Cassuto, Leonard. (2015). graduate school mess: What caused it and how we can fix it. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pages: 309. Price: $29.95 USD (hardcover).There are several problems currently facing graduate schools in Canada and the United States. Lack of future academic positions, slow student progress, tightening university budgets, and mental wellness concerns challenge graduate students, their supervisors, and their institutions of higher learning (Allum, Kent, & McCarthy, 2014; Bok, 2015; Charbonneau, 2013). It is in this turbulent atmosphere that Cassuto (2015) has written his timely book calling for reform of graduate school systems. Knowing his audience of tenured professors can not be coerced into reform, Cassuto appeals to the reader's sense of decency: advocating for humane treatment of graduate students, with a focus on meeting students' needs, respecting their time, their financial concerns, and their need to prepare for careers that might lie outside of academia.Cassuto is a professor of English at Fordham University. While he has edited books and written journal articles, his main qualification for writing this book may be his column for the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled The Graduate Adviser where he explores many of the issues encountered with graduate education. It is these explorations that led to the writing of Graduate School Mess.Cassuto begins the book by laying out some of the problems with the current state of graduate schools. Historically graduate programs, particularly at the Ph.D. level, have been training for an academic career. availability of these positions has dwindled, however, and graduate schools are not necessarily meeting the needs of students who wish to seek work outside of academia. Given the breadth and depth of skills typically developed during the Ph.D. process, Cassuto argues that with appropriate advisement and training, this set of transferrable skills can be identified and honed.Chapter one describes the gatekeeping role played by the admissions process. This chapter takes a historic look at the traditional bias towards knowledge production over teaching, the bias towards research institutions, and the focus on placing the needs of researchers over the needs of their students. To address this imbalance, Cassuto suggests, faculty need to take a broader view of scholarship that includes more than publishing, admissions to graduate programs should be reduced, and a diverse range of goals for students should be promoted.The classwork chapter suggests responsibilities that professors should take on in their role of teaching graduate students. While teaching graduate school is considered the pinnacle of teaching, not enough thought is given to the needs of graduate students where their learning and professional futures are concerned; too often students are left to learn on their own and from each other. To improve the current situation, Cassuto suggests that graduate schools need to prepare students for jobs outside of academia, include explicit writing instruction, and focus on skills.The third chapter focusses on the comprehensive exam. Again, based on a historic review, Cassuto considers the role of the comprehensive in identifying students who should or should not carry on with their current studies. Cassuto argues the exam format does not lend itself to retention and transfer of information and suggests a more developmental process with more authentic assessment as a more useful format. Exams based on a student and committee developed reading list, a synthesis paper based on the student's research, a portfolio, or a dissertation proposal, are presented as more meaningful comprehensive projects.The next chapter covers the complexities of advisor-student relationships, noting advisors must now prepare themselves to be able to support students who are likely to choose a job outside of academia. …