Building and Maintaining Community
The effective socialization of graduate students into the intellectual community of the degree program is one of the most significant factors influencing student persistence in doctoral education. However, while an intellectual community is knowledge centered, it is rooted in relationships. Graduate education occurs through sharing and creating new knowledge in formal and informal situations, both within and outside of the classroom and lab. Community is developed through activities that foster collaboration and facilitate interaction.
Mentoring relationships serve to integrate students into the fabric of the department, as they cultivate essential professional and social networks. But mentoring is not the only way. Faculty, staff and the students themselves can provide opportunities for students to engage in both the social and intellectual life of the department.
Generally speaking, these opportunities range from periodic seminars or colloquia to discuss issues related to the field; to participation in departmental leadership; to regular social events sponsored by the program; to student-organized clubs, peer mentoring, and workshops. All serve to integrate students into the relevant intellectual community and provide multiple sources of support crucial to successful degree completion.
Quick Tips
Examples from the University of Michigan
- Applied Physics
- Community building is achieved here through a number of related efforts. For example, all first and second year students are given common office space within one large room. This provides an ongoing opportunity for students to share their experiences, provide support and socialize with others they may not see in the classroom or lab. This sense of belonging is fostered throughout the program-the staff are given special credit for treating students as “family”-and most stay in touch with the program as alumni.
- Asian Languages and Culture
- This interdisciplinary program fosters intellectual community by bringing students together across disciplines in an introductory course that surveys their range of specializations. Similarly, they routinely have faculty from two different specialization areas team teach courses. Both, practices, they feel, contribute to an improved climate in the program and create group identity within each cohort.
- Biological Chemistry
- Because their research labs are scattered across campus, faculty, students and staff in this program make a concerted effort to focus on building their community. The majority of the faculty are not located in MSRB III, so not all faculty are easily acquainted with the students. The program offers numerous activities to bring faculty and students together. For example, “cookie hour” is hosted by the program each Thursday afternoon. Another activity is that fourth-year students present their research on Tuesdays during the noon hour. In addition, the graduate students are active participants of faculty committees.
- Cell and Developmental Biology
- Students in this program organize and administer a graduate student seminar series. They pursue the goal of having all students present. Those who do are provided written responses from their peers. They have found that the more advanced students provide the most serious and valuable critiques (sometimes, stronger than those faculty give). Another practice in this program that effectively engages students in the life of the intellectual community is that all department committees have student representatives.
- Chemical Biology
- Each year, the program hosts a range of social activities in the fall term-the Welcome Picnic, research poster session, and orientation sessions-to encourage new students to become acquainted with the faculty and current students. In addition, they host lunches for first and second year students once a month from September through April. Finally, the Program Committee (which oversees the grad program in general) has dinner with first year students once each term to gather feedback about what is and isn’t working well in the program.
- Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
- Graduate Researchers in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (GREEBS) sponsor the Big Sibs Mentoring Program. This provides a comfortable, informal way for first year students (the “Little Sibs”) to learn about the culture of graduate school, about the EEB department and about how to excel at the University of Michigan. This panel of more advanced graduate students meets regularly with the new cohort to answer questions and help ease the transition into graduate school. In this way new students are introduced to a broad cross-section of the department.
- Visit: GREEBs: Big Sibs Program
- Faculty Pride Pages
- The Graduate School, working with LambdaGrads, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Faculty Alliance, and the Spectrum Center, has developed a directory of LGBT faculty willing to serve as resources for LGBT graduate and professional students. A U-M Kerberos Login is required.
- Visit: Faculty Pride Pages
- Financial Engineering
- A course developed to ensure that all of their students have the necessary background to be successful in the program has the additional benefit of developing in each cohort a strong sense of community as they begin the degree program. This course is a three-credit “boot camp” that starts in July and runs 40 hours per week for six weeks. The camp is modeled on executive education courses with in-class team assignments and a broad range of topics that require group solutions.
- History
- While History 891: Dissertation Research/Writing Seminar is a course designed to support students engaged with the challenges of developing writing strategies and shaping their projects into finished dissertation form, it also serves as an excellent means of overcoming some of the anxieties accompanying the relative isolation many students may experience during the unnecessarily lonely struggle with the writing stage of the dissertation. The colloquium provides an opportunity to strengthen engagement with the program’s intellectual community by encouraging cross-field dialogue.
- Immunology
- Among the many social and academic events provided by this program is the annual retreat for students and faculty. Each year in the spring the Immunology program sponsors this event off-campus, taking the opportunity to highlight selected research within the program. Only graduate students and research fellows are invited to present their work. The Retreat Committee, under the guidance of the Immunology Program Director, makes the decision as to who is selected to present at the retreat. Speakers will be chosen based on the abstracts and lab presentations.
- Mathematics
- During the course of the first term, staff make certain to host a lunch with small groups of first-year students in order to develop the student’s sense of belonging. The graduate chair hosts a similar set of luncheons with incoming students. The opportunity to join in the wider community is provided each weekday when the staff provide “tea-time” from 3:45 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. in the common area of the department’s physical location. This regular social event is scheduled in-between differing course and seminar hours to maximize attendance.
- Molecular & Integrative Physiology
- Leadership training is central to the experience of graduate students in this program, as is evident for the many opportunities provided. These include: serving as graduate student representative to faculty meetings; taking part as student member of the Graduate Committee; hosting the keynote speaker of Research Forum; hosting visits of graduate student recruits; serving on PIBS Admissions Committee; participating in administration and policy setting within the MIP Graduate Program. These activities not only enhance professional development, they provide opportunities for recreation, informal social interaction, and intellectual engagement crucial to becoming a full member of the community.
- Molecular and Cellular Pathology
- Advanced graduate and postdoctoral students in the department are actively engaged with incoming students in two ways. They are central to the recruiting efforts with both potential applicants and those who are offered admission. Then in the following year they act as peer mentors for graduate students in the incoming class. Another dimension of intellectual integration is pursued by providing opportunities to link clinicians and researchers within the same field so graduate students interact with residents and everyone gets a larger appreciation for the different approaches.
Examples from Other Universities
- University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
- Source: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Education
- Inquiry groups in the School of Education are part of the School’s participation in the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate. A committee of students and faculty met to discuss ways to improve their Education Ph.D. program. Students sought more hands-on research experience as well as formalized opportunities to engage in intellectual discussions about topics of interest outside the classroom. The goal of these inquiry groups is to more fully engage graduate students in the intellectual life of the School of Education (SOE). An inquiry group should meet regularly and should eventually lead to scholarly products (data collection, presentation, proposals, publications, etc.) for both faculty and graduate students.
- Visit: Inquiry Groups in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- University of Vermont
- Source: University of Vermont
- The Graduate Student Journal Club was instituted a number of years ago in order to give the students an opportunity to hone their public speaking skills. Students are required to present one journal article per semester starting second semester of their first year. It involves the public presentation of a recently published paper that is of general interest to the Neuroscience community. Graduate students together with a faculty advisor implemented and administer the program. It is required for all students every year that they are in the program.
- Download: Guidelines for Leading Journal Club Discussion