Who Lives Well at the University: About the Well-Being of Graduate Students

Introduction: Learning the Rules of the Road For those aiming to enter the professoriate, graduate school is the initiation into the culture of academia (Austin, 2002). The doctoral program experience can be described as a socialization process that emphasizes the acquisition of knowledge about one's academic field or discipline, exposure to various research methodologies, and induction in academic writing (Golde, 1998). This multi-faceted process can be daunting, often leaving students confused as to what aspect is most important. An equally provocative question, however, is how students can maximize this experience while enduring its socialization process. We represent three voices of women of highly diverse backgrounds, who each share the goal of becoming a university professor. The following is a synthesis of our personal reflections, fashioned as advice to other graduate students on how to maximize the graduate experience. Different Travelers, Different Maps On paper, reads like the beginning of a joke. What do a Puerto Rican cop, an African-American university administrator, and a White school teacher have in common? The answer is they each started down different roads but ended up at the same destination. One is a part-time graduate student balancing a marriage, a career in law enforcement, and doctoral studies. Another is a full-time graduate student who left a career in Human Resources to pursue her educational goals. The remaining traveler is a part-time student and a lifelong ESOL instructor. We each have been drawn to the field of adult education and share the goal of entering academia after completing our PhD programs in Adult Education. Although we have highly disparate backgrounds and experiences, we have identified three suggestions from a series of conversations and journal writings that we believe can be instrumental in helping fellow students maximize their graduate school experience: build relationships, be self-directed, and reflect on your experiences. Build Relationships: Don't Always Travel Alone At some point in our lives, all of us have heard the advice network ... build relationships ... use your resources. But, what does that mean when comes to the graduate experience? Based on our combined experiences, we have concluded that includes taking the initiative to get to know the faculty in your program and spend as much time as possible gleaning information from them. This can be accomplished by learning about their interests and research, observing them in their classrooms, chatting with them about the professional activities and associations they are involved with, and discussing trends in the field. This approach helped us to become more aware of our own interests and needs as students. It also enabled us to communicate these needs and interests to the faculty in our programs and secure their guidance and their support. Building relationships also means getting to know other students in your program. Although we each value independent learning, we have learned that is difficult to get the most out of our graduate experience by working in a vacuum. It is important for graduate students, especially those who are enrolled part-time or who are not part of a cohort, to collaborate with one another. Adult education programs attract graduate students of incredibly diverse social and professional backgrounds, levels of expertise, and research interests. Working with such diverse individuals enriches the graduate experience. By developing informal study groups and sharing interests, ideas, strategies, and tips with other students within and outside of our department, we exposed ourselves to a plethora of opinions and fresh perspectives. Building academic relationships as a graduate student can foster a lifetime of support for future professional endeavors. Listen to your fellow travelers and learn from their experiences. Be Self-directed: Are At the Helm You get out of what you put into it could be the motto for our graduate experience. …

David P. Zgarrick .<i>Getting Started as a Pharmacy Faculty Member</i>. Washington, DC: American Pharmacists Association; 2010. 136 pages, $29.95 (softcover) ISBN 978-1-58212-149-9.

