PhD shortages
I imagine most of you saw this piece – An Innovative Approach to the PhD Shortage: Wichita State University Offers Grants, Forms Partnership with Fort Hays State University - in the June 2009 ASHA Leader. If not, that’s why there’s a link.
I’m not entirely sure I agree with the assessment from the report cited here as to why there’s a PhD shortage, and what to do about it. Sure, financial incentive plays a part, and it’s possible that “‘Unrewarded’ work/service” taking away from time to publish does, too. Ultimately, though, it comes down to temperament and personality.
Speech-language pathology is a field that draws clinicians, not researchers. We’re drawn to this field because we have a knack and a desire to help individuals, as opposed to “people.” While we may understand the value in basing our practice on scientific evidence, we’re much more concerned with the evidence of whether something works for a given patient, client or child. The so-called ‘unrewarded’ tasks alluded to are what the vast majority of SLPs would find most rewarding. Publish or perish and the stuffy distinctions between assistant vs. associate professors are the kinds of things we would detest.
The “Crisis in the Discipline” is not that there are too few PhD candidates and graduates. There is no crisis. The perception of crisis stems only from the narrow, tired view that academicians have regarding what qualifies one to be an instructor in this discipline. Far from a crisis, the PhD shortage could be one of the best things to happen to speech-language pathology in ages, if it challenges our conceptions as to how research is conducted and how new clinicians are formed.
