DOCTORAL EDUCATION AND NEW MANAGERIALISM

JULIE WHITE DOCTORAL EDUCATION AND NEW MANAGERIALISM Introduction In keeping with the theme of the 2012 Australian DPR-AQR conference: Embodying good research - What counts and who decides?, this chapter examines the impact of new managerialism on doctoral research and supervision. The arguments forwarded here are: (1) that good research at the doctoral level is endangered by new managerialist concerns focused on timely completions, the meeting of arbitrary milestones and accountability processes; (2) that good doctoral level research education is at risk of compromise through workload pressures on supervisors; and (3) that impoverished research culture and zealous management practices have potential to reinscribe what counts as good research. Slee (2011) writes of his aversion to educational Do-It-Yourself manuals like Getting the Buggers to Behave (Cowley, 2006) that are readily found on book shelves, including those in universities. The intended audience for these books are presumably nervous new teachers; judging by the number of reprints, they must be selling well. Within the doctoral education field similar 'tips and tricks' texts are also readily available - for doctoral students and supervisors alike, who are also presumed to be nervous and in need of how-to manuals. In these texts, complex social theory is eschewed; instead, they concentrate on the mechanical and the predictable, thus making the PhD project appear straightforward. These books tend to specialise in presenting common sense versions of technique, thesis elements and work habits, instead of the complex endeavours involved in the completion of a PhD. However, scholarly literature on doctoral education presents a different perspective. Doctoral education and the doctoral experience is a growing international field of research, with a significant focus on identity. There are also scholarly texts on the supervision process (Hemer, 2012; Walker and Thomson, 2010; Boud and Lee, 2009; Lee, 2008; Powell and Green, 2007; Manuthunga, 2007; Holbrook and Johnson, 1999; Taylor and Beasley, 2005; Delamont, Atkinson and Parry, 2004), and about the writing of theses (Sword, 2012; Aitchison, Kamler and Lee, 2010; Kamler and Thomson, 2006). But it was Connell's seminal (1985) article, How to supervise a PhD, that conceptualised supervision as a sophisticated form of teaching. Connell (in Connell and Manathunga, 2012) later characterised this early article as a ‘call to conversation’ about the supervision process. As Connell (1985: 38) noted: supervising a research higher degree is the most advanced level of teaching in our education system. It is certainly one of the most complex and problematic - as shown by the very high drop-out rate of students at this level. It is also one of the least discussed...The relationship with a supervisor is different from that between two academic colleagues working on a related research project. It has to be seen as a form of teaching. Like other forms, it raises questions about curriculum, method, student-teacher interaction and educational environment. It is this final point, educational environment, which is of particular interest in this paper. Deem and Brehony (2000: 163) also signalled the importance of community and environment when they commented on the importance of research supervision being recognised as a form of teaching, and 'not as a private activity between two consenting adults'. As well, Evans (2013: 511) notes that a doctoral program should equip candidates 'with skills, knowledge and "cultural capital" with which they can shape their futures', which points to the complexity of the PhD project. Grant (2005) outlines the complicated tripartite pedagogical and power relationship between the supervisor, the candidate and the production of knowledge via thesis development, and points to the complex ways in which the academic and the personal can overlap in this long-term relationship. This develops and extends Acker's (1999, 2001) notion of ambiguity in the supervisor-candidate relationship. But as Cribb and Gewirtz (2006) observe, this is increasingly undermined by an audit regime. As Devos and Somerville (2012: 54) point out: 'candidate, supervisor and administrator subjectivities are constituted within complex webs of institutional and discipline-based regimes of power'. This power is of interest in here, particularly the power exercised by managers and the impact of this power enactment on doctoral education curriculum, relationship, and the pressure to conform. New managerialism, managed professionals and doctoral education Deem (2001) provides an explanation of new managerialism that is helpful within the context of this discussion: New managerialism usually refers to practices commonplace in the private sector, particularly the imposition of a powerful management body that overrides professional skills and knowledge. It keeps discipline under tight control and is driven by efficiency, external accountability and monitoring, and an emphasis on standards. Under the new managerialist regime, higher education has come to value tangible financial income above scholarly measures of quality. For example, Shore (2010: 23), notes how 'Auckland University' measures its success in terms of income: the most valued research projects are those that bring money into the university, and success means completions and increased enrolments: ‘Making money has evidently become not only the university's “highest ambition”, but also its most important…measure of success.’ The term 'managed professionals’ has been used to refer to the way teachers have become positioned and undermined as professionals (Codd, 2005). The managed professional has been characterised as having 'specified competencies, is extrinsically motivated within a contractual relationship, and produces what the performance indicators can measure' (White and Openshaw, 2008: 34). The discussion here includes consideration of the extent to which academics have also become managed professionals, with professional judgement and independence playing a lesser role to new managerialist demands enforced by department managers. This, in turn, has potential to impact on supervision and general scholarly life by requiring compliance and adherence to performative values (see Sparkes, 2007). It may be inevitable that the tailored and manipulated discourse of managed pre-service teacher education, brought into being by external standards and control mechanisms (White, 2012a), also become the norm for doctoral education. Doctoral research within the field of Education generally resides within the social sciences where research 'culture' refers not only to specific disciplinary practices, but also to student and academic life. Whereas in the physical sciences, the PhD project is usually part of a larger funded study, and supervisors and immediate research community work side-by-side within the same laboratory; in the social sciences, PhD students can be isolated and meet with their supervisor only occasionally. Professional doctorates usually have an extensive taught component and collegial connections can be made within these classes, which is often not the case for PhD candidates, especially for candidates who are enrolled part-time, as is the case for many in Education. Formal and informal research education as well as both social and cultural experience within the academy for PhD students has long been considered important (Deem and Brehony, 2000; Leonard and Becker, 2009; Brew and Peseta, 2009). The place of department courses and seminar programs—where students have the opportunity to learn about methodology and theory, present their work, hear and contribute to critique the work of others—is also generally considered a significant aspect of the research education program for PhD candidates. The social connection with other students is crucial for many, while developing collegiality with department and visiting academics is important in the overall development of scholars at this level. Deem and Brehony (2000: 158) suggest that: Academic research cultures include disciplinary or interdisciplinary ideas and values, particular kinds of expert knowledge and knowledge production, cultural practices and narratives (for instance how research is done, and how peer review is exercised), departmental sociability, other internal and external intellectual networks and learned societies. Whether students in the social sciences can and do access all this seems to depend rather a lot on chance and supervisors. Acker (2001:62) points out that the doctoral student needs to become attuned not only to disciplinary ways, but they must also become socialized into the values and practices of their departments. Of particular interest in this essay is the research culture and environment that is on offer to doctoral candidates in the present managerialist environment. The impact of new managerialism War stories are frequently told among colleagues and much can be learned from heeding such accounts, even though they are usually negative by nature. While these stories tend to emphasise the worst aspects of a situation and are narrated in a competitive way, to elicit shocked reactions, they are nevertheless important because they attempt to speak truth, if not ‘to power’ directly, then to trusted colleagues. Nevertheless, these shared accounts of culture, environment and pressures on doctoral students and supervisors resonate with my experiences as a supervisor of 15 doctoral students in two former universities. These accounts have been drawn upon to illustrate the effects of new managerialism on the doctoral research project. The point here is to raise concerns about practices in the academy that potentially have significance for doctoral research education, such as: students enrolled in a taught doctoral program, but where no classes are provided absence of research seminars for staff or doctoral students lack of visiting scholars lack of departmental-level classes or support for PhD or professional doctoral candidates higher degree supervision commitment that is counted as the supervisor's research time supervisors who routinely have high numbers of higher degree students requests for conference travel money by doctoral students and academic being routinely denied doctoral students being counseled to use the time that would have been spent at a conference to write an article instead academic teaching staff teaching loads that change annually. These practices impact on departmental life, culture and doctoral education. In an impoverished research environment where some of these listed points might exist, questions arise about how doctoral students should undertake their complex tasks. Without access to scholars beyond their supervisors, how are they to access current ideas and debates at the local, national and international levels? While doctoral students are expected to read extensively and many do participate in online forums, the publication lag for significant journals presents difficulties of currency. Moreover, in such an environment, the responsibility of supervision becomes heavy, and without nourishment or colleagiality, it becomes unreasonable. University timelines and supervision Expectations on the length of time it takes to complete a PhD have considerably reduced in recent years. Connell (1995) estimated 4-6 years, but most official requirements are now 3 years, in some cases 3-4 years. Most doctoral candidates in the field of Education are part-time, older due to considerable experience in professional practice, and female, reflecting the gender skew in the teaching profession. The establishment of 'normal' timelines for doctoral completion by university committees work against most candidates in this field such as this because, as Cribb and Gewirtz (2006: 234) observe, Firstly, in large measure, the problems we