Astro2020 APT White Paper: "Mind the gap": a call to redesign astronomy graduate education

TL;DR

This paper advocates for a fundamental redesign of astronomy graduate education to better align with current scientific, societal, and workforce needs, emphasizing multidisciplinary skills and broader career preparation.

Contribution

It proposes new guidelines and recommendations for transforming astronomy graduate programs in line with recent national standards and evolving STEM workforce demands.

Findings

Current astronomy graduate programs focus mainly on unidisciplinary research.

Many students are unprepared for diverse career paths outside academia.

Redesigning education can enhance societal impact and workforce readiness.

Abstract

About one fifth of Ph.D's across all STEM disciplines secure a tenure track position in academia. It is also the case that science and engineering have evolved significantly and so has the nature of the labor market and the increasingly multidisciplinary nature of the greatest scientific challenges. These realities, however, have not altered the main objective of graduate STEM education: the training of unidisciplinary academic researchers. There is therefore a gap between what the students and society need and what graduate STEM education offers. At root of the problem is not only the lack of information regarding actual career opportunities but the lack of formation because, as the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine recognized in its recent report entitled "Graduate STEM Education for the 21st Century", "many graduate programs do not adequately prepare students to translate their knowledge into impact in multiple careers". In that report, the National Academies of Sciences sets new standards for graduate STEM education, describes the actions required by each stakeholder, and urges all to strongly commit to this paradigm change. Astro2020 represents an opportunity for the astronomy and astrophysics community to show this commitment by issuing recommendations on the redesign of astronomy graduate education following the new guidelines set by the National Academies of Sciences. By "minding the gap" between expectations and opportunities, keeping in mind the evolving needs of the STEM workforce, we can better justify the use of tax-payers money with an investment that allows to do transformative science while conscientiously training highly qualified STEM professionals able to apply the power of science to problems and opportunities of generations to come, as envisioned by Vannevar Bush's science as the endless frontier.