The 2003 ANDP Survey of Neuroscience Graduate, Postdoctoral, & Undergraduate Programs 

Edward M. Stricker, Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh

The report is also available in pdf format for printing
as is a set of powerpoint slides (in pdf format) that summarizes the main points of the survey.

Introduction

Neuroscience Departments and Programs are relatively new entities, being virtually unknown 35 years ago. By now they are plentiful, diverse in organization and goals, and still evolving. For years the ANDP has attempted to monitor that evolution by characterizing the departments and programs along several important dimensions so that we can know ourselves better (i.e., bench-marking) and present ourselves better to our colleagues, our deans, our students, and to the federal agencies that support our predoctoral and postdoctoral training programs.

The first ANDP surveys of graduate and postdoctoral training in the U.S and Canada were conducted in 1986 by Michael Zigmond, in 1991 by Linda Spear, and in 1998 by Lesly Huffman, Robert Fellows, and Ronald Schoenfeld.^{1, 2} In 2000, we wanted to initiate a series of annual surveys that focused on the most critical issues and allowed current information about the academic discipline to be readily available. Two versions of the survey were developed, one intended for graduate and postdoctoral programs and one intended for undergraduate programs. Programs were asked to complete and submit data electronically to the University Center for Social and Urban Research (UCSUR) at the University of Pittsburgh, which helped to design the surveys and was responsible for compiling the obtained responses. A report based on the obtained data, which focused on academic year 1999-2000 (AY2000), was posted on the ANDP web page in spring 2001.³ 

In early 2002, another survey was conducted which focused on AY2001. The new data were added to the pool of responses from the previous year, and a report based on the merged file of information spanning two consecutive years was posted on the ANDP web page in spring 2002.⁴ The feedback we received in response to the AY2001 survey encouraged us to conduct surveys every other year rather than annually. Thus, the present survey was begun in fall 2003 and focused on AY2003. Responses were obtained from 86 of the 131 graduate training programs that were members of the ANDP, which represents an excellent 66% rate of participation.⁵ Similarly, responses were obtained from 23 of the 35 undergraduate programs that were members of the ANDP (also 66%). As with the previous surveys, their value is not in the absolute numbers they provide but in their relative numbers and trends in comparison to the results of earlier surveys. In this regard, 70 (81%) of the graduate programs that participated in the 2003 survey, and 17 (74%) of the undergraduate programs, also had participated in the 2000/2001 surveys, which encouraged such comparisons.

A complete list of the 86 graduate programs and 23 undergraduate programs that participated in the 2003 survey is given below. A broad cross-section of graduate Neuroscience departments and programs were represented. That is, responses were obtained from older programs and relatively new programs, from programs with many students and programs with relatively few students, and from programs located in medical schools and programs located in colleges of arts and sciences (or both, or neither). Almost all of the graduate programs were located in the United States, in 30 states plus the District of Columbia, but responses also were obtained from programs in three Canadian provinces. Similarly, the 23 institutions with undergraduate programs in the neural sciences were diverse in age, size, institutional affiliation, and administrative structure, and were located in 14 states in the U.S. The results reported below represent the full responses from these programs but for the responses from the graduate programs in Canadian institutions to questions regarding U.S. citizenship and U.S. racial and ethnic minority groups, which were excluded. 

The results have been organized for presentation in the following nine categories. The first six categories summarize the results regarding graduate and postdoctoral training. Whenever possible, the results based on the 2003 survey were compared with those obtained from the ANDP surveys in 1986, 1991, 1998, and 2000/2001. The seventh category summarizes the responses regarding undergraduate training. The final two categories provide a summary of the major findings of the 2003 survey and the conclusions drawn. A specific index of these nine categories is as follows: 

Results

¹ Zigmond, M.J. and Spear, L.P. Neuroscience training in the USA and Canada: observations and suggestions, Trends in Neuroscience 15:379-383, 1992.
² Huffman, L., Fellows, R.E., and Schoenfeld, R.I. The 1998 ANDP survey of neuroscience graduate & postdoctoral programs. 
³Stricker, E.M. The 2000 ANDP survey of neuroscience graduate, postdoctoral, & undergraduate programs. 
⁴Stricker, E.M. The 2000 and 2001 ANDP surveys of neuroscience graduate, postdoctoral, & undergraduate programs. 
⁵The expert advice and technical assistance of Mr. Diego Jarrin of the UCSUR is gratefully acknowledged.

Participating Institutions