Montclair State University is not a Doctoral Research University.
Photo Credit: Kristen Bryfogle
Montclair State was recently recognized as a Doctoral Research University, only the third public institution in the state to receive this classification.
The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education evaluates a university’s or college’s status every five years to see whether the institution should elevate its classification.
Prior to Feb. 1, Montclair State was listed as a Master’s 1 University, but had not received a Doctoral classification, although there were PhD programs available in counseling, environmental management, family studies, teacher education and teacher development and mathematics education and a doctoral program in audiology.
Montclair State now holds a spot as a Doctoral Research 3 institution, which means that it conducts a moderate amount of research, as opposed to Research 2 institutions, which do higher amounts of research, and Research 1, which conduct the highest amount of research out of all classifications.
Montclair State now joins the ranks of public universities Rutgers-New Brunswick, a Research 1 doctoral university, and Rutgers-Newark, a Research-2 institution, in its classification.
According to a statement from President Susan Cole about the university’s elevation, the move from Master’s 1 to Doctoral Research 3 was largely due to the increased number of doctoral students at Montclair State and the university’s ability to secure funding from federal research funds.
Cole also listed several of the doctoral research initiatives at Montclair State in her statement, including medical research in the botulin neurotoxin and Parkinson’s Disease, psychological research on the effects of Superstorm Sandy, environmental studies in Antarctica and many other fields of research in the various doctoral programs that Montclair offers.
“The benefits here rebound across all of our student groups and levels, undergraduate, masters and doctoral, and our significant achievements and contributions to New Jersey over the past several years are now more accurately reflected in this national and prestigious designation,” said Dean Joan Ficke, Director of the Graduate School. “All of us will continue to benefit from the research opportunities that have been present for some time, students and faculty alike. Now, however, we will have this added external national validation of what Montclair State University has become over the past 15 years.”
“Every member of the University community should take pride in this accomplishment,” Cole said to conclude her statement on the new classification. “It is your efforts and your commitment that enable us, each day, to realize the potential of this great university.”
