a joint project of the National Association of System Heads and the Professional Science Master’s Degree Program

Meet Your Project Leaders

Don Langenberg
Don Langenberg brings a wealth of experience and commitment — to science, to higher education and to the PSM degree — to this project. He has been professor of physics at three major universities, (more...)

Sheila Tobias
Sheila Tobias came upon the idea of the “professional science master’s” in a study of a set of PhD graduates in the physical sciences who by 1994 had given up hope of an academic research career. (more...)

 

Funding for PSM Programs

As the demand for science-trained business professionals continues to grow, there will be an increasing need for Professional Science Master's Degree Programs.

To help meet this demand, we are providing the NASH community with a comprehensive directory of funding opportunities for new and existing PSMs. The funding opportunities are listed in a PDF file prepared by Council of Graduate Schools Dean in Residence Sally K. Francis. This file will be updated periodically.

We welcome your feedback on the funding opportunities directory.

Don Langenberg and Sheila Tobias

 

An Invitation from California State University Chancellor Charles B. Reed - click to view PDF file

Welcome to the NASH PSM Project

These are trying times for university systems and their leaders. On the one hand, the nation’s current economic crisis is causing serious – in some cases near-catastrophic – financial difficulties. On the other hand, we confront an economy in accelerating change from the industrial age to one featuring rapid growth of entirely new kinds of enterprises based on technological innovation and entrepreneurship.

One of the major functions of our universities, especially public universities, has long been the preparation of a workforce capable of managing and leading the nation’s economically important institutions, both for-profit and non-profit. This has become an exciting challenge, because we must now prepare students for careers that may even not yet exist. Indeed, they must learn how to invent such careers.

During the past decade, Professional Science Master’s (PSM) Degree Programs have emerged as attractive and effective new sources of just the kind of graduates needed to meet the workforce demands of today’s and tomorrow’s employment environment. They combine advanced graduate-level education in the sciences (often interdisciplinary) with the development of skills necessary to apply that knowledge in a great variety of career circumstances.

This website contains information about existing PSM programs (currently 210 programs at 99 institutions).

PSM programs are designed and implemented in close partnership with relevant employer communities, and thus involve an unusually high degree of interaction between universities and employer communities. PSM programs are very different from traditional science master’s programs, which are typically incidental to the training of scientists for research careers, via PhDs.

As national attention to workforce development has grown, new funding opportunities for PSM programs have appeared, including a Congressionally mandated National Science Foundation program, and Department of Labor support for workforce development. There has been recent special attention to the needs of STEM-educated veterans.

This website is part of a Sloan Foundation-funded effort,led by Don Langenberg (former NASH President) and Sheila Tobias, co-author of Rethinking Science as a Career and long-time PSM proponent. Our purpose is to inspire and facilitate the rapid development of system-wide and state-wide PSM initiatives.

We are presently engaged in establishing facilitative interactions with about a dozen additional university systems (with perhaps more to come) in hope of fostering at least half a dozen additional system-wide initiatives by the end of this year. We are also considering ways in which this important and exciting new academic movement might be pursued and expanded even further in subsequent years.

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