PhD Progression: Creating Workforce-driven Flexible Credentials for Doctoral Students
The role of doctoral education in the United States workforce has been shifting for several decades. The number of PhDs awarded steadily increased while the percentage of tenured faculty shrunk dramatically. Consequently, the vast majority of Ph.D. degree recipients will not go on to a tenured position but instead will pursue a variety of career paths outside of academia and in a wide range of sectors, including industry, non-profits, and governmental agencies. To supplement existing Ph.D. programs by equipping graduate students with the complex knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to be successful professionals in various careers, the project team has created and piloted a micro-credentialing training program: Ph.D. Progression.
By completing Ph.D. Progression badges, Ph.D. students can gain skills in key areas such as communication, management, self-awareness, research, and teaching towards serving effectively in a diverse, inclusive, and global professional landscape. The digital badging system included in Ph.D. Progression also allows students to monitor their progress and demonstrate directly to employers the outcomes from the time they invested in their professional development. This award will support the expansion of the Ph.D. Progression content to be widely accessible with newly integrated perspectives from the workforce through the creation of a consortium of academic and non-academic institutions.
Products & Publications
