The coveted title of PhD is one of the most esteemed achievements of our society, and a majority of the most well-known contributors to science, medicine, and general knowledge have all been card-carrying PhDs. However, this role is not without its stereotypes: Consider, for instance, how many professors and doctors you know or have heard of who wield a thick, unyielding, face full of beardedness. If you do in fact aim to achieve the sought-after PhD, pause for a moment to ponder: If you get a PhD, is the next logical step to grow a hearty beard? Like any savvy member of the PhD club, you know that no important conclusion is drawn without the proper research and forethought. The pros and cons to sporting a bold beard are varied and will affect your entire image, from the way women view you to whether or not men will respect you. So as you consider whether or not to wax professorial with your post-degree image, think carefully: With the proper research, you’ll be well on your way to earning a PhD in facial hair.

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If you’re working toward your PhD, chances are you secretly dream of making a world-altering, mind-blowing scientific discovery. In a time of constant technological change, forward motion, and the expectation of advancement, new discoveries and ideas are born every day. But for the past several decades, one brilliant mind has surpassed all the rest. Stephen Hawking, having turned 70 this year, has not failed to produce significant research and game-changing discoveries from the moment he began his career. As you work toward your PhD, there’s probably no greater inspiration than Stephen Hawking, who received his own PhD at the age of 23. Aside from that, he’s made some of the most notable scientific contributions of our time and dedicated his life to discovering how the universe works. He’s also been confined to a wheelchair for over 40 years. He’s the longest-surviving ALS patient, a certified genius, and a total badass.

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Controlling nearly 80% of the market share for all searches online, you probably use Google. In fact, you probably rely on Google just as much as everyday items like your cell-phone! From humble beginnings to Wall Street darling, we’ve chronicled the evolution that has changed our lives. This interactive graphic explores the journey of two brilliant men and how the internet has grown with them. Enjoy!

A consequence of the “Great Recession,” states across the country have been mired in debt and forced to make dramatic cuts to higher education. As funding for higher education constricts, fewer tenure track academic positions for recent graduates are opening as universities increasingly turn to economically cheaper adjunct and part-time professors to instruct their ballooning classes. Amid this reduction in the demand for PhDs is the fact that the United States is producing a record number of doctorates. The result is a job crisis for PhD candidates and ultimately the diminished quality of education in America’s higher education system.

The popular Discovery Channel show “Mythbusters” debunks (or proves) common conceptions about the world that have never been publicly tested before. The show has enjoyed enormous success, and its hosts have become international celebrities. However, there is another group of myth busters that live behind the scenes, and bust myths far more profound than whether an opera singer can break a glass with her voice. These people are academic researchers, the men and women equipped with nothing more than their PhDs, research grants, and a thirst for knowledge. Their quest to teach humanity more about the world has led them to discover truths – and debunk myths – that have had huge impacts on the course of history. And luckily for us, these truths and myths are really, really cool. So the next time you’re watching your favorite show, just remember: myth-busting is going on at universities all over the world.

Given that Facebook was originally started by college students, for college students, it’s no surprise that it has become irreversibly engrained in the institution of higher education. Though it started off, in the eyes of many, as harmless fun, it’s astronomical increase in popularity over the last several years has caused alarm. Sensational news articles about Facebook ‘ruining grades’ or ‘depressing students’ pop up seemingly every week, and concerned parents and educators fear that the overlord of social media has become a source of corrupting the youth. Not even the older, more mature students populating graduate programs across the country are immune: studies show that social media is used nearly as ubiquitously by Phd and master’s students as by undergrads. Luckily, there is hope: a slew of recent studies into the effects of Facebook on students have found that it’s not Facebook itself that counts, but the way that you use it. And if you use it right, you can engage with your school, your professors, and your studies in productive ways you never thought could actually enrich your college experience.

When someone tells you they’re getting their Ph.D., a few images usually come to mind. Tweed jackets, glasses, coffee, and piles upon piles of books are the most commonly thought of paraphernalia of the graduate student. What we usually don’t think of is a bunch of excited science and engineering students rocking out on Guitar Hero for class credit, but at the MIT Media Lab, that’s exactly the kind of thing that happens on a day to day basis. The world-renowned lab that has spawned some of the US’s most innovative inventions, the MIT Media Lab employs a unique process that engages its Ph.D. students in deep explorations of social problems and encourages them to think counterintuitively – and technologically – to solve them. Check out a few of their current projects, and a look into their incredible process.

