Dissertations and Accomplishments

• Completed dissertations, 1961 – Present
• Completed dissertations online (2007 - Present)

The school tracks research activities of our doctoral students during each academic year. The impressive list of doctoral student accomplishments includes publications that appeared or will appear in edited books and journals, including those that were published in conference proceedings; with additional conference papers presented or to be presented at regional, national, and international conferences. SC&I doctoral students also received numerous awards for scholarly and professional work, research fellowships and scholarships, and grants.

Full list of compiled bibliographies:

• 2010 – 2011
• 2011 – 2012
• 2012 – 2013
• 2013 – 2014
• 2014 – 2015
• 2018 – 2019
• 2019 – 2020
• 2020 – 2021
• 2021 – 2022
• 2022 – 2023
• 2023 – 2024

U.S. News and World Report's ranking of Library and Information Science programs ranks Rutgers' graduate program overall as #6 in the nation. The specialty in school libraries is ranked #2 nationally.

The National Communication Association's (NCA) most recent Communication Doctoral Program Reputational study (2004) assessed 92 doctoral programs. The four areas of emphasis in Communication at Rutgers were ranked as follows:

• Health: 9th out of 28
• Organizational: 12th out of 27
• Interpersonal: 14th out of 39
• Technology: 18th out of 34. 

A 2011 National Research Council (NRC) report rating doctoral programs in Communication (broadly defined) notes distinction for the Rutgers Ph.D. program in Communication, Information and Library Studies in the School of Communication and Information in several positive ways:

1. SC&I has the largest doctoral program in the field with the largest average incoming cohort each year. That size allows for substantial course offerings, cohorts of students with related interests, and other resources that come with a sizable program. 

2. The Ph.D. program annually graduate more students than any other public program in the Northeast, and is tied for fourth nationally among public programs for number of graduates produced. In the past three years we have graduated 11-to-12 students annually resulting in a significant influence in the field as these students typically go into various academic positions. 

3. We have emerged as a very strong research program, an aspect that is often regarded as the most important measurement of top doctoral programs. 

4. The Ph.D. program is second among the public programs in the Northeast and 11th of all public programs nationwide in the measure assessing research quality overall. We are fifth nationally among public programs in average number of citations per publication (second among public programs in Northeast). Again, this speaks to the impact our research has on related fields. 

5. As one of the largest programs in terms of number of core faculty in the Ph.D. program, we have 51 core members as well as other adjunct and affiliate members throughout Rutgers. 

6. SC&I is the only Ph.D. program in the country to combine the area of Communication (including Media Studies) with Library and Information Studies. It is a combination that provides a unique interdisciplinary program well situated for the communication and information-related challenges of the 21st century.

The full report and data are available online.

The report compiled data from 5,000 doctoral programs in 62 fields of study at 212 universities. In Communication, 83 programs (73 public, 10 private) were evaluated. The NRC did not rank programs in a straightforward numerical fashion, much like the well-known U.S. News & World Report college rankings, and there are several other concerns about this complex project and its methodology. For example, much of this data was collected prior to 2005 (and our program has changed substantially since that time with the addition of 20 percent more faculty by 2011). The findings favor social scientific measures for evaluation, while the humanistic-oriented scholarship for which our doctoral program is also known is given less prominence. Nevertheless, the NRC ratings still provide at least some informative descriptive and comparative data.