Ph.D. in Education Approved

University-wide Ph.D. program to prepare next generation of education researchers

Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) voted unanimously today to approve the creation of a new interfaculty Ph.D. program in education to be offered jointly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS). The program will enroll its first cohort in Fall 2014. The Ph.D. in Education will build on the strengths of HGSE’s Ed.D. Program, which will enroll its final cohort in the fall of 2013.

“The new interfaculty Ph.D. program in Education will leverage the renowned strengths of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education and its Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and will engage distinguished faculty from across the University,” President Faust said. “Bringing experts from several Schools together reflects a commitment both to advancing as one Harvard and to addressing urgent issues related to human progress.”

Nearly 50 faculty members from other Harvard schools — 28 from FAS and 18 from other professional schools including the Medical School, the School of Public Health, the Kennedy School, and the Law School — have agreed to affiliate with their Education School colleagues on the Ph.D. faculty.

“This program will harness the intellectual resources of the entire university to address the most important public policy issue of the 21st century. Education is the civil rights issue of our time,” said HGSE Dean Kathleen McCartney.

With the approval of this new degree, Harvard now confers the Ph.D. in 54 departments, programs, and divisions. The Ph.D. in education is the 17th interfaculty Ph.D. program at Harvard, bringing the arts and sciences together with the professional graduate schools.

Given the formalized collaboration with FAS and faculty from other professional schools, the Ph.D. will feature closer connections to academic disciplines and fields (e.g., sociology, psychology, economics, anthropology, public policy, public health, or business) through course work and faculty mentorship.

“Offered jointly by HGSE and GSAS, this new Ph.D. program will expand our intellectual and programmatic collaboration with other Schools at Harvard, while opening an opportunity for critical interdisciplinary scholarship in the area of education policy and practice,” said Michael D. Smith, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. "The Faculty of Arts and Sciences is home to scholars who do groundbreaking work on topics in education from within the disciplines of the social sciences, the sciences, and the arts and humanities. By creating formal channels of collaboration, we will now explicitly integrate the theoretical and methodological work of the FAS disciplines with applications and translations beyond the academy.”

The Ph.D. in Education will succeed HGSE’s Ed.D. Program, one of the nation’s most selective and rigorous research doctoral programs. For the past 90 years, the Ed.D. has trained students broadly for careers in the education sector, from academics and researchers to senior-level administrators and policymakers.

"The Harvard Ph.D. in Education will produce the world's leading scholars in this field,” HGSE Academic Dean Hiro Yoshikawa said. “It will also retain the Ed.D.’s focus on preparing our graduates to work at the nexus of practice, policy, and research.”

Over the next year, a steering committee composed of HGSE and FAS faculty members will work to define the Ph.D. program’s curriculum, milestones, requirements, and areas of concentration.