Graduate Advisor Research Articles

November 2014 Calendar Problems

The problems and solutions in this month's Calendar were written by Annette Ricks Leitze, graduate advisor in mathematics education at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, and several of her graduate students: Barbara Fennell, Angela Greene, Timothy Hildebrand, and Rebecca Wakeman. The