SoTL as a Subfield for Political Science Graduate Programs (Part II)
Political Science Graduate Programs
This divergence between the economic, disciplinary, and political reality, on the one hand, and the aspirations of doctoral graduate students, on the other, is not the fault of students.[i] Political science graduate programs are to blamed. By not incorporating SoTL into their curriculum, political science graduate programs produce students who are prepared for traditional scholarship but not for an academic labor market and public pressure to demonstrate the discipline’s worth.[ii] Despite discussion and evidence that graduate students are not prepared to teach, there has been little formalized training developed in political science graduate programs (Beltran et al. 2005; Euchner and Jewell 1989; Gaff et al. 2003; Ishiyama et al. 2010 and 2012; Rothgeb, Spadafore, and Burger 2007).
A review of the websites of the top ten political science graduate programs in the United States reveals that students are not introduced to SoTL; and if they are, it is only in the traditional manner of teaching assistants and instructorships.[iii] With some minor variations, these political science graduate programs are organized in the same way: two years of coursework (with none about SoTL), a foreign language and quantitative method competency requirement, a general examination, and a dissertation. The general education usually requires students to know three areas of political science in the traditional fields of American Politics, Comparative Politics, International Relations, and Political Theory.[iv] In addition to these formal requirements, these programs also sponsor colloquia and workshops for graduate students that focus on research or professional development as defined by non-SoTL scholarship, e.g., dissertation topic, grant writing, the academic labor market.
The only place for teaching in these programs is for students to be eligible to teach sections in introductory courses, assist undergraduate sessions, or partake in tutorial programs. Harvard is the most specific in how students should allot their time to teaching: third-year students should devote two-fifth of their time to teaching and the rest on the dissertation; fourth-year students and above should devote most of their time to work on their dissertation or "a combination of teaching and research."[v] Of the 122 political science doctoral programs, only 41 had a graduate-level course on teaching political science, and only 28 of these programs required students to enroll in the course (Ishiyama et al. 2010).
From the departments' websites, it is not clear how the graduate student teaching is supervised and evaluated, but one suspects that the mentorship of students into teaching is dependent upon the faculty advisor and the relationship he or she has with the student (Kuehl et al. 2016). If a faculty member is attentive to his or her graduate student, concerned about teaching, and knows about the literature of SoTL, then the student is likely to be well-prepared as a teacher. But if a faculty member lacks any one of the above-mentioned factors, then the student will have to devise for himself or herself how to teach well. Given that the incentives in political science graduate programs are for students to spend time on non-SoTL scholarship, it is unlikely students will spend any more time than needed to teach.
It is also not clear whether graduate students teach because of it is part of their professional development, personal income, an inexpensive way for programs to manage their budgets, or a combination of all these reasons. Teaching may be part of a graduate student's financial aid package and therefore they teach because they need the income. Alternatively, graduate students may teach to supplement their income not only in their own programs but also be employed as adjuncts at other universities. Having graduate students teach – whether within one' s own program, as adjuncts elsewhere, or online – is an inexpensive, and perhaps exploitive, way for programs and universities to meet the demands of undergraduate teaching. The income that undergraduate students bring to programs are compensate with inexpensive and inexperienced graduate students, while faculty members are free to pursue traditional scholarship and thereby justify their high costs to a department.
Like their counterparts in the United States, the top political science programs in the world also are organized in similar fashion but are even more focused on traditional research than their American counterparts.[vi] Oxford, Cambridge, Science Po Paris, and Australian National University make no references to SoTL for their doctoral students: only the London School of Economics states that there are opportunities for doctoral students to teach undergraduate courses.[vii] The emphasis on research at the expense of teaching is understandable at these programs because the time to complete a doctorate is three years, a shorter period when compared to American programs. The result is that these programs emphasize non-SoTL scholarship even more so than American programs, with graduate students encouraged to have publications in peer-reviewed journals before they defend their doctorate (Mair 2009; Steuriuc, 2009; for a contrary view, see Pleschová 2009).
