The number and diversity of PSM programs being developed are growing rapidly as a result of the work of the Council of Graduate Schools, National Professional Science Master's Association, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the endorsement of the National Research Council, and the support of Congress through the America COMPETES Act and funding in the 2009 ARRA stimulus bill.

To ensure and subsequently maintain the quality of PSM programs into the future, CGS has embarked on a project to develop a sustainable, widely recognized and accepted process for recognizing new PSM programs.

As the first step of this new project, CGS convened a group of stakeholders on June 29, 2010 to develop widely accepted criteria that will be used for determining whether or not a program may be designated a PSM. This group consisted of employers, academic administrators, PSM program directors, alumni, and representatives from higher education organizations, disciplinary societies, government, and other interested organizations.

The draft criteria developed by the stakeholder group may be viewed at: http://www.sciencemasters.com/portals/0/pdfs/PSM_Criteria_Draft.pdf

An electronic form for providing feedback about the draft criteria is available at: http://www.sciencemasters.com/portals/0/pdfs/PSM_Criteria_Feedbak_Survey_2010.pdf

We encourage all interested persons to complete the form in order to provide feedback about the new draft criteria or to make comments and suggestions prior to national launch. The form takes only minutes to complete. Please be aware that you must finish the form in a single session—your responses can not be saved and finished at a later time. We are interested in receiving feedback from the broad PSM community including program directors, deans, students, faculty members, employers, policy makers, alumni and others who have an interest in the quality of the PSM degree. To that end, please take a few minutes to complete the feedback form and encourage others to complete it as well. It would be very helpful if you will please provide your feedback form using the Submit by Email button at the end of the form no later than 5:00 p.m., September 10, 2010.

A second stakeholder group will focus on the review process and make suggestions for an organizational structure for implementation of that process. The first meeting of this stakeholder group is scheduled for September 30, 2010.

Please visit this site regularly for updates on the progress of this new project.

NOTE:  CGS will continue to manage and staff the current program recognition and affiliation process as we have been doing until the new process is implemented.