July 20, 2007

The Emergence of Professional Doctorates

To the Editor:

Your article "Credential Creep" (The Chronicle, June 22) misses, or perhaps avoids, an important dimension to this issue. The "creep" toward the doctorate is also fueled by institutional elitism, where the Ph.D. is king and other degrees are, well, simply that.

University departments (and their faculty members) that do not offer the Ph.D. too often become the poor cousins in the institution. Lip service is paid by presidents, provosts, and deans to the increasing