The collaboration -- the brainchild of Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Clayton R. Koppes and University of Michigan President Emeritus James Duderstadt -- centers on the idea of using complementary strengths to enhance both institutions.

Through the program, recent Ph.D. recipients will be awarded two-year, supervised teaching fellowships at Oberlin, and current Oberlin faculty members will go to Michigan to pursue research or immerse themselves in new fields.

The simple idea will bring far-reaching results for both campuses.

"Broadly speaking, graduate schools prepare students primarily for careers in research, leaving them ill-prepared for a job search in the wider world of higher education," said President Nancy S. Dye. "Conversely, scholars at schools like Oberlin can find it difficult to keep pace with rapidly evolving knowledge. Access to the resources and facilities of a major research university, as well as to research colleagues, will ultimately enhance teaching at undergraduate institutions."

Dye's assertions are bolstered by a report released in January 2001 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and titled "At Cross Purposes: What the Experiences of Today's Doctoral Students Reveal about Doctoral Education."

Researchers at Wisconsin surveyed 4,114 doctoral students at 27 institutions. Sixty-three percent of the students said they definitely wanted to become full-time, tenure-track faculty members, and another 24.1 percent said they may be interested in such positions. The academic job market is notoriously tight: of the 40,000 students who earn doctoral degrees each year, fewer than half will ever achieve this goal.

Furthermore, the report says, graduate programs train students for careers at research universities, but for those who do attain academic positions, other types of institutions -- such as comprehensive universities and liberal arts colleges, where teaching and advising undergraduates are top priorities -- are far more likely employers than research institutions.

And there's the mismatch. These students, trained to be researchers, are "not prepared for the careers they want or the jobs they actually will get," Chris M. Golde, the University of Wisconsin researcher who directed the survey, told USA Today. "They don't necessarily know how to be teachers."

The Oberlin-Michigan collaboration is certainly not the first effort in the higher-education reform movement. Over the last decade numerous organizations -- including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association of Universities, the National Science Board, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, and the Pew Charitable Trusts -- have initiated programs or released publications aimed at improving aspects of doctoral education.

The Oberlin-Michigan program is unique, however, said Koppes, because it is a direct, formal, cooperative, and ongoing link between two very different types of institutions.

"Oberlin has a lot to offer Michigan," Koppes said. "We have highly qualified faculty members who are actively engaged in scholarship and who can work on an equal basis with the Michigan faculty. We have highly talented students whom Michigan likes to enroll as graduate students.

"There's not much cooperation now between different types of institutions, but it's natural," he continued. "There are ways in which colleges and universities can complement each other. We should emphasize the teaching aspect of colleges and the research aspects of universities. This isn't to say good research doesn't happen at colleges or that good teaching isn't taking place at universities. But we should play on the relative strengths of these different types of institutions."

Duderstadt, the former Michigan president and current professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences, agreed. "Even today, current proposals to reform higher education too often persist in a rhetoric that pits teaching against scholarship, as if to excel in one means shortchanging the other," he said. "Overturning this false opposition, our program draws upon and develops preexisting strengths in different kinds of institutions and will help set the stage for future exchange relationships that cut across institutional divides."

The first teaching fellow will begin work at Oberlin in the fall 2001 semester. A timetable has not yet been established for Oberlin faculty members to do work at Michigan.

"We're starting small because we're starting with our own resources," Koppes said. "We're seeking foundation funding and are confident that such funding will be secured."

In addition to providing faculty members with enhanced opportunities for professional development, the program will help Oberlin recruit faculty members, Koppes said.

"Recruitment and retention of faculty of color is a tough problem for everybody, but finding solutions is essential to our future. Michigan has been a leader in the recruitment of a diverse graduate-student body. Prospective faculty, especially faculty of color, are always concerned about being part of a larger community. This program will help with that."

Professor of History Heather Hogan, who earned her doctoral degree at the University of Michigan, echoed Koppes' themes.

"It's important to allow opportunities for faculty members
at liberal arts schools to engage in different areas of the curriculum and be a real part of cutting-edge research conversations," she said. "For the most part, we have one expert in a field here at Oberlin. I'm the only Russian historian. As much as I enjoy talking to my colleagues in Latin American studies, I need to talk to specialists in late Imperial Russia to keep current and vital in my own area of expertise.

"I've gone up to Michigan over the years to participate in conferences on Russian matters. I've consulted with their medieval Russian historian to help me develop courses in early Russian history. She gave me bibliographies and told me, "These are the core things you should be reading.' I'll be going back to do the same thing as I develop new courses in Eurasian history."

Hogan hints at the indirect beneficiaries of faculty development: students. Improved courses and revitalized faculty members mean better teaching at Oberlin.

As the program matures, Koppes envisions more ambitious collaborations, including research opportunities at Michigan for Oberlin students; resource sharing, including opening Oberlin facilities to faculty and students from Michigan; and joint courses and symposia. Michigan is simultaneously initiating a similar program with Kalamazoo College, and administrators at all three schools foresee the eventual expansion of the program to include other schools in the Great Lakes Colleges Association.