial model. Financial support for graduate students
is inextricably linked to faculty research programs and, in most
major research universities, to undergraduate education, the lat-
ter via teaching assistantships. Thus, a comprehensive revision
of graduate education cannot be seriously approached with-
out understanding the constraints placed by these ties. If every
student who entered graduate school paid his or her own way
(undesirable and unlikely) or received a fellowship (desirable,
yet unlikely), a vision for graduate education would focus solely
on providing graduate students with the knowledge and skills
required for the pursuit of career options that included, but were
not limited to, academia. Instead, the current funding model
for graduate education constrains the degree to which students
can pursue independent projects; work in collaborative teams;
and acquire communication, entrepreneurial, and leadership
skills—all desirable experiences for graduates looking for work
in a wide array of professional careers.
And so, as I have written before, the ocean science commu-
nity, in conjunction with the federal agencies that support ocean
research, should consider a “sea change” in how graduate educa-
tion is funded. Possible changes include shifting resources from
research assistantships toward fellowships; funding master’s
education; and “rightsizing” the balance among graduate stu-
dent, postdoctoral, and early career support. These are not easy
changes, but then, it is not easy to see graduate students with
dampened expectations of academic careers.
Funding changes alone will not make the fix. Universities must
also evaluate graduate education in the sciences in light of these
statistics. Even without structural changes in graduate student
funding, universities can expand career opportunities for their
graduates by (1) developing joint-degree programs, (2) provid-
ing courses and/or workshops that focus on the knowledge and
skills needed for nonacademic employment, (3) permitting col-
laborative research projects, and (4) requiring rigorous training
in oral and written communication, with an emphasis on pub-
lic scholarship. Admittedly, these changes require a cultural shift
in graduate education, yet the shift in job statistics lays bare our
responsibility to make these changes.
All of this brings me back to TOS. It’s easy to call out the
funding agencies and universities as the change makers. But,
aside from prodding universities and funding agencies to act,
what role can our society play in effecting change? Following
the TOS Town Hall on graduate education at the 2016 Ocean
Sciences meeting in New Orleans, the TOS Council discussed
just this question. And our answer is two-pronged. First, the
Council would like to expand TOS’s membership to include
a larger number of nonacademic oceanographers. Instead of
mainly being an academic oceanographic society, we would like
to be an academic and professional oceanographic society that
includes much broader membership from industry, nonprofits,
and government agencies. This expansion would make possi-
ble the second prong of our response to the changing job mar-
ket, formation of a mentoring program where current graduate
students are mentored by senior oceanographers with a variety
of careers, inside and outside of academia. In essence, we think
The Oceanography Society can and should create networks
that would expand and facilitate graduate student career path-
ways. We cannot do much about funding models or curricular
changes, but, as a society, we can connect people.
And we have model for this effort. Since 2008, MPOWIR
(Mentoring Women in Physical Oceanography to Improve
Retention),
a
community-initiated
and
community-led
mentoring program funded by the US National Science
Foundation, Office of Naval Research, National Aeronautics and
Space Administration, and Department of Energy has focused
on improving the retention of women in physical oceanography
through mentoring. The MPOWIR program has several
TOS To Pilot a Mentoring Program
for Ocean Science Graduate Students
FROM THE PRESIDENT