The Cartter Report on Quality in Graduate Education

Abstract

THERE is little need for further expression of the widespread interest and general approbation that have been evoked by the .L recent publication of the Cartter Report, An Assessment of Quality in Graduate Education.' Its detailed evaluation of the quality of graduate faculty and the attractiveness of graduate programs at more than a hundred institutions throughout the United States brings up to date (I964), and provides comparisons with, the earlier assessments of Raymond M. Hughes2 and Hayward Keniston.3 The Cartter Report is considerably more extensive than its predecessors, and has gone to elaborate lengths to establish the validity of its evaluations. Both Allan M. Cartter and the American Council on Education, sponsor of the Report through its Commission on Plans and Objectives for Higher Education, are deserving of the commendation and gratitude of everyone interested in graduate education. The fifty-seven-page heart of the Cartter Report consists of detailed tabular expositions of departmental ratings in almost thirty academic 'Allan M. Cartter (Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education, I966). 2A4 Study of the Graduate Schools of America (Oxford, Ohio: Miami University, I925). (Copy prepared by the Miami University Library and kindly made available by H. Bunker Wright, dean of the Graduate School.) 3Appendix: Standing of American Graduate Departments in the Arts and Sciences, Graduate Study and Research in the Jrts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, i959), pp. X:5-50.