This article describes "The Responsive PhD," an initiative that the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation launched in 2000 to explore the place of the PhD in society and the university. Over the previous decade, national studies and projects had identified a mismatch between the kinds of training PhDs receive in graduate school and the careers available to them. This initiative aimed to build on a consensus that was emerging from national data by developing recommendations for change that would provide a richer purpose and population for doctoral education. Fourteen graduate schools were chosen to participate in the initiative based on their records of innovations in doctoral study and with an eye toward variety in terms of geography and institutional type. It was found that modest funds can improve higher education tremendously when a project is constructed with faculty involvement rather than imposed by a distant authority. It was also found that, although graduate school deans are often seen as unnecessary due to their lack of budgetary authority, deans can go a long way toward linking a university with its local community and toward breaking down unproductive barriers between graduate departments. (Contains 1 endnote.)