A Public and Persuasive PhD: Reforming Doctoral Education in the Outreach-Focused University

Abstract

This chapter, written in the confluence of two global crises, that of the environment and the COVID-19 pandemic, considers how doctoral education should respond. Taking Latour’s idea of the reformulation of the mission of university around outreach as the key organising principle, we argue for reform of doctoral education to produce graduates who are proponents of public and persuasive science. Our model for public science is drawn from that of public health, that aggregation of specialisations which is able to propel public policy, as evinced in the management of the pandemic, by bridging the gap between science and policy. We respond to Latour’s provocations for the re-orientation of the university with some specific considerations pertaining to doctoral education and curricula; and the relationship between STEM-M and HASS fields and capabilities in the outreach focused university. Our proposals include the need to shift from involuted models of doctoral education as preparing ‘stewards of the discipline’ to an idea of doctoral education as a different kind of worldly stewardship and a challenge to positivity and a plea for normativity. We call for a public and persuasive PhD: programs which produce graduates who have advanced capacities in communication, in reason-based argument, in persuasion, and who can deal adeptly with the demands of academic debate and the rigours of public discourse.