UCSD
CAMPUS NOTICE
University of California, San Diego
 

OFFICE OF THE CHANCELLOR

January 16, 2007


ALL ACADEMICS AT UCSD

SUBJECT:    National Research Council Assessment of Research Doctoral
Programs

Later this month, selected faculty members will be asked by the National Research Council (NRC) to complete a questionnaire, which will ask for information on honors, publications, and other types of scholarly activity.

Approximately once each decade, the NRC conducts a study designed to evaluate the quality of the nation's Ph.D. programs. In the last study, the results of which were reported in 1995, UCSD did very well. Measured in terms of either the most programs in the top 10 or the average rating of programs included in the study, UCSD ranked 10th in the country. Moreover, UCSD was one of only two public universities in the top 10, along with UC Berkeley.

After considerable planning and consultation with the academic community, the NRC has begun collecting data from university administrators, individual graduate programs, and individual faculty members. We have already provided the NRC with the list of UCSD programs to be evaluated. In December, after consultation with program directors, the Office of Graduate Studies submitted the names of faculty members who are associated with each program. Later this month many of those faculty members will be receiving questionnaires from the NRC.

In order that the quality of our graduate programs is fully recognized, it is essential that all of our graduate program faculty members who receive an NRC questionnaire respond in a timely manner. The Office of Graduate Studies will provide all relevant data that are available centrally, but there is some information that can only be provided by faculty members themselves.

Because the NRC will not rate programs that do not have a sufficient faculty response, I am asking all of you to make sure that your accomplishments are properly credited to your graduate program and, consequently, to UCSD as a whole. Please make the time to respond to this very important questionnaire.


Marye Anne Fox
Chancellor