The number of business doctorates has been in steady decline since the mid-1990s. Between 1994-1995, 1,327 business doctorates were awarded. Between 1999-2000, the number declined to 1,071. More recently, the financial crisis of 2007 has further eroded away at confidence in the field of business, resulting in a further decrease in the number of business doctorates conferred.

This steady trend is troubling both academics and professionals in the world of business. Business schools are finding it tougher to fill their research and teaching positions, while private corporations are losing a prominent source of academic expertise. As a result, business schools compete with corporations by offering skyrocketing salaries for qualified business doctorates. With a continually-shrinking pool of qualified businesspeople, business schools are beginning to face the facts by cutting program offerings.

The obvious solution would be to offer incentives to graduate more PhDs in business. During a time of economic malaise and non-discriminatory budget cuts, however, universities lack the resources to address structural problems within their departments. This article will look at how the PhD shortage in the world of business has affected both the quality of education and job market for PhDs.

Quality of a Business Education

An often-cited reason for the shortage of PhDs is the opportunity cost of obtaining the degree. Many professionals view the academic experience of obtaining a PhD not worthy of the foregone salaries and career advancement opportunities of “settling” for an MBA. For example, the 100 PhD candidates at Cass Business School, one of the top programs in the UK, pales in comparison to its cohort of 1,500 MBA/MSc students.

This problem is most apparent in fields of business incorporating specific skills, such as accounting and finance. Jean Wyer, a recruiter at PwC (a top accounting firm), was surprised that business schools have been calling her not to promote their graduates, but instead for her to help them find accounting professors.

Given that most business programs hire PhDs to conduct research in addition to teach, the shortage of qualified applicants has shifted the teaching structure at many business schools. Instead of delegating an equal amount of time to teaching and research, PhD “professors” have instead been given a larger role in terms of research at their institutions. This has resulted in an overall decline in quality of education, as tenured and established professors are only given research positions, while newer, less experienced professors are left to teach incoming students.

Job Market for Business PhD

It should come to no surprise to business experts that a shortage in supply of business doctorates will have profound effects on the job market. First, corporations have been steadfast at attracting qualified businesspeople with universities incurring budget cuts hindering their abilities to offer comparable salaries and benefits. Even tenure programs, academia’s most attractive career option, has been scaled back.

Second, a lack of supply results in excess demand for the few available academic positions. This drives up the wages for potential business doctorate professors. Although higher wages are surely a positive to PhD graduates in today’s tough economy, this further exacerbates academia’s ability to hire a well-rounded team of professionals, as it reduces the budgets of business schools.

Finally, the shortage is a looming threat for private corporations that benefit from a healthy supply of business PhDs. For example, accounting firms, a field dominated by BAs, MBAs, MScs, CPAs, CFAs, and virtually every other acronym imaginable are noticing a lack of PhDs among recent applicants.

Where Do We Go From Here?

This problem has been tackled by both academics and professionals in the field of business. A report (PDF) by the American Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business elaborated on several steps that universities could take to reduce the inequities in higher education today. The Association advocates for:

• Building Bridges to Business – Providing post-doctoral programs in conjunction with the private sector to help PhDs gain relevant skills.
• Launching a Doctoral Startup – Redesigning the DBA in order to meet the demands of the 21st century business landscape.
• Move Beyond the MBA – Designing and focusing the DBA as more than just an “academic degree”, just as the MBA is seen as a professional degree.
• Investing in Scholarship – Currently, the DBA is usually seen as a drain on resources instead of benefiting business programs. Restructuring programs to promote innovation and research will shift the focus to DBA programs.

The University of St. Thomas is one institution aiming to restructure its hiring process. Instead of succumbing to the pressure to utilize its PhDs to research, it markets its programs as holistic professor opportunities, removing the stigma of programs which force its professors to churn out sub-par research papers habitually.

Despite the current decline in business doctorates, there is reason for optimism. As a whole, businesses survive by innovating to a constantly-shifting landscape. With that said, there is no reason to believe the business world can’t innovate its way out of this.

