portfolios for graduate student training: a real solution?

a recent article in the chronicle has highlighted a new system for graduate students to avoid the "bottle neck" of qualifying exams on the long road to a degree. at University of Kansas, and a handful of other institutions, humanities departments are moving to a "portfolio" system in place of the exam--what they call a two-year long take home exam. it isn't entirely clear to me what is in the portfolio but this is not the focus of my attention here.

one reason given to move from what is described as an outdated model of evaluation to a portfolio system (and anyone who has taught in the Elbow/Belanoff model of writing programs will be keenly aware of all that this entails) is to help graduate students start to "focus" and "specialize" earlier, to help prepare them for the dissertation. rather than getting bogged down in years of reading, a well-managed plan and a "three ring binder" should guide students into specialization and shorter time to completion. the goal here is to shorten the 9-10 year average to complete the humanities ph.d. nothing in my own graduate training, however, nor in the slew of articles i've read over the years, suggests to me that what we lack is focus and specialty. indeed, we've become so focused, professionalized (another point i'll address in a minute), and specialized that we've come to speak, many of us, almost different languages. far more disconcerting is the lack of breadth so much graduate training forces upon students now: panicked at the outset about original ideas, provocative dissertation topics, published articles, and marketability, graduate students are funneled through the professional--and necessarily narrow--channel of their discipline quite early already. there are nowhere near enough students interested in the arcane knowledge we have to meet the general education and liberal arts requirements of most higher institutions.

the implication of this piece, too, is that that problem is lengthy degree times; the solution is to collapse the requirements for graduate students. those crazy grad students seem to want to keep reading--"there is always more you can read"--and this is creating a problem. in short: it's the graduate student's fault, stupid. it seems like the latest bizarre smoke and mirrors to avoid addressing the most obvious and pressing problem of graduate training: the poverty wages and high teaching load while trying to, god forbid, READ, research, and write. maybe, just maybe, the lengthy term to degree completion has to do with making 10k a year, teaching two courses a year, while carrying full graduate coursework, trying to publish articles, learning to go to conferences, be a part of a department, maybe even share a beer and a heated discussion with comrades at the local hole. and this, of course, only scratches the surface of what many graduate students face as competing concerns. turning the qualifying exam into a portfolio is a nifty trick--how might it actually help students become scholars, teachers, academics without destroying them in the process, much less taking 10 years?

professionalization: the article suggests that the portfolio system gives students more faculty attention and that this helps them learn what will be expected of them and what the academy is really like. huh? i don't know about you, but my experience in the academy (and i took 9 years to complete my degree) doesn't suggest to me that more attention reflects the reality of professional experience. if anything, that would serve to confuse students who may then expect more detailed help navigating the long-haul than they are likely to receive. not because faculty don't want to (though some may not) but because they too are caught between professional forces and demands on their ever-diminishing time. as i write i feel utter sympathy and affection for my own committee--who i've known for many years now--and who gave me as much time as they could given their own professional and personal lives.

i guess by now it is clear that i find this piece profoundly disturbing. perhaps i'm missing the point?

addendum: my comments here are not meant to detract from the possibility that revision to qualifying exams is needed.  i've been struck, in fact, by the range of "exams" that exist out there in academic land.