UBC Launches a Pilot Public Scholars Initiative for Doctoral Students

Pictured are 32 of the 39 PhD scholars participating in UBC's pilot Public Scholars Initiative (PSI)

Sparked by the university-wide conversation at last year’s Re-Imagining the PhD event and subsequent advisory group deliberations, the UBC Public Scholars Initiative (PSI) was launched as an innovative pilot program intended to explore how a top-tier university can offer PhD pathways that encourage purposeful social contribution, innovative forms of collaborative scholarship, and broader career readiness for doctoral students. 

Background

Within the realms of higher education and society, several streams of change have converged and have given rise to vigorous debates about the purposes of the academy and of doctoral education. The fundamental approach to doctoral education has not changed significantly since the modern degree was instituted in the early 19^th century as a means to regenerate the professoriate, yet most PhD graduates now pursue careers outside of the academy, where they contribute immeasurably to the public good through diverse forms and outputs of scholarship.  These types of directly transformative scholarship are increasingly valued within the academy, and there is growing interest and activity in ensuring doctoral students have some exposure to them during their program.  Furthermore, governments and granting agencies more frequently require evidence of the impact of research on global concerns, and many students themselves express the deep desire to contribute tangibly to the public good through their PhD scholarship. There is no question that effective approaches to today’s problems and questions require this diversity of scholarship, and a breadth of thinking that is interdisciplinary, integrative, innovative and collaborative. 

To address these changing realities, many institutions around the world, including UBC, offer PhD students workshops and courses designed to enhance non-academic career skills.  Internships, such as those offered through Mitacs, provide important experiential learning relevant to students’ future careers.  We believe the PSI pilot to be one of the first of its kind, however, in moving beyond both generic skills training and extracurricular experience, to an integrative approach that supports diverse forms of collaborative scholarship and scholarly products that are part of the dissertation work itself.  In encouraging this approach, we are attesting that these forms of knowledge generation and dissemination should be rigorously assessed for their merit, and that UBC values them as integral components of the work required for its highest degree.  We will be closely following and supporting these scholars, as ‘pioneers’ (their word) in the changing landscape of doctoral education.

The UBC Pilot

The strategy of this pan-university initiative is to support and encourage public scholarship, which generally entails contributing to the public good through partnerships with those in public or private sectors to carry out research in areas of mutual interest.  Many students and faculty already carry out such research; the pilot is intended to provide opportunities for those who have not considered this form of scholarship, to publicly value and support those who are doing it, and to open up possibilities for inclusion and assessment of the work and its outputs in the dissertation.  Students are encouraged, for example, to include a variety of scholarly artifacts in their dissertation, including policy papers, websites, films, teaching syllabi, or communications material for non-academic audiences.

A call for applicants was issued earlier this year for PhD students interested in explicitly linking their doctoral work to an arena of public benefit and integrating broader and more career-relevant forms of scholarship into their doctoral education. From 98 applicants, 39 PhD students have been selected from across the full range of disciplines to take part in the initiative as our first cohort.

They are an extremely enthusiastic group, and committed to making the world a better place. Among the projects are: a proposal to develop a training program for humanitarian workers leading from a Political Science student’s research on armed non-state groups and child soldiers; a collaboration with the City of Vancouver to improve the seismic safety of its buildings; and a collaboration with the U.S. White House and two private companies to explore avenues to improving job satisfaction and employee engagement.

The PSI is a new and unique story wherein PhD students engaged in scholarly work with clear links to public benefit are to receive both additional funding and academic support and endorsement. With the launch event that took place on September 30th, we also began to sow the seeds of the 3^rd major support strategy of this initiative, namely the creation of a Public Scholars Network.  Featured guest speaker, UBC Professor of Anthropology Wade Davis, kicked-off the event by sharing his thoughts and experience on “Being a Public Scholar”. Then the invited students and faculty began to engage in dialogue and form a network that we hope will lead to collaboration and mentorship opportunities that cross disciplines and transcend the traditional boundaries of academia, opening new career pathways and facilitating the use of scholarship to advance the public good.

Grad.ubc.ca/psi

In order to give both the UBC community and the wider world the opportunity to meet these 39 scholars and explore various possibilities for practicing and engaging with public scholarship, a special PSI section of grad.ubc.ca will be launched in October. The section will include photos and profiles of our UBC PSI scholars as well as op-ed posts, resources for those engaged in public scholarship and a listing of the upcoming public thematic presentations. These events will be organized around themes such as public health, environmental sustainability and working with, and within, indigenous communities.

As each and every one of the PSI scholars is engaged in scholarship with the potential to make our world a better place, these events will give them an opportunity to present some of their work to a general audience and allow all of us to be inspired by their purpose and passion. Event listings will be posted to the UBC Event calendar and on grad.ubc.ca -- we hope to see you there.

Here is the full list of UBC’s 2015 Public Scholars Initiative Participants.

Media contact: Carolynne Ciceri, Communications Manager, UBC Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Email: carolynne.ciceri@ubc.ca

PSI contact: Efe Peker, PhD Candidate, Public Scholarship Coordinator,UBC Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Email: efe.peker@ubc.ca