Not Doctor Them Up Prior to World War 11 the PhD degree was earned by relatively few people. Most PhD awardees were highly motivated individuals, especially talented in their ability to view knowledge in an abstract and highly creative manner, i.e., they had the ahility to "intellectualize" knowledge and to make significant contributions to the storehouse already accumulated. Except for a very few whose talents may have been exclusively theoretical, most PhD's also possessed an outstanding mastery of the lahoratory aspects of their fields. After World War II ended and a peacetime economy hegan to reawaken, industry (and society in general) hegan to demand increasingly larger numbers of scientists who were trained in greater depth than was the typical BS graduate. Most of this newly felt need was based on the realization that basic science research paid off (witness the diversity of consumer goods which were a spin-off from wartime-accelerated industrial fervor). However, most of the scientists (and engineers) recruited by iudustry were actually utilized in highly technical developmental operations-some of which industry persisted in calling "basic research." In truth, few companies encouraged very much truly basic research-if any at all. The universities, responding to perceived societal needs and personal desires for external funds, hegan to expand existing PhD programs and to develop new ones in an effort to produce a product for which there apparently was a large and growing market. Now, almost a generation later, PhD's appear to he in surfeit, and, perhaps more importantly, the PhD degree has come to signify something vastly different than described in the opening paragraph. At the same time the MS degree, once highly respected, has virtually disappeared and certainly retains very little prestige. In retrospect, it is now hard to see why the proper response to the postwar scientific manpower demand wasn't to increase the number of highly trained MS people. Apparently, this would not have provided gaudy enough trappings for soliciting research funds from external sources! However, had the response been to increase the MS output, the PhD degree could easily have remained more or less inviolate. As it was, most of the PhD's turned out in such large numbers by the past generation were utilized by industry in capacities far better suited to well-trained MS people, i.e., as high-level technicians capable of eventually assuming middle management positions-with only the rare exception going beyond this. Certainly, very, very few of these PhD's d o o r have ever done-basic research as the purist would understand the term. Industry had then, as now, a very limited need for those who are largely discipline-oriented (as opposed to company-oriented) and capable of advancing the basic frontiers of science (as opposed to its applications). Basic research has always been centered (with some exceptions) in research institutes associated with certain universities. Meanwhile, graduate programs all over the nation changed their characters-sometimes quite drastically. Departments which tried to maintain the old image of the doctorate-without foregoing an increase in PhD output -often hegan to find that they were admitting increasingly large numbers of apparently poorly motivated and in-
opinion adequately trained students. Many of these appeared to he unable (or unwilling) to meet the requirements once thought sacred to the PhD demee. Yet, these denartments generally needed to recruit a certain minimum number of teaching assistants each year in order to he ahle to perform large scale service functions within their institutions; thus, more selective admissions policies-especially in the face of increased comvetition for maduate students-were not a suitable answer.'~heresult was increased frustration and alienation on the oart of both students and their nrofessors. The main iron; and gross injustice of the predicament may he that many of the apparently mediocre PhD candidates may very well have had the potential of heing outstanding (or a t least acceptable) MS trainees in a program geared towards more practical and less abstract involvement in chemical science. With a better fit between the "mold" and the raw material forced into it, frustrations and alienations might have been minimized, morale might not have deteriorated, and, perhaps, laboratories would have been occupied during the evening, over weekends and during a t least parts of vacations. Also, teaching responsibilities might have been more conscientiously and enthusiastically handled by those who felt they themselves were heing trained in useful ways. Lest anyone is tempted to feel that the problem just described is restricted to the smaller PhD-granting institutions (especially those who did not have PhD programs prior to World War II), there is very good evidence that only a handful of top-notch universities have avoided at least a partial prostitution of their PhD programs. Several of my colleagues now teaching in Ivy League and Big Ten schools have said as much to me. Also, the director of research (a Big Ten PhD) of a large midwestern oil company for which I once worked as a chemist told me (when I was planning to return to graduate school for a PhD) that the PhD degree wasn't really relevant to industry's needs hut was the only available source of technically trained manpower; his personal preference would have been for good MS people. Today, almost a generation after having taken a wrong fork down the academic trail, is it possihle to switch to another path-one which promises to lead to more desirable results? Ideallv., we need to re-institute high oualitv two-year MS programs designed largely to trainthoie whb vlan to make careers in chemistm at an aoolied level. In bo doing we must determine once and f& all what we mean by "basic" research-industry's misuse of the term notwithstanding. Otherwise, we remain like the midwesterner who orders a "milk shake" in New England only to discover that what he really wanted is known locally as a "frappe." At the same time we should reserve the PhD degree for those few students who display an outstanding ability to conceptualize chemistry in the manner typical of those talented in creative basic research. As once was common practice in our universities, PhD candidates might normally he chosen from the ranks of BS and MS candidates by inuitation of the faculty. But have we generated so much momentum along the present path that significant diversion is no longer practicable? Not necessarily. If one or more reasonably prestigious graduate departments were to announce a quality
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MS program of the above type-and if there were clear indications that industry found the product highly desirable-other institutions might soon follow the lead to establish a new trend. Such new directions would make it possible for every graduate department to optimize its program towards that MS/PbD ratio it is best capable of supporting. No department would necessarily have to abandon awarding of the PbD. Some of the larger schools with long-held reputations for quality PhD production might continue as they always have. Others would begin to train mostly MS candidates with a few PhD's reserved for those uniquely qualified for such a degree. Providing students and faculty clearly understood the different goals of the two degrees-and accepted the differences-morale should improve, graduate education could become fun
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(and hard work) again, and teaching assistants might hecome more inspired teachers once they felt their own educational experience was relevant to their needs. Changing over to the degree programs suggested above should have no deleterious effects on the research programs now pursued by graduate faculty. In fact, given the lessened tensions between students and faculty, the quality and amount of research accomplished by both might increase dramatically.
Frank Pilar University of New Hampshire Durham, 03824
