Tennessee Tech will launch a new doctoral program in integrative biology to help the university increase its research capabilities and doctoral student enrollment.
Interim Provost Dr. John Liu presented the degree program to the committee as a way to improve workforce preparation and education. The university currently has a doctoral student population of 2.5 percent, which falls short of the 6 percent average seen at top research institutions.
“So we’re falling behind, therefore, I think adding this additional PhD program as well as growing PhD student numbers in existing programs will greatly help research,” Liu said.
The proposed program would be the first doctoral degree offered in the College of Arts and Sciences. Tennessee Tech official Camron Rudd said the holistic program would build on the existing momentum of the biology department.
“What we’re trying to do with the integrative biology is be like, okay, we’re going to specify biology and we think that a good PhD student really knows their research,” Rudd said. “We’re going to sprinkle in a little bit of the theoretical stuff on the generalities, but the whole idea is to make them the most effective PhD student in their specific field.”
The university needs to graduate 70 doctoral students and reach 50 million dollars in research expenditures annually to achieve R1 status. The institution currently graduates about 40 doctoral students each year.
“In order to achieve 70 graduates per year, we need 385 PhD student if we scattered out spread evenly across that time frame,” Liu said. “So we needs to grow 130 more.”
The committee unanimously passed a roll call vote to send the new academic program proposal to the full board for final approval. The university currently offers five other doctoral programs in engineering, education and environmental science, along with a nursing practice doctorate.
“I think with more PhD students, that will provide the mentors for undergraduate research,” Liu said.