A Deepening Doctoral Crisis?
By Matthew Robb, MSW, LCSW-C
Social Work Today
Vol. 5 No. 4 P. 13

Opportunities for PhDs abound, but why is there a growing shortage of them? Is the DSW an alternative for students seeking doctoral degrees?

Blace Nalavany, LCSW, and Alyson Mischel, LCSW, are dedicated social workers whose keen intellects, long hours, and passion for excellence have put them on the career fast track.

But that’s where the similarities end.

One is a Floridian working toward a traditional PhD. The other, a native Californian, is gearing up for a soon-to-be-launched doctorate of social work (DSW) program designed for today’s administrators. Separating the two is 3,000 miles of metaphor that some observers fear could morph into the San Andreas Fault of social work education.

At the age of 37, Nalavany is tunneling his way through a mountain of doctoral research at Florida State University (FSU) toward an anticipated mid-2006 graduation date. Tenure may be a pipe dream in many academic disciplines, but demand for PhD social workers is intense and Nalavany is optimistic. After he completes his dissertation, he hopes to obtain a tenure-track faculty position somewhere in Florida and thereafter start landing research grants and publishing scholarly research.

Mischel currently divides her time between a private practice and duties as director of admissions of an EdD program at the University of California, Los Angeles. At the age of 28, the former clinical supervisor already holds an MSW from the University of Southern California (USC) and an MA in sociology from Stanford University. In fall 2006, she and 24 other social workers will converge on USC’s Sacramento campus for its inaugural DSW program. USC has brought the “professional practice degree” back from the brink of extinction and retooled it from the ground up.

As envisioned, USC’s “applied doctorate” will give Mischel and other emerging leaders the administrative and policy skills they need to succeed at the top of almost any organizational chart outside of the nation’s Tier I research universities. Upon graduation, she hopes to start her own nonprofit and someday teach in a DSW program. According to USC’s dean, Marilyn S. Flynn, PhD, interest in the newly minted doctorate is keen.

Looking at Nalavany and Mischel, observers can’t help but wonder to what extent does the rise of the new market-savvy DSW signal a growing fissure in social work education? And what options do social workers considering a doctoral program have?

The PhD Option
The direction of social work education concerns Jeane W. Anastas, PhD. She is the director of doctoral studies at New York University’s Ehrenkranz School of Social Work and chairs the Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education (GADE), whose members direct the roughly 75 social work doctoral programs across the nation. (Currently, there are 80 GADE member programs—68 in the United States, eight international, and four in development.)

Anastas terms the shortage of PhDs an “immediate crisis” and sees no relief in sight. The reasons, she says, are many. While doctoral programs have proliferated nationwide, the actual number of PhD graduates has remained static at roughly 250 annually. Some programs are tiny, admitting only two or three students each year. Attrition is another factor. Many PhD students never receive doctorates, as pressing financial and family issues cut short promising academic careers. Factoring in the loss of income earnings, a doctorate at the pricier institutions may carry a $175,000 price tag.

At the nation’s top research institutions, Anastas says, the inflow of grants can support several doctoral students. “Essentially every student they accept receives full-time tuition and stipends—and they have plenty of applicants.” Financial aid may deepen the applicant pool, but it typically ends when the students complete their coursework. During the two or so years spent laboring through research and dissertation, full-time students are often on their own financially, but a few programs can provide support from start to finish. Part-time students, by contrast, can hold down jobs, but may need five to seven years to inch toward the finish line.

Lower-profile programs can ill afford such inducements and typically face a tough sell convincing midcareer adults to forgo steady incomes in exchange for hefty student loans. Nalavany admits to sometimes wondering whether a future assistant professor’s salary will be enough to repay $75,000 in loans while also helping to support his wife and young son. Contemplating the 275-mile distance between his Tallahassee apartment and his family in Tampa, he says, “It’s been an enormous sacrifice for everyone.”

As master’s programs and social work continuing education go online, onlookers wonder whether academia will do something—anything—to make doctoral studies more accessible. To many midcareer students, obtaining an MSW seems quite doable compared with the eternal grind of the PhD. Anastas understands, but says social work has made huge, hard-fought strides in the stature of its PhD programs. Making accommodations to hectic schedules, she says, puts social work education on a slippery slope. Her concern isn’t merely for academia; it’s for social work as a discipline. “We must make every effort to ensure doctoral education is intellectually rigorous,” she says. “If we ‘dumb down’ the degree in any way, then in one more way we would be accepting an inferior status for social work.”

