Dear Colleagues:

Here’s another update on our efforts to grow enrollment and help our students successfully complete their degrees. Efforts to increase our doctoral production are working and this is very good news, indeed, with profound positive consequences for both our academic mission and our financial health.

One-hundred thirty (130) doctoral students have applied for May 2014 graduation.  Seventy-one (71) doctoral students have graduated so far this academic year: Forty-six (46) doctoral students in Summer 2013 and twenty-five (25) doctoral students in Fall 2013.  Perhaps not all 130 who have applied will graduate this semester, but if even just over half of the candidates pass their dissertation defenses, we will surpass the number of doctoral graduates for 2013-2014 and set a new University of Memphis record.

Doctoral Degrees Granted

If everyone who has applied for doctoral degrees for May 2014 is successful, we could graduate 201 doctoral students this academic year–an astounding 54% increase!   Under the current funding formula the University stands to reap significant financial rewards by increasing the number of doctoral degrees awarded.

As I like to say, I am profoundly confident in our ability to be innovative and creative and to meet the needs of our students in an efficient and effective fashion. Core to our mission is an obligation to help our students not only complete their degrees and launch their futures, but also overcome potential barriers to success. Our success is tied to theirs. You are to be congratulated on your remarkable efforts to make this work.

Go Tigers!

M. David Rudd, Provost