That’s where the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students, or NAGPS, comes in. While one disgruntled graduate student might not have the resources to make a difference, and a union at a single university might not be able to make much more of an impact, NAGPS aims to unite all students and affect change through sheer numbers. In this article, we aim to introduce you to the important aspects of the NAGPS and help you decide if it’s an organization you might be interested in joining.

Mission Statement

The NAGPS aims to unite graduate and professional students across the United States, and connect their organizations with one another. Their mission is stated thus:

1. to develop and sustain a member network to connect graduate and professional students and their associations;
2. to provide resources and support to empower members; and
3. to advocate at local and national levels on their behalf.

The essential belief of the NAGPS is that graduate and professional students are integral to university life, and they deserve to be protected and supported as much as faculty and administration are.

Basic Information

The idea for the NAGPS came in 1986, at the First National Teaching Assistant Training Conference, which was held at Ohio State University. The organization was actually started a year later, and the first ever meeting was held at Washington State University. Their first big “case” came that same year, in 1987, when the expiration of IRC tax code section 127 made tuition waivers taxable, along with graduate student stipends. Through joint lobbying Congress with the Graduate Student Coalition Against Tuition Taxation, the NAGPS saw terrific results and recognized that there was a need for the graduate student voice on a federal level.

The organization is made up of five regional groups: the Midwest, the Northeast, the South central, the Southeast, and the Western, which includes Alaska, Hawaii and the US territories. Each region has its own branch of the organization, with its own leadership and policies, and together they make up the leadership of the overall organization. Be sure to check out the group that is relevant to your university, because they all function in different ways.

Events

There are many different ways to get involved in the activities and events sponsored and organized by the NAGPS. Because they are primarily a lobbying group, aimed at improving graduate student conditions and protecting the rights of teaching assistants, most of the events are protests or advocacy days, but they also have an annual conference.

The conference is held at the end of October (the 27^th-30^th this year), in Boulder, Colorado. The location of the conference is determined by regional bids from university branches of the organization. The weekend highlight is an award ceremony for particularly active or effective members, and it also features elections for the organization’s leaders, member presentations on issues related to graduate student studies, and of course lectures, presentations and workshops. This is also where the NAGPS determines their agenda for the year, and members are allowed input and participation in the discussion as well as a vote. The conference is sponsored—this year by United Healthcare and Geico—but tickets will still cost you a bit. Like most conferences, it’s cheaper the earlier you buy your ticket, so if you’re interested you should get one as soon as possible.

The NAGPS also organizes semi-annual Legislative Action Days, during which graduate students are encouraged to meet with their senators in Washington and address the issues that they are dealing with in their daily lives. This is a great way to express your frustrations with the higher education system in America and try to do some good to improve it.

Resources

The NAGPS is also a great way to keep up with what’s going on in the political world of graduate studies, which is nice if you don’t have a whole lot of time to sift through regular news channels. There’s a particular focus on articles from Inside Higher Education, which is one of the go-to websites for finding information about post-secondary education, but it also features articles from the Chronicle and other news sources.

The resources section also offers access to surveys and analysis of graduate student-related data for use in bargaining and arguments. Topics for these surveys usually focus on the graduate experience, so they tend to be more qualitative than quantitative, but they’re still quite useful for making a point.

Plus, for those poor students still working toward a degree, the NAGPS also offers member discounts for things like car insurance and healthcare, and advice and assistance for helping you complete your program. Be sure to take a look at the stress relief section, because what grad student doesn’t need help in that area?

Finally, if you’re looking for employment, the NAGPS has a job bank, which collects job opportunities specifically tailored to those who have to balance work with graduate studies as well as options for recent grads. The results are search-able by job type and location, so it’s easy to narrow them down to the ones that would work for you.

If you’re interested in graduate student activism, the NAGPS is pretty much the place you want to be. Membership costs range quite a bit, from as little as $37/year to as much as $1000. The different levels have different qualifications and responsibilities, of course; for example, in order to purchase the highest level, you have to have participated in the organization for two years. You don’t have to register as an individual, either—groups and clubs can join as a collective, which can be considerably cheaper depending on how many people are in your association.

