"Every ill besetting our colleges and universities is related in one way or another to the Ph.D. degree." All the worthwhile innovations with which the colleges are responding to the current crisis in public confidence won't have much effect unless the cause of the problem--faculty training--is tackled. The Ph.D. degree as the sole legitimate degree for college teaching is outmoded, yet the evidence suggests that most of the state colleges are trying to pattern themselves after the great research universities, instead of developing programs more suitable to the teaching needs of the liberal arts and community colleges, where most of their graduate students teach. A new teaching degree, as an alternative to the Ph.D. is needed, not because there is a shortage of Ph.D.'s, but because there is a surplus of inadequately trained college teachers. The Doctor of Arts should become the standard degree for college teaching. Some institutions have already established such programs. No institution should do so unless it is willing to accord the D.A. degree equal status with the Ph.D. For this reason many prestigious universities are reluctant to set up programs. The strongest of the state colleges and regional universities should offer the D.A. degree, which should be under the jurisdiction of the arts and science faculty, take three years, be interdisciplinary in nature, and teach the students something about teaching and higher education. (AF)