STONY BROOK, N.Y. — Stony Brook University's History Department was recently selected to participate in the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate as an Allied Department. The Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate (CID) is a multi-year research and action project aimed at improving doctoral education at American universities. With its membership, the History Department joins Stony Brook's Mathematics and Chemistry Departments, which have been associated with CID since 2003.

The Carnegie Initiative has three interacting elements: a conceptual analysis of doctoral education, design experiments in departments, and research and dissemination. The CID works with doctoral programs in six fields of study: chemistry, education, English, history, mathematics, and neuroscience.

According to Ned Landsman, Professor and Chair of the History Department, "The History Department is in a somewhat unique position in regard to the Carnegie Initiative for re-thinking graduate education. That is over the prior half-dozen years we had completely revised the nature of our graduate program, shifting the focus of our courses away from the traditional national and chronological fields towards thematic ones, in topics such as Nation, State, and Civilization, or Gender, Sexuality, and Reproduction, or Empire, Modernity, and Globalization, or Environment, Technology, and Health. Such changes take a long time to implement, since they go against all of our traditions. They require constant revision. Thus our program remains a work-in-progress. We therefore joined the Carnegie Initiative not to participate with other History departments in undertaking such a re-thinking — we were not about to start over with that — but rather to measure what we had done against what others were trying to do."

Landsman added, "It was heartening to attend the Carnegie meeting at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association a year ago and discover that what quite a few of the other departments were setting out to do we had already put in place."

According to a statement issued by the Carnegie Foundation, "The participating departments of the CID have committed to a serious deliberation about the purposes and desired outcomes of the doctoral program in the department. Departments will consider the strategies currently used to meet those goals. As a result of the deliberations, departments will propose changes in their program intended to better meet the agreed upon outcome goals. Taking a scholarly approach, departments further commit to gathering evidence about the impact of the changes.

"The Foundation's research activities will primarily focus on participating departments and their activities. Through annual convenings, independent data gathering, and other activities, the Carnegie Foundation will support, encourage and publicize the work done by the participating departments."

For more information on history department's doctoral program, visit: http://www.sunysb.edu/history/graduate/program/doctoral.htm

For more information on the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate, visit: http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/CID/