The Case for SoTL and Teaching
Thus, there is a discrepancy between the doctoral training of political science programs and the number and type of academic positions available, the direction of the discipline, and the political pressures of governments on public universities. Confronted with these challenges, political science graduate programs must adapt in order to provide realistic opportunities for employment for its graduate students, remain current with the latest trends in the discipline, and demonstrate its relevance to the public. One way political science graduate programs could meet these challenges is to create a new subfield of SoTL.[viii]
By adding this new subfield into their graduate program, political science departments would be creating opportunities and incentives for students to be eligible for employment not only at undergraduate institutions but also for positions in the education industry, e.g., secondary schools; local, state, and the federal government; textbook publishing companies; non-profit educational organizations and foundations. For those students who secure academic positions, they will be aware of the teaching demands and expectations of their institutions, which in turn will help them on their career paths of tenure and promotion (Ishiyama et al. 2014). And once these students become established professors at their institutions, they can have influence on the future teaching demands and expectations of their own schools.
The new subfield of SoTL also will show students the connection between scholarship and teaching, which ultimately may deepen the affinity between these activities in the discipline.[ix] Instead of conceiving each of these activities as isolated from each other, students will be able to make the connections between them, leading them to make new scholarly contributions. By creating this subfield, the culture within the discipline and departments will change where SoTL becomes as valued as much as traditional scholarship.
Although academics recognize the foundational role that traditional scholarship plays in any discipline, this fact is not evident to the public. Academics can continue to make the case about the importance of traditional scholarship or how low-teaching loads make their universities more competitive to recruit and retain faculty, but these arguments seem to have little effect on changing public perception or the minds of state legislators. Instead, political scientists could make the public case that SoTL needs to be institutionalized so that teaching becomes more effective rather than just having more of it. It is not necessarily evident that having professors teach more would make them better teachers and students better learners. But the creation of a subfield of SoTL would enable faculty to identify the best practices and methods for effective teaching for particular disciplines. Academics therefore would concede to public demands that teaching needs to have a more central place in the university's mission but would qualify that criticism that it is effective, not just more, teaching that is required.
Because of APSA’s initiatives, there already are numerous faculty who do research in SoTL and publish in places like Journal of Political Science of Education. Because the community and literature in SoTL is established and continues to grow, there is fertile ground to create SoTL as a subfield. Having said that, the creation and implementation of this subfield will vary from department to department. It is not clear whether a top-down or organic approach would be best. Another question is the role of the College of Education (COE) with their pedagogical programs: should COE and political science programs work together or remain apart? Finally, institutional questions, like accreditation, need to be investigated if the creation of a subfield of SoTL would any negative effect upon a university's standing.
What would a subfield actually look like in a political science graduate program? In the following section I outline the contents of this subfield and its place in a political science graduate program. With the understanding that this proposal is to start a conversation about what a subfield of SoTL would look like rather than claim it is definitive, I have designed one that is board as possible so it could be used as a template, allowing flexibility among programs to tailor it for their specific needs.
[i] For more about the problems with graduate education, refer to Cassuto, 2015.
[ii] For more about the state of teaching in political science graduate programs, refer to Jones and Woodward, 2016; Kuehl et al. 2016.
[iii] I use the U.S. News & World Report's ranking of political science graduate programs. Although some may disagree with its methodology, I suspect the results comport with most political scientists' assessments of these programs: Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Michigan, Berkeley, Columbia, MIT, University of San Diego, Duke, and University of California at Los Angeles. “Top Political Science Programs” n.d.
[iv] Some programs also include Methodology; Formal Political Theory; Political Economy; Public Policy; Political Psychology; Security Studies; Gender and Politics; Law, Courts, and Politics; Race, Ethnicity, and Politics.
[v] “Graduate Program: Requirements for Students admitted to Fall 2010 or Later” n.d.
[vi] I use the QS World University Ranking of 2015 for the top political science graduate programs in the world. As stated before, although some may disagree with its methodology, I suspect the results comport with most political scientists' assessments of these programs: Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, LSE, Science Po Paris, Cambridge, Australian National University, Stanford, Yale, Columbia, and John Hopkins. “QS Top Universities” n.d. For more about the differences and similarities between North American and European doctoral graduate programs, refer to Mény 2010 and Ishiyama 2010.
[vii] Cambridge University's website states that there are teaching fellows, in addition to the full-time faculty; however, it is not clear who these teaching fellows are, i.e., doctoral students, post-doctoral students, visiting professors, etc. “Department of Politics and International Studies.” n.d. Cambridge University.
[viii] Serve et al. (2013) even suggest creating a separate degree, doctorate of arts, which focuses on SoTL. This proposal incorporates this idea as part of a doctoral student's comprehensive examination.
[ix] Boyer (1997) is an advocate of this approach of combing scholarship and teaching with his typology of the scholarship of discovery, integration, teaching and learning, and application.