In some regards, slippage is already underway. A scattering of PhD programs today admit baccalaureates without the traditional prequalifying MSW and professional experience. Some in academia see this as Faustian, arguing that relaxed standards beget book-savvy but field-green social workers. Nor can smaller programs be as selective as the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan, or New York University, and it’s at the periphery that observers fear an erosion of standards that could ripple across academia.

Anastas and Fariyal Ross-Sheriff, PhD, director of Howard University’s doctoral social work program in Washington, DC, note that serious talks are underway that would allow PhD students to submit for publication three peer-reviewed articles in lieu of the traditional magnum opus, the dissertation. “One article might be more theoretical and the others more empirical,” Anastas speculates.

Such a policy shift would mark a major departure from tradition. It would attract dissertation-wary social workers while reducing the incidence of ABDs—former doctoral students who had completed “All But Dissertations” prior to throwing in the towel. Ross-Sheriff says it would also give students invaluable experience in developing the bread-and-butter skill of academia—publishing.

As society at large rushes to embrace technology, might academia follow suit and offer PhD courses via distance learning? “There is some talk about distance-learning, but with great controversy,” Anastas says. “The single most common inquiry I get by e-mail as chair of GADE is: ‘Can you direct me to an online program?’ Some schools have experimented with alternate structures—such as offering periods of intense summer study followed by online work in the interim.” Nalavany says the e-learning debate is largely moot. Many of the research- and statistics-intensive courses, he says, are too rigorous for online discussion.

Like Anastas, Ross-Sheriff is similarly dubious about calls for accommodations. Doctoral programs, she says, should not “cut corners.”

“To me, it is a question of quality,” she says. “If we want to produce professionals capable of generating knowledge and original research, we should accept that it takes time. But we are able to accelerate the education process in one key way: by financially supporting our students so they can attend full time.” Both Ross-Sheriff and Anastas maintain that proper student funding is critical to the vitality of doctoral programs everywhere.

Anastas notes that doctoral studies aren’t for everyone and that the left-brained rigor can be a jarring experience for right-brained, research-phobic MSWs. “There is an immense qualitative difference,” she says. “PhD programs typically attract a different type and caliber of student.” Seemingly overnight, clinicians must think like seasoned researchers. If clinical proficiency is a key hallmark of MSW education, she says, intellectual firepower, a marathoner’s mindset, and an immense appetite for knowledge are paramount on the doctoral end. Echoing Ross-Sheriff, Anastas says this development process cannot be accelerated or cultivated online.

By all indications, educators today expect more, not less, from their students. Since acquiring her PhD from Brandeis in 1982, Anastas has seen a major upgrading in course content. Though doctoral programs vary sharply—far more so than MSW programs—yesterday’s focus on policy and numbers-crunching has broadened to include qualitative research, evidence-based practice, interdisciplinary learning, philosophy of knowledge, and much grant-funded research, she says. Gazing into her crystal ball, Anastas predicts ever-increasing sophistication to include “more cross-cultural and cross-national research.” Tomorrow’s faculties, she says, will be increasingly diverse and multinational, finding the better schools forging relationships with institutions abroad.

Might academia respond to popular demand and offer the clinical analogue of psychology’s enormously popular professional degree, the PsyD? “That issue has only recently come up in national discussion,” Anastas says. “At this point, it is considered a minority opinion.”

Pausing, she adds, “Pursuing a PhD is not something to do lightly, but it has many rewards. A PhD is essential if you want to become a full-time faculty member or if you want to have serious regard in the research community. The research community will respect your practice experience as an MSW, but will not necessarily offer you respect or status as a peer researcher.”

Ultimately, tight supply and sharp demand make PhD candidates like Nalavany prized commodities. He calls job prospects “very good.” Anastas agrees. “If you’re willing to teach at the undergraduate level, work in a smaller institution, or work somewhere not on either [U.S.] coast, there will be a faculty job for you.”

In a world of rapid change and mounting competitive pressures, nothing is eternal. Anastas says GADE is so concerned about the PhD shortage that its members may convene a special session. “We would discuss enrollment issues and perhaps debate how our programs should be restructured,” she says.

Enter the New DSW
Few doctoral programs can aspire to meteoric prominence, but USC’s DSW program already appears on radar screens across the nation—and it won’t launch until fall 2006.