are describing can be seen as a product of the nature of audit, especially its reliance upon blanket rules, timelines and systems of monitoring. As things stand, it is arguable that the prevailing governance procedures embody a strong conception of the 'normal' Ph.D. student as someone who is likely to be young, academically privileged, undertaking a science doctorate, full time (and possibly male)…such procedures may suit individuals only to the extent that they correspond to this norm. New managerialist decision-making on the part of departmental managers also includes attempts to relieve departmental budgets of the ‘burden’ of students in 'lapsed candidature', for which neither the department nor the university will receive money. This returns us to Shore's (2010) extreme examples from New Zealand, which offer a relevant, but scary perspective on the future. Much of the time of a doctoral supervisor is spent writing progress reports for departments and for university-level structures, in addition to reports and letters for sponsoring agencies. By ensuring that these documents are written, that progress presentations are given and milestones are met, the supervisor can be kept busy with administrative tasks. Moreover, counting supervision as part of the research work of academics has been interpreted as a cynical performative exercise, producing more with less, particularly within social science. The pressure on academics to list timely completions as part of appraisal and promotion processes, as well as demands to sit on the panels of colleagues’ students presentations and deliberations within one's department, and examine theses from other universities can become onerous in terms of workload. The work of academics has intensified significantly in terms of teaching loads and administrative responsibly, as well as the pressure to undertake and publish research, and meet internal and external service requirements has been well documented (see a summary in White, 2012a). This intensification of academic work may also result in academics turning a scholarly blind eye to curriculum change (White, 2012b), including that related to doctoral education. This failure to notice, or engage with, significant change may be due to the numerous performative requirements made of individual academics, or may have more to do with marginalization and a lack of influence associated with being 'managed'. Department management Departmental managers are routinely required to make budgetary cuts that impact on programs and research opportunities in order to meet performative demands and financial targets. At an extreme end, this has the potential to result in research environments that are distressed and impoverished, which in turn may consequently diminish important learning and development opportunities for doctoral candidates, particularly in terms of culture and environment. As Green (2012: 11) points out: 'The Australian university in the early 21st century is highly corporatized and strikingly performative in its orientation and conduct, and desperately underfunded'. Nevertheless, there remains discretionary power about how policy and budgetary constraints are interpreted and enacted with decisions about workload and priorities residing with department managers. However, those with least scholarly experience and knowledge may inevitably make decisions that have the greatest impact on scholarly endeavour, including doctoral education, both directly and indirectly. And in the worst-case scenario, in an environment where academics have become 'managed' so that they comply and align, it may be that department managers opt to use funding and workload to reward and punish. Curriculum Scholarship The term missing from the doctoral education field is 'curriculum' (Green, 2012; Clegg, 2011; Gilbert, 2009; Barnett and Coates, 2005; Lee, 2005). Many of the issues raised in this essay relate to age-old questions from curriculum and critical pedagogy fields of scholarship. Concerns about 'What knowledge is of most worth?' and 'Who decides?' clearly link with concerns raised here about doctoral education. Although the 'hidden curriculum' is an old term that emerged in the 1960s (Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery and Taubman, 2004), it retains relevance and can be connected into this discussion. Hidden curriculum issues of disciplinary access and supervision arrangements (Acker, 2001), are now joined by those raised in this essay. Firstly, the significant changes and pressures arising from unrealistic and punitive timelines for thesis completion, regardless of complexity, may lead to under-theorised doctoral theses, with the notion of a 'good' thesis being increasingly seen as one that is finished on time, and with notions of quality or contribution to knowledge becoming downplayed. Secondly, by counting thesis supervision as 'research' rather than 'teaching' in workload arrangements, combined with the increasing general teaching and administrative demands on individual academics (see White, 2012a), the doctoral candidate is likely to lose out in terms of supervisor attention and time. And finally, an impoverished research culture resulting from overly performative management practices designed to save money and keep academic staff ‘in line’ portends longer-term negative impacts within local sites. Research environments that do not routinely provide seminars, access to visiting scholars and to other exposure to ideas beyond formal supervision arrangements, such as supporting conference attendance, would not usually be deemed capable of providing an adequate learning culture for doctoral level studies. 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Bingley UK: Emerald, 92-118. Affiliations Julie White The Victoria Institute, Victoria University Australia Acknowledgements The preparation of this chapter was supported through the Australian Government's Collaborative Research Network (CRN) program. 1