Thus, the question arises: are universities treating adjunct faculty fairly? Are there other solutions? How can adjunct professors fight back against unfair conditions? In this article, we hope to shed some light on the issue and the main points from both sides of the argument.

The Role of Adjunct Faculty

To universities, adjunct faculty are the most cost-effective and efficient solution to several problems that have cropped up in recent decades. First of all, universities are facing student enrollment rates that fluctuate, which makes it impossible to know from year to year how many classes the school can offer. With traditional, tenured professors, the university would have to still pay those professors even when enrollment was too low to support them, and would have to maintain their departments and areas of study even when there was no student interest. That’s how tenure works. With adjunct faculty, however, the university is free to hire and fire professors as the demand requires, turning academia into something more reminiscent of the standard market than it was before.

Secondly, budget cuts and irregular student enrollment are hurting universities financially, which makes tenured professors an expensive liability that they cannot always afford. Because they are not tenured or even full-time, adjunct professors are cheaper, and less of a burden on the university’s budget long-term. Plus, because they are not regular professors, they do not come under the umbrella of most university teacher unions, which makes them even less expensive. Without adjunct faculty, most universities would not be able to function on their given budgets.

Some universities have made taken the “part-time” portion of the adjunct job description a step further and actually Made Adjuncts Temps—Literally. Adjunct professors are hired through an outside temp agency, which saves the university quite a lot of money in the hiring process, and allows adjuncts to pay into the same retirement and health benefits program regardless of what university they’re working for.

Adjuncts represent an entirely new workforce in the university, which means that many schools don’t know how to utilize them effectively. Many adjunct faculty members’ work goes unnoticed and under-appreciated, and there is a great need for universities to recognize this. If schools could Achieve Effectiveness from Adjunct Faculty, maybe the road to reform in higher education wouldn’t be such an uphill climb.

Adjuncts Fight Back

And no one knows how adjuncts are being under-valued like the adjuncts themselves. Life as a part-time professor is stressful, to put it mildly. Many of them have the same teaching loads as tenure-track professors, with daily lecture and office hour requirements, for about 40% of the pay, no benefits and no insurance. Plus, adjunct faculty don’t get research support, so whatever side projects they want to work on have to come out of their own pockets, or else they have to earn a grant entirely on their own, without university backing. Add to this the anxiety that comes from a complete lack of job security—adjunct professors can be fired for no reason, even mid-way through a semester—and it’s no wonder that they’re starting to fight back.

The backlash can be seen all across the country, but it is particularly prominent in New York where the CUNY Faculty Union has been quite vocal in its defense of adjunct faculty benefits. Adjunct health insurance already doesn’t measure up to that enjoyed by full-time faculty, but as their benefit fund runs low, they face severe reductions. The conditions are bad enough that unions have even threatened to Strike in Chicago and New York, citing unfair working conditions. One of the biggest complains is that the cheap rates adjuncts are hired at undermines the entire tenure system and what it stands for—protecting professors from the politics of the academic world. Adjuncts can be fired for no reason (or for political reasons), which is quickly turning the university into a dangerous place to express your intellectual opinion. This is why adjunct professors need their own union—regular professor unions won’t act in their interest, just like the rest of the university system.

Essentially, adjunct faculty are calling for the same treatment as full-time, tenure-track professors—they want protection from unexpected firing, health benefits, and perhaps a shot at tenure, too. Considering that more than half of university-level educators nationwide are non-tenure track, and nearly 70% of NYU faculty are adjunct professors, that’s a huge budgeting issue for universities, but it’s only asking for fair treatment. So where does the middle ground lie?

Progress?

While there is still no solution in sight, some universities are thinking outside the box in their attempt to find one. SUNY Cortland, a state college in New York, recently hired 35 new full-time professors, all with full benefits and pay. The university’s administration is confident that this gamble will pay off in the benefits to students, but it comes with a catch: $300 additional in tuition per student per year. Is raising tuition rates the only answer, then? It’s a less-than-ideal solution to a tricky problem, and it remains to be seen if universities can think their way out of this mess.

Resources for Adjuncts

Despite the conditions, adjunct teaching positions are actually one of the fastest-growing fields, and many recent Ph.D.s are finding it to be the best option for post-graduation employment. If you want to be come an adjunct faculty, take a look at the job listings on HigherEd.com.