III. Instruction

Graduate Education

The University, through its Graduate School, offers a variety of graduate programs leading to more than 150 advanced academic and professional degrees. More than 10,000 students are enrolled in graduate programs at the University Park campus, Penn State Erie, Penn State Harrisburg, the College of Medicine (Hershey), and Penn State Great Valley School of Graduate Professional Studies. Certain professional degree programs are also offered off-campus and through Penn State Online.

More than half of the enrollment, including most of the doctoral students, is at the University Park campus. In recent years, more than 2,700 graduate degrees have been conferred annually, with approximately 22 percent being doctoral degrees. The Graduate School has more than 3,100 graduate faculty.

The Graduate Faculty

Graduate Faculty members ordinarily are University faculty members with the most advanced degree in their fields who are assigned responsibilities in graduate education and research.

Criteria and Responsibilities

Those nominated for Graduate Faculty membership should be qualified to teach graduate courses, advise graduate students at master's and doctoral levels, and conduct research and scholarly activity leading to refereed or other professional competitive publications or to comparable artistic, clinical, literary, or technical achievements appropriate to particular fields. Graduate Faculty members may direct theses, chair or serve otherwise on doctoral committees, teach 500- and 800-level courses, and perform other such academic duties as may be authorized by the dean of the Graduate School.

Appointment to the Graduate Faculty

Faculty holding the highest degrees in their fields who are appointed to tenured or tenure-track positions in academic departments offering the highest degrees in the field (Ph.D., D.Ed., M.D., J.D., or Master's in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, or Fine Arts) are granted membership in the Graduate Faculty by the dean of the Graduate School upon the recommendation of the department head and the concurrence of the college dean. This membership is restricted to those faculty who are assigned significant responsibilities in graduate education and research. It is the responsibility of the deans of the academic colleges to notify the Graduate School of faculty who meet these criteria for membership.

All other candidates for Graduate Faculty membership must be approved in accordance with established procedures of the Graduate Council. Adjunct, affiliate, part-time, fixed-term faculty, and tenured or tenure-track faculty appointed to departments not offering the highest degrees in their fields must be recommended by the chair of the graduate program to which the candidate will contribute and approved by the college evaluation committee. The chair must provide documentation of the candidate's ability and experience in graduate teaching, research and supervising graduate students, proposed duties as a member of the Graduate Faculty, professional credentials, and doctoral and master's projects supervised by the nominee, if applicable. The dean of each University Park college or school, as well as the Dean of the College of Medicine and the respective chancellors or deans of Penn State Harrisburg, Penn State Erie, and Dickinson School of Law each send to the Graduate School, for the dean's concurrence, the names of faculty on the college evaluation committee. A committee consists of a chairperson and two members, all of whom must be members of the Graduate Faculty, and whose terms of service are staggered to ensure continuity.