Auburn Vist Re-Cap

This post should have come before the Offers piece, but such has been my world of late. The day after my Georgia State interviews, I woke up early and headed down to the Plains to see my alma mater, see one of my favorite professors of all time, and see if Auburn would be a good fit for doctoral work.

LOCATION

As is the case with Atlanta and Georgia State, I am equally familiar with Auburn. Campus and the surrounding town have changed a lot in the past 9 years, but I can still find my way around and the familiarity of being there provides a nice sense of peace. Most of my favorite restaurants are there (and I managed to eat a pre-interview breakfast at one), and the people just could not be any more friendly. Spending another 4 years at Auburn would be akin to slipping on a favorite old pair of jeans. It just feels comfortable.

FACULTY

One of my favorite professors of all time, and the one who started my down the academic journey in the direction of management, is the department head at Auburn. I began the day with her and am thankful to them for allowing me to set the tone for the day by warming up with her. She gave me a little run-down on the folks I’d be meeting and we discussed some particulars of the program.

The rest of the faculty meetings really bounced back and forth between average and very good. The pair of professors that took me to lunch made me feel completely at home. We ate at 11:00 AM, by the way. These two are in their late 60s and are a riot. One of them wears a long sleeve t-shirt, shorts, and hiking shoes every day. Tenure is a wonderful thing.

As great as they were, some of the others were the opposite. One was in a hurry to get to a meeting and just grilled me with rapid fire questions with a very aggressive and somewhat condescending tone. Another tried to seem interested, but might suffer from an enthusiasm deficiency. But, as soon as I would get discouraged by meetings like these, the pendulum would swing to the other side and I would have a great discussion with another pair about research topics and get great advice on beginning the academic journey.

Overall, there are several faculty there who could make good research partners and mentors and there is a healthy mix of tenured and and younger folks in the mix. Also, the tenured folks seem to still be aggressively pursuing research projects. The faculty, as a whole, seem very productive.

 

STUDENTS

My student meetings were almost as mixed as their faculty counterparts. My first set included four candidates in their first and second years and this group made me feel extremely welcomed and energized about getting into a program and forming some bonds with aspiring academics. But, as good as that group was, the second set was quite the opposite. Three of the four in this second group were reserved and not forth-coming. I had to work to get them to open up and only one of them seemed genuinely interested in whether I would end up at Auburn and committed to providing me insightful information to aid in my decision-making process.

 

PROGRAM

Auburn’s program is very entrepreneurial in nature. Students are not assigned to a faculty member for research purposes. Instead, they are expected to seek out faculty members working on topics that interest them. Also, students are expected to generate research ideas, bring them to faculty, and get help developing appropriate methodology and finding related literature. This approach allows students to pursue the topics they are most passionate about and creates an environment where the bold are more likely to succeed. On the downside, the lack of assigned partnerships could create a scenario where a student is not exposed to a variety of topics and methodologies in an applied setting.

Another unique feature of Auburn’s program is the elimination of traditional comprehensive exams. For those of you unfamiliar with doctoral education, these exams typically come during the summer after the second year when students are finished with course work. They cover everything, and I mean everything, about the field, usually last for two full 8-hour days, are essay based, and allow no reference material. It’s been described to me as the worst thing I will ever go through and already has my stomach in knots. It is not uncommon for preparation for these exams to begin months in advance of the test dates.

Several years ago, Auburn faculty realized that their candidates were virtually worthless for six weeks after exams while trying to clear their heads from the comp experience. Combine that with six to eight weeks of preparation time and you get a total of two to three months of lost research time. This dead period was impacting the number of projects students were getting into publication and ultimately hurting graduates as they entered the job market. So, the Auburn faculty replaced the two test days with two empirical research papers. Each candidate would select two faculty members, develop a research topic, collect data, and generate an article suitable for publication. The faculty would act as guides and as primary reviewers, before the articles were sent to journals. There were three goals is mind. 1) Eliminate the dead period caused by comps with activities equivalent in rigor but more applicable to the life of a researcher. 2) Give the student the opportunity to work on a few papers that could lead into the dissertation, creating  a “head start” of sorts. 3) Provide the opportunity for the students to have increased opportunities for publication prior to graduation, ultimately making them more competitive when they enter the job market.

I’ve researched almost 30 programs during this process and have yet to find any other institution that has adopted this policy. I know that there is some benefit to traditional comps – the knowledge base developed by the intense study of the foundational literature in the field – but I really like the idea of being dedicated to constant productivity over  tradition and ritual. In some ways, it seems that comps have become more like hazing and similar rites of passage for fraternities and other groups.

SUMMARY

The comfort of the town and the institution are very attractive, as is the ability to chase my own ideas. The papers for comps approach is clearly a distinguishing factor. But, the mix of faculty and student vibes I received make it far form a slam dunk. Plus, knowing that I would like to have the option of becoming Auburn faculty one day means that I’m better suited to go elsewhere for doctoral studies. Thus, Auburn will need to be a clear favorite during the review process for me to forgo the opportunity to return to the Plains immediately after graduation.

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