Faculty members of the PhD Program in Applied Gerontology at the University of North Texas were informed on Sept. 22 that their degree program would be terminated by the University Administration. The five-year-old program with about 60 doctoral students is one of the few doctorates in Gerontology in existence in the United States. Program faculty, already told that their Department of Applied Gerontology was to be merged with UNT’s Department of Sociology, were also informed that the resulting department would be simply known as ‘Sociology,' not ‘Sociology and Applied Gerontology,’ as faculty of both former departments had requested. At the same time, the faculty of the expanded Sociology Department were informed by their dean that the major focus of the Sociology PhD program was to be Applied Gerontology. Program director Dr. Stan Ingman expressed concern that those searching for a doctorate program in gerontology would not readily find such a program, buried within a sociology department. He noted further that most of the current students in the Applied Gerontology doctoral program might not have been interested in a sociology, as opposed to gerontology, degree. The Applied Gerontology doctorate will no longer be allowed to admit new students but will teach out current students until they finish their program or leave, which could take up to 10 years for recently admitted students. The status of the Applied Gerontology masters degree in Long-Term Care, Senior Housing and Aging Services is not altered by these changes, nor is the certificate of the Coalition for Leadership in Aging Services (CLAS, formerly the Retirement Housing Project, RHP) or the Applied Gerontology Certificate program. 

(The author, Dr. James H. Swan, is an Applied Gerontology faculty member.)