Elsa,

The inexorable trend in higher education is toward specialization.
Specialization is the natural outcome of the expansion of knowledge that
the twentieth century produced ... and that the twenty-first century surely
will improve upon.  Specialization is not in and of itself
anti-intellectual, although it is clear that renaissance men and women will
be fewer and farther between.

In my opinion research administration has reached a degree of complexity,
both in terms of breadth and depth, to justify and warrant a graduate
degree ... preferably an option within a Master of Public Administration.
I think that a doctorate in this field is not warranted.

Whether research administrators need or should be required to hold advanced
degrees is a matter of the context.  In the position I held for thirteen
years a PhD was both useful and a hinderance, a comment which goes to the
mixed bag the faculty are and the changing view of externally sponsored
research.

Jim Brett
Retired

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