Reimagining Doctoral Education for Sociocultural Goals in New Mexico: One Department's Story

This chapter provides a first-person account of the conceptualization and development of a new academic department at a large university in the American Southwest. It includes a description of the conditions that caused the new department to come into being, a discussion of debates surrounding the name and identity of the new department and a delineation of the context – political, social, and demographic – from which the department emerged. The chapter also includes reflections from former doctoral students on how the department's structure and focus influenced their professional identities and careers. The chapter is framed as one educator's story, in the tradition of “teacher stories” that emerged in the late twentieth century.