Academia may decry the DSW’s return from the dead, but Flynn says USC’s retooled “applied doctorate” is good for the profession, social workers, and society at large.

Far from being defensive, Flynn maintains that the research-intensive PhD hasn’t kept pace with change and is increasingly irrelevant to frontline social workers. A new era calls for educational models that sync with pressing needs. She also maintains that academia’s “one-size-fits-all” philosophy is antithetical to social work. “What this mindset tells people,” she says, “is that if you don’t fit the PhD mold, then you should go get a degree in some other field.”

Predictably, social workers have gotten degrees in other fields—in droves—leading to a critical loss of talent that Flynn likens to a brain drain. “We know that many social workers pursue other professional doctorates because they don’t have any other choice in social work education other than the PhD,” she says. “We think our DSW fills an absolutely critical niche within the profession.” A market survey, she says, indicates “a huge demand for the DSW.”

The problem, as Flynn sees it, is simple. “The PhD is a research degree, with the expectation that people will spend their careers in research and in teaching in academia,” she says. “The DSW, like the EdD, will answer to the needs of social workers in broad leadership roles, giving them an in-depth and advanced perspective of social work.” She notes that USC’s advanced degree will not be clinical, but instead will focus on policy and administration. That said, the free rein given to doctoral programs nationally would allow other institutions to customize their own DSW programs. While some observers wonder aloud about a Balkanization of social work education, Flynn says the reemerging DSW is all about choice and “goodness of fit.”

The rise of a new professional doctorate in social work is not a threat to academia, she says. “Frankly, many professions offer professional doctorates—in psychology, pharmacy, education, public administration, law, and much more.” Again, she points to the EdD. “No one expects EdDs to be qualified for research, but lots of social workers get this professional degree.”

According to Flynn, social workers today find themselves competing against—and outgunned by—non-social workers who possess professional doctorates or joint degrees that meld social work with business administration, public administration, or public health. For many social workers, a research-intensive PhD is a nonstarter. Without a viable alternative, some feel pressured to jump ship for doctorates in other fields. Flynn says a DSW would give social workers equal standing, honor the core values of social work, and stem the brain drain. “We expect to compete directly with [other] doctorates,” she says.

To Mischel, the DSW offers new opportunities. “It gives a chance to learn about everything from leadership and lobbying skills to how to do the high-level organizational functions as a true social work leader,” she says. “Managing a multimillion-dollar budget is not something you learn in an MSW program, but we will at USC.”

Flynn says USC’s new degree will have instant appeal. “Social workers will see a much more logical extension from the MSW program to the DSW program,” she says. “It will seem like a natural evolution, not a quantum leap.” Pausing, she adds, “It certainly is not a watered down or dumbed-down PhD.”

Flynn says public confusion between the two doctoral degrees can be resolved through public education. Not that crystal clarity exists today. Across the nation, state regulators have managed to concoct 35 different licensure designations for social workers and the profession itself is dogged by wild and wooly stereotypes that stick like Velcro.

Traditionalists steeped in academia “will not like this program,” Flynn concedes, “but their objections are not enough to stop us—not when we see the public response we are getting. Not when we have major agencies saying they will hire everyone who walks out our door. I think we will be successful in developing a unique program.”

Flynn says USC’s inaugural class will seat 25 students and allow part-time studies. “We want to reduce disruption,” she says. “Students have lots of commitments.” According to Vice Dean Jacqueline B. Mondros, DSW, USC’s program will not have a dissertation component but will entail a final product that may involve the evaluation of, say, a foster care mentoring program or another program. Flynn also notes that “[the program] will not be cheap.” USC is a private school, but Flynn says cost may not be a sticking point. “We have received assurances from state agencies that they are very likely to foot the education bills of our students,” she says.

Some in academia are concerned that USC’s program—and future spinoff DSW programs—may siphon off rising talent just as demand for PhDs nears a crisis point. Flynn believes otherwise, maintaining that the DSW will expand the pool of eligible candidates, attracting social workers who would never consider the PhD route.

Ultimately, what may emerge from the PhD-DSW face-off are stronger, cross-pollinated hybrids that will strengthen, not weaken, the discipline of social work. If higher education does indeed entail a competition of ideas—and if we accept the notion that competition is good—then let the competition begin. In the meantime, Blace Nalavany and Alyson Mischel are counting on bright futures.

— Matthew Robb, MSW, LCSW-C, is a social worker and freelance writer residing in suburban Washington, DC.