In this blog entry, I’d like to link the vitality and health of the
existing neuroscience doctoral program (http://neuroscience.gmu.edu)
to the development of an undergraduate major in the same field.
Science doctoral programs, of course, are necessarily intertwined
with research activities. After all, the ultimate goal for a doctoral
student is to produce a dissertation based on research conducted
under the supervision of a thesis professor. Not surprisingly then,
the competitiveness of a doctoral program is then linked deeply to
the competitiveness of an institution’s corresponding research
program–this is as true for neuroscience as it is for more classical
fields such as physics or chemistry.
Thus, the health of a doctoral program depends, to a very large
degree, on the underlying health of the the program’s faculty
research activities. For those programs with a large, well-funded
cadre of internationally recognized researchers–even if in a
comparatively narrow area–that is where the best graduate students go.
Which brings me to back to the subject of undergraduate programs.
Ultimately, what is the major source of dollars that can used to
recruit top flight faculty? What is the backstop, that subserves the
promise of tenure? The answer of course is undergraduate tuition.
Those departments/programs that have a very solid base of
undergraduate students who are working towards a major in
neuroscience, are, as a result of that tuition support, able to
aggressively pursue and hire the best neuroscientists.
Hence the doctoral program and the research are ultimately dependent
upon a well-tended garden of undergraduate students all working
towards a bachelors of science degree in neuroscience.
Without such a garden, a doctoral program (and also a research unit)
is vulnerable to withering on the vine.
Jim
Discoverers and Discoveries 