Workshop for Evaluating Part-Time Doctoral Study for Growing the Underrepresented Student Population

University Of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell MA

Investigators

Abstract

This project proposes a workshop to investigate the impact of domestic engineering doctorates, especially from underrepresented groups, through PhD program that allow part-time students working in industry. Anecdotal evidence suggests that part-time students take significantly longer to complete their dissertations and limited research suggests that this is due to a lack of support and adequate planning by the students. The workshop is to be held at the University of Massachusetts and will be divided into three parts, which will include data sharing, presentations, and brainstorming among the participants. Participants include administrators from Programs with large part-time programs including several prominent HBCUs such as Howard, Maryland at Baltimore County, North Carolina A&T, Morgan State, and Prairie View A&M. As doctoral student populations have significantly higher proportions of underrepresented students when compared to full-time populations, and institutions with large part-time doctoral populations are located across the country, this project has the potential for far-reaching impact. The initial workshop seeks to bring stakeholders together, collect data on part-time doctoral programs, and design a program of support for part-time doctoral students for subsequent evaluation. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.