Questionnary  to Directors of Doctoral  Programs in Semiotics

(through  the initiative of the  EU funded project  SENKNOW The European  Mind: Doctoral studies in Semiotics for a knowledge and value based society)

The purpose of the inquiry is to provide information valuable for following the doctoral studies in semiotics  in the Europe and globally, and particularly concerning the work life of PhD:s after their graduation. Your kindest answers will help us to form a total picture of the field; they will  help us to plan better  our doctoral  studies so that they correspond  to the demands in contemporary society and thus improve future careers of our candidates.
We hope you can answer  all, but if you feel not be able to do so, choose to which  you want and and answer.
1.       What is the title of your program i.e. this questionnary concerns only those programs in which semiotics is explicitly mentioned, either alone or together  with some other discipline (say: semiotics and communication, or …cognive studies… or anthropology… or cultural studies…or philosophy… linguistics..women studies …. arts  etc etc.
2.       When was  your program  launched? Can you tell us a short background history, who were pioneers etc?
3.       To which Faculty and/or Department it  belongs  or does it stand  as an independent unit
4.       What is its administrational structure, i.e. does it have a board, councelling committee, director, assistants, secretaries etc.
5.       Do you think the present structure of administration should be changed or improved to some direction?
6.       How many students you take in annually and how many students there are now? How many students get PhD annually and how many have obtained it so far?
7.       How you enroll your students? Via examination, if yes, how it is  organized?  Does it take place via application and individual doctoral studies plan  (theme,  time schedule, funding, tutoring etc.)? Personal interview?
8.       How do you disseminate information about your doctoral program in semiotics? Only within your university, or more broadly, via internet, nationally/internationally? is your program national or international? How do you advertise it or do you make special efforts to obtain  students?
9.       How popular is your  doc program in your country or internationally, i.e. how many apply?
10.   How many teachers there are altogether in  your program? What is the labour division among them in your program?
11.   Is your program organizing all your courses alone or together with other departments of your university, so that they would be also partly  or completely funding them?
12.    How is the annual budget of your program decided i.e  on which basis, for instance due to your ‘results’  or is it fixed?
13.   Do you think your program is economically  and administrationally in a safe basis or do you have to fight all the time for  funding and other issues?
14.   Do you get any funding for your program from external sources, sponsoring, foundations, academies etc?
15.   What is the structure of your doctoral program i.e. how many credits is allotted to each part of it, like general methodological studies, language, computers, seminars, congress papers, writing of the thesis and its defense, or else. You can join as the attachment the program.
 
As to the semiotic content of your program, to which extent the following themes,  schools and issues are represented in your program:    
 
 Greimassian method,
Lotmanian method,
Interpretative semiotics,
Peirce and Pragmatism,
Linguistics and Social semiotic,
Bakhtin and dialogical approach,
Cognitive semiotics,
Cultural studies and gender studies,
Bio and ecosemiotics,
Existential semiotics
 
(This list is the one we are planning as optional for our paneuropean doctoral program, but we would be grateful for any of your comments on it. Our list means that a doctoral student should master  semiotics more broadly than only ONE  school or line, say at least four or three in the list. Is there something which is NOT listed there but which is important at your study program).
16.     The academic habits  vary  much regarding the realization of doctoral studies, but how many hours your students get tutoring for their doc studies weekly/monthly/yearly, approximately. How the tutoring is done, in  meeting individually each student, in groups, by email, how?
17.   How much you use online teaching, Second Life, Moodle and other new technological devices in your program?
18.   How much your students already attend international seminars and congresses, if yes, can you mention something typical
19.   To which extent your students pursue studies abroad during their doctoral program, if yes, to which countries they prefer to go and  for how long a time? Does the exchange take place via Erasmus or by other institutions?
20.   How well or easily your students get funding for their doctoral studies. Do they study and work at the same time? Does your University provide them with an assistantship or else (grants) for funding their doctoral studies? Do they get funding from private foundations, academies or institutes?
21.    Where do your students stem from? Are they from your own country or international,  in the latter case how many international in relation to  domestic ones? Your foreign students,  are they from the EU or elsewhere?
22.   In which language are your doctoral studies done? Do you accept other languages  than mother tongue in our country?
23.   How the topics of doctoral theses are decided in  your program? Is the theme   given by the professor or is it the student him/herself who  chooses and decides it?
24.   Doctoral theses are mostly in the Europe only  xerocopied manuscripts, in Finland they are printed books which appear in scientific series normally, how this is in your case? In some places students can complete their thesis after the defense, improve the text and then print it.
25.   How the defense itself is organized, does a student have  one or two opponents, or is there a committee of say 6 professors like in the French tradition?
26.   Life AFTER the defense: how well is your program preparing your candidates for situations after becoming Ph.D.  How well have your students found jobs thereafter which correspond their skils and specialties?  How keenly you follow their life after PhD? How many of them start thereafter the academic career as researcher or university teacher? If there is unemployment, what you think are reasons for it?
27.    Does you university or any institution in your country offer postdoctoral  positions or grants to your doctors?
28.    Which have been the typical jobs your doctors have found after their PhDs? Provide us a list, this will be very helpful when we prepare a data base  and paradigm for possible jobs of semiotic doctors.
29.    if your program is still at the beginning and you have not yet produced many doctors, but will be doing so, what you think might be their future jobs or what you wish should be their future positions in the society.
30.    Which arguments you might imagine  which might persuade any enterprise, institute, corporation to recruite a doctor of semiotics?