It Came in Waves: Doctoral Students Resilience During Covid-19

Abstract

This inquiry is focused on beginning to understand the graduate student experience in the midst of COVID, in hopes of identifying ways that faculty and students can support one another during the impending transition back to pre-pandemic life. This study enacts focus groups to explore the experiences of graduate students in an art education department at a large southeastern university. Through poetic assemblages, we use the arts to bring these experiences from the margins of institutional and pandemic narratives, into the center. This inquiry explores how sharing the stories of student vulnerability and resilience during the COVID pandemic might help transform post-pandemic teaching and learning environments into places that are responsive to student needs.