Women are earning baccalaureate degrees in record numbers, said Dr. T. Laine Scales, but they encounter unique problems once they go on to graduate schools. Fewer women in the graduate school pipeline means fewer women to fill future faculty and administrative leadership positions. Baylor University in Texas is taking a proactive stance with its conference on Women in the Academy: Leadership in Graduate School and Beyond. Started in 2011 by graduate student Megan Oster, the annual conference aims to improve the retention and leadership skills of the private school's 2,500 graduate students, 45% of whom were women. Scales, associate dean of the graduate school and professor of higher education, joined two master's candidates in higher education and student affairs, Kaitlyn Rothaus and Christa Winkler to discuss their annual conference at the NASPA conference held in Orlando FL in March 2013. Rothaus is chair of the conference steering committee; Winkler and Scales are members. A look at the numbers shows the problem. The ACE publication The American College President 2012 lists the percentage of women presidents at 26.4%, while the Association of American Colleges and Universities (2011) reports it to be just 23%. Other numbers: ACE reports women comprise 41% of chief academic officers while AACU has it at 18%. Both groups report that the percentage of women presidents or women in the pipeline leading toward the presidency remains woefully low. That's why it's critical to keep female grad students enrolled, and to prepare them to assume leadership roles once they enter the academy as professionals. It's definitely not academic capability or an inability to do the work that's preventing graduate school women from succeeding. On average, women have higher GPAs and score higher on the GRE than male students. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics in 2012, women U.S. residents earn 57% of bachelor's degrees, 63% of master's degrees, and 53% of doctorates. Due to their many roles and lack of support on many fronts, women take longer to earn those degrees and are less likely than men to complete them once enrolled. Causes for the dropouts and stop outs include identity struggles, fewer women mentors and the time and energy required to balance school, family and perhaps a job. Woman of color have a path that's even more challenging. They're underrepresented as graduate students, faculty and administrators. The limited number of mentors who do look like them is overworked and overwhelmed. Women of color on the faculty also report being underemployed and overused, isolated and disrespected. They're torn between family, community and career. One black women on the faculty reported serving on 52 committees, leaving no time for her own research. Student affairs is generally seen as a professional support system for undergraduates, not graduate students. Yet these professionals can take the lead in improving the retention of women in graduate school by providing early support to survive the unique problems women graduate students face. For a registration fee of only $20, Baylor's Women in the Academy conference provides a one-day shot for grad students, faculty and staff to connect and network. While the topics are directed at women, some males attend. This can help to educate future leaders who are males on the challenges that women colleagues face. From 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on a Saturday in April, students can listen to a keynote speaker, choose one of four concurrent breakout sessions, eat lunch while listening to a panel and choose a repeat of the four morning sessions. This year's sessions focused on health and well-being, the special needs of women of color, gender issues surrounding leadership, and a primer on promotion and tenure issues. The lunch panel featured “herstories,” personal stories of those who have trod the same path. For 2013, the theme is Diverse Leadership. A woman college president gave the keynote, and women administrators led the sessions. The conference fills a critical niche and shows great potential. In 2012, more than 100 people from 20 schools attended, double the number at the 2011 inaugural conference. Attendance at the April 2013 session was lower due to problems with email publicity. But the Baylor chemistry department was well represented: It sponsored 11 women, eight grad students and three professors. Helping with publicity were the Texas Women in Higher Education organization with its 1,000 members and the National Association of Graduate and Professional Students. Funds also came from five university sponsors, including the school of education and the graduate school. The steering committee solicited door prizes. Grad students are the academy's future leaders. Baylor's Women in the Academy conference offers a model to support women grad students, to keep them enrolled and in the pipeline as future leaders, bringing their values to campus. Scales: Laine_Scales@baylor.edu or 254.710.4487 Rothaus: Kaitlyn_Rothaus@baylor.edu Winkler: Christa_Winkler@baylor.edu www.baylor.edu/graduate/index.php?id=80013

IntroductionAcademic procrastination is a pervasive challenge among graduate students that undermines their academic excellence and career advancement while compromising the effectiveness and quality of university academic environments. To address this issue, it is crucial to explore its antecedents. This research investigates the impact of supervisors’ ethical leadership on graduate students’ academic procrastination, employing social learning theory to construct a moderated mediation model.MethodsA comprehensive dataset was gathered from 338 graduate students using a three-stage time-lagged method, which ensured the robustness of the empirical analysis. The research utilized a moderated mediation model to examine the relations between supervisors’ ethical leadership, graduate students’ followership, academic interests, and academic procrastination.ResultsThe analysis revealed a significant negative effect of supervisors’ ethical leadership on graduate students’ academic procrastination, with this relation mediated by graduate students’ followership. Furthermore, graduate students’ academic interests moderated the relation between followership and academic procrastination, as well as the effect of supervisors’ ethical leadership on academic procrastination through the mediation of followership.DiscussionThe findings offer valuable insights into the factors shaping graduate students’ academic behaviors and provide practical guidance for enhancing their academic success and fostering positive academic environments in universities.

