Q: Does Minnesota State University-Mankato confer Ph.D. degrees? If not, why not?
A: The short answer is: No, because it’s against the law.
Dan Benson, director of media relations at MSU, pointed Ask Us Guy to Minnesota Statute 135A.052 POSTSECONDARY MISSIONS.
The 1995 law basically lays out the roles of every type of state college and university — from tech schools to state universities to the University of Minnesota — and tells each one to stay in their own lane.
“The legislature recognizes each type of public postsecondary institution to have a distinctive mission within the overall provision of public higher education in the state and a responsibility to cooperate with each other,” the statute begins.
Technical colleges “shall offer vocational training and education to prepare students for skilled occupations that do not require a baccalaureate degree.” Community colleges are mandated to provide “lower division instruction in academic programs” for students looking to attain a two-year associate degree or wishing to transfer their community college credits to a four-year school as they work toward a bachelor’s degree.
The U, along with offering extension services and serving as the primary research institution in Minnesota, is allowed to offer the full range of degrees — “undergraduate, graduate, and professional instruction through the doctoral degree … .”
The public universities in Mankato, St. Cloud, Winona, Moorhead, Bemidji, Marshall and the Twin Cities (Metro State) have this assignment under Minnesota law: “The state universities shall offer undergraduate and graduate instruction through the master’s degree, including specialist certificates, in the liberal arts and sciences and professional education, and may offer applied doctoral degrees in education, business, psychology, physical therapy, audiology, and nursing.”
So what’s the difference between the Ph.D.s granted by the U and the doctoral degrees granted in the other state universities? Ask Us Guy will make an attempt at describing the difference (although he’s got a bad feeling that somebody at some university will soon be sending a marked-up copy of the column showing where it lacks academic rigor, proper sourcing and erroneous assumptions).
But here goes … . A Ph.D. is awarded to a “doctor of philosophy” and is for big-brained folks with a life’s goal of expanding and disseminating knowledge, including through original and often theoretical research. People seeking a Ph.D. typically intend to remain in academia.
The other type of doctoral degree, often called an applied or professional doctorate, is aimed at students who want to gain the highest level of knowledge and training in a particular profession — but usually with the intent of applying the learning within their occupational field. This type of degree can also be helpful, or even necessary, to rise to the top positions in a company or organization.
Master’s degrees had been offered for decades at MSU, which now confers hundreds of those each year. But MSU officials had long dreamed of taking the next step as a university, according to Bill Lass, the late professor of history at the university.
“The idea that Mankato State should offer doctoral degrees was first advanced in the 1960s …,” Lass wrote in “Minnesota State University, Mankato 1868-2018: A Sesquicentennial History.”
Permission from the governing board of Minnesota’s state colleges and universities was finally granted in March 2007. MSU officials were ecstatic, saying that — in addition to providing benefit to the students receiving the new degrees — the doctoral programs would attract top-tier faculty and new research grants to Mankato.
Benson said the university now offers the following applied doctorate and specialist degrees: Doctor of Education (EdD) in educational leadership; Doctor of Education (Specialist) in educational leadership; Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP); and Doctor of Psychology (PsyD).
Contact Ask Us at The Free Press, 418 S. Second St., Mankato, MN 56001. Call Mark Fischenich at 344-6321 or email your question to mfischenich@mankatofreepress.com; put Ask Us in the subject line.