Science is a man's world. By looking at the composition of most science societies, grant committees or the speaker lists of scientific meetings, it becomes clear that women are not equally represented in the scientific realm. This is all the more astonishing as women have successfully proven that they have the same capabilities as men. Is it because women are less interested in a career in academic life, or are men actively defending one of their last bastions against the intrusion of the other sex? To address the question of whether the unequal representation of women in the life sciences is due to discrimination or decision, the European Molecular Biology Organisation organised a meeting entitled ‘The glass ceiling for women in the life sciences’ in Heidelberg, Germany. For two days in June 2001, more than 100 women scientists, many of them in leading positions in the European and US science landscapes—and unfortunately fewer than 10 men—met and discussed possible reasons for the gender inequality and measures to overcome the unfair male dominance of higher positions. The debates, often engaging and lively, showed that many men at the higher levels indeed still do not regard women as equally capable colleagues. ‘And then I was more successful than all my colleagues [at the Max Planck Society], and they couldn't bear it,’ Christiane Nusslein‐Volhard, a German Nobel laureate from the Max Planck Institute in Tubingen, described her experience as a women scientist rising through the male‐dominated German research landscape. But apart from active discrimination at the higher levels, women also face other problems—particularly when faced with the decision about having children—that most men do not have to consider. Mary Clutter: ‘It's better to be in a position of power than not be in a position of power’. ![][1] > Although in many countries the number … [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif

As an undergraduate German major in the late '80s and early '90s, I was told that employment prospects in post-secondary education would be exceptionally good for my generation of students. When I began a PhD program in 1993, however, it was already becoming apparent that these predictions were not entirely accurate. I heard sobering reports that the number of new PhDs produced outnumbered the number of new vacancies considerably, not to mention the recent PhDs who remained unemployed or in adjunct positions. Either the anticipated retirements were delayed, or existing faculty lines were being eliminated upon the retirement of their holders. Despite the general consensus that employment outlooks were bleak, I resolved to complete the PhD program and to pursue an academic career. There were and still are no guarantees of tenure-track appointments for new PhDs, but I remain confident that graduate students and junior faculty who are sufficiently committed to the profession and receive the necessary training, guidance, and support from their departments and mentors can create a niche for themselves in today's and tomorrow's Germanistik/German Studies. Because I am personally in the transitional phase from graduate student to visiting assistant professor to tenure-track assistant professor, I will share my pragmatic views on some practical measures which I believe might ensure the vitality of a strain of German Studies which can continue to attract and retain students at all levels, and in turn permit a new generation of PhDs to continue in their chosen profession. While a graduate student, I served as graduate student representative on the departmental Self Study Review Committee. This granted me the opportunity to see our own programs from a variety of different perspectives: those of graduate and undergraduate students in the department, of faculty and administration, and of external reviewers. By participating in a single case study of the past, present, and projected future of a single German program, I gained an understanding of the widely varied and often-competing interests which both departments and individual faculty and students must negotiate in the attempt to ensure the continued integrity and vitality of our profession. The seemingly irreconcilable nature of these competing interests is most apparent in discussions of enrollments. With the advent of responsibility-based (or market-driven) budgeting systems, we frequently hear from above that we are too expensive, that especially graduate courses are under-enrolled. While a simple remedy might be to increase the number of graduate students admitted into German graduate programs, the MLA and others have cautioned that it is unconscionable to produce PhDs far in excess of the number of projected available academic positions. One possible solution to this dilemma would be the development of attractive alternate master's degree programs, for example a combined MBA and German MA, or master's degrees in Education and German. In addition to recruiting degree students in German, graduate programs can increase enrollments by developing courses which attract students from History, Art or Music History, Philosophy, Comparative Studies, Women's Studies, Jewish Studies, etc. While this would necessitate teaching in English translation, additional discussion sections can easily be offered in German for students who need to develop their language skills further. Many graduate schools are also encouraging the development of graduate minors, including interdisciplinary minors. Interdisciplinary minors would serve the dual purpose of increasing enrollments in German graduate courses and promoting collaborative projects (research projects and publications, conferences and symposia) among participating programs in the humanities, arts, and social sciences. Conversely, German graduate students should be encouraged likewise to pursue graduate minors and specializations in related fields. …

BackgroundDepression is one of the top mental health concerns among biology graduate students and has contributed to the “graduate student mental health crisis” declared in 2018. Several prominent science outlets have called for interventions to improve graduate student mental health, yet it is unclear to what extent graduate students with depression discuss their mental health with others in their Ph.D. programs. While sharing one’s depression may be an integral step to seeking mental health support during graduate school, depression is considered to be a concealable stigmatized identity (CSI) and revealing one’s depression could result in loss of status or discrimination. As such, face negotiation theory, which describes a set of communicative behaviors that individuals use to regulate their social dignity, may help identify what factors influence graduate students’ decisions about whether to reveal their depression in graduate school. In this study, we interviewed 50 Ph.D. students with depression enrolled across 28 life sciences graduate programs across the United States. We examined (1) to what extent graduate students revealed their depression to faculty advisors, graduate students, and undergraduates in their research lab, (2) the reasons why they revealed or concealed their depression, and (3) the consequences and benefits they perceive are associated with revealing depression. We used a hybrid approach of deductive and inductive coding to analyze our data.ResultsMore than half (58%) of Ph.D. students revealed their depression to at least one faculty advisor, while 74% revealed to at least one graduate student. However, only 37% of graduate students revealed their depression to at least one undergraduate researcher. Graduate students’ decisions to reveal their depression to their peers were driven by positive mutual relationships, while their decisions to reveal to faculty were often based on maintaining dignity by performing preventative or corrective facework. Conversely, graduates performed supportive facework when interacting with undergraduate researchers by revealing their depression as a way to destigmatize struggling with mental health.ConclusionsLife sciences graduate students most commonly revealed their depression to other graduate students, and over half reported discussing depression with their faculty advisor. However, graduate students were reluctant to share their depression with undergraduate researchers. Power dynamics between graduate students and their advisors, their peers, and their undergraduate mentees influenced the reasons they chose to reveal or conceal their depression in each situation. This study provides insights into how to create more inclusive life science graduate programs where students can feel more comfortable discussing their mental health.

“Good luck on your first day as an assistant professor, Dr. Tanner! Have a great class!” On the wall above my desk, these words scream out from an otherwise encouraging note that is adorned with many exclamation points. This note has hung on my wall since my very first day as an Assistant Professor of Biology. As I was charging off to teach my first class, a senior faculty member who had been on my hiring committee slipped this note under my office door. In moments of pause years later, I still stare up at that note and breathe a sigh of relief that I had much more than luck to guide me on my first day as a college-level teacher. Although I continue to have much to learn—as all of us do no matter the number of years of teaching experience—I did arrive at the university with both formal and informal training in science education. I had had plenty of exposure to innovative pedagogical approaches, questioning strategies, and techniques for engaging diverse audiences in learning science. As a scientist educator, I had had the privilege of many years of collaboration with outstanding K–12 educators as well as a postdoctoral fellowship in science education. However, my training has been, to say the least, unconventional compared with that of my fellow junior faculty and unique in its preparation in regard to the teaching and learning of my discipline. It will not be news to anyone reading this article that university and college teaching is to a large extent a profession with no formal training. It’s startling but true that the majority of faculty members—and lecturers who often teach large numbers of students—have no formal training in the teaching and learning of their discipline. In fact, the hiring process in university science departments is structured primarily to evaluate a faculty candidate’s ability to be a productive researcher, with success measured in number of publications and magnitude of grant funds raised. Depending on the type of institution, for example, research university, state-level university, or liberal arts college, there may be a component of the faculty interview process that probes a candidate’s teaching ability, for example, requesting a statement of teaching philosophy and requiring the candidate to teach a sample lecture class. However, this sample lecture often screens for gross inadequacies, rather than looking for stellar innovations or pedagogical skills. This lack of formal, accredited training for university and college instructors stands in stark contrast to the requirements for a high school teacher who is charged with the education of students only a year junior to college freshmen. High school teachers in the United States must be credentialed as a secondary science teacher, demonstrate subject matter competency in every subject that they will be teaching, and must continually engage in professional development in the teaching and learning of their discipline throughout their career as a science teacher. With the 2002 federal No Child Left Behind legislation, the onus is upon each precollege science teacher to become “highly qualified” in terms of formal university-level training in science education. However, no such required professional training or measurable standards for teaching are required in institutions of higher education. Many policy documents have suggested standards of teaching practice in postsecondary science education (National Research Council, 1996, 1997; Siebert and McIntosh, 2001), but the extent of implementation of these ideals is unclear and has gone relatively unstudied, although national and regional accreditation boards do look at outcomes, asking colleges and universities to assess what their students have gained from four years of study at their institutions. Nonetheless, there is a striking reversal of accountability that happens when one crosses the precollege teaching to college-level teaching boundary (Table 1). During the K–12 school years, society expects K–12 teachers to be responsible for student learning. Salaries of teachers in many states are tied to student test scores, and poor student performance can potentially invoke penalties. At a college or university, several variables in the educational universe shift. Students are the ones responsible for learning. The evaluation and compensation of college-level teachers is not DOI: 10.1187/cbe.05–12–0132 Address correspondence to: Kimberly Tanner (kdtanner@sfsu.edu). CBE—Life Sciences Education Vol. 5, 1–6, Spring 2006

Message from the President: First Message to Members with Some Thoughts on Graduate Student and Early Career Scientist Professional Development

This quantitative study explores the role of continuing education (CE) in fostering lifelong learning among students in two universities in China: Hunan University of Science and Technology and Changsha University of Science and Technology. The research investigates students' attitudes, perceptions, and engagement levels towards continuing education, aiming to provide insights into the effectiveness of existing CE programs and identify areas for improvement. A structured questionnaire was administered to 300 undergraduate and graduate students, utilizing Likert scale responses. Results indicate a balanced representation across gender identities, with varying levels of engagement across academic years and fields of study. The majority of respondents report prior experience with CE, indicating proactive engagement in lifelong learning activities. Findings also reveal a generally positive outlook towards lifelong learning, with high levels of agreement on the importance of self-directed learning, adaptability, and openness to new ideas. Engagement with CE activities is predominantly positive, with strong participation in industry conferences, online courses, and additional certifications. Participants perceive CE as positively influencing academic performance, career prospects, and personal growth. The study underscores the significance of integrating CE initiatives into educational frameworks to support holistic student development and promote lifelong learning. It emphasizes the importance of addressing barriers to access and enhancing skills development within CE programs to empower students for success in today's dynamic job market.

Educating the next generation of plant breeders

Europe's academic research in the life sciences is facing a crisis. Numbers of students entering the universities to study the natural sciences are falling, and an increasing number of researchers are leaving the academic realm to accept better paid positions in the growing biotechnology business, in government, journalism and other sectors. No wonder that politicians fear a dearth of talented researchers to fill positions at universities and research institutions. This looming crisis has prompted many senior scientists and politicians to look to the reasons underlying the increasing labour shortage and discuss how to make a career in the natural sciences—and Europe as the geographical location for that career—more attractive for young people. As Gottfried Schatz, President of the Swiss Science and Technology Council, noted in his opening talk at the meeting, it is not that Europe produces inferior scientists to the USA—Europe's record in scientific publications is witness to the opposite—merely that they are not properly nurtured. A microbiologist, let's call him Fritz, he added anecdotally, who had done his Ph.D. in Switzerland and postdoc at Northwestern University in the USA, then returned to Europe to find he was ‘trapped in the morass of a fuzzy unclear career structure’. After some years trying to find a position as an independent researcher, ‘he was thinking of crossing the Atlantic once again, this time with a one‐way ticket’, noted Schatz sombrely. ‘We in Europe are doing a worse job in furthering the people we have’, he asserted; identifying the main problem in Europe, and setting the agenda for the meeting. Indeed, it is not only unclear career structures and prospects that ultimately drive many young scientists away from Europe. Equally, the uncertain career prospects deter many bright high school students from choosing to study the life sciences in the first place. Whether …

BackgroundIn addition to the benefits of a diverse faculty, many institutions are under pressure from students and administrators to increase the number of faculty from historically excluded backgrounds. Despite increases in the numbers of engineering PhD earners from these groups, the percentages of Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino tenure‐track faculty have not increased, and the percentage of women remains low.PurposeThe purpose of this study is to identify how experiences in graduate school encourage or deter PhD earners from historically excluded groups in pursuing an engineering academic career.MethodWe conducted 20 semi‐structured interviews with engineering PhD students and recent graduates, with half of participants interested and half disinterested in pursuing an academic career after graduation.ResultsThree key factors emerged as strongly influential on participants' desire to pursue an academic career: their relationship with their advisor, their perception of their advisor's work–life balance, and their perception of the culture of academia. Participants extrapolated their experiences in graduate school to their imagined lives as faculty. The results illuminate the reasons why engineering PhD earners from historically underrepresented groups remain in or leave the academic career pathway after graduate school.ConclusionsThe findings of this study have important implications for how graduate students' and postdoc's relationships with their advisors as well as perceptions of their advisors' work–life balances and the culture of academia affect future faculty. We make recommendations on what students, faculty, and administrators can do to create a more inclusive environment to encourage students from historically excluded groups to consider academic careers.

Trends in the early careers of life scientists. Preface and Executive Summary.

Introduction. The rapid development of digital technologies, online format of the educational process due to the spread of Covid-19 have actualized online learning in universities. The combination of work and postgraduate studies by young scientists, limited time frames, low motivation make it necessary to find the optimal ways to organize the educational process in a foreign language. The considered online course provides young scientists with the opportunity to improve the level of foreign language communicative competence in academic and research fields. Purpose of the article: to improve the effectiveness of the online foreign language course for young scientists. Research methods. The experiment involved 445 first- and second-year graduate students of South Ural State University. To determine the effectiveness of the online course in the program of foreign language study in graduate school and increase the level of foreign language communicative competence the following methods were used: method of pedagogical experiment, method of observation, econometric method of mathematical statistics Difference in Differences (DID). The method of questionnaires was used to identify the educational needs of graduate students. The B.D. Jones's MUSIC® Model of Motivation was chosen as the methodological basis for the redesign of the online course. The relevance and completeness of the strategies of the B.D. Jones's MUSIC® Model of Motivation according to graduate students’ opinions were tested using a parametric Student's t-test with dependent sampling. Results. As a result of the experiment aimed at improving the effectiveness of the online foreign language course for graduate students, positive dynamics in the level of foreign language communication competence of graduate students in the experimental group compared with students in the control group was verified by the Change criterion, which reflects the difference in the results of the PhD Foreign Language Exam of graduate students, recorded by DID: "excellent" – (Change &gt; 12%), "good" – (Change &lt; 9.5%), "satisfactory" – (Change &lt; 2.5%). Discussion and conclusion. It was proved that the identified factors to improve the effectiveness of the online course for young scientists (redesign of the online course, taking into account the educational needs of graduate students) determined the positive dynamics of the level of foreign language communication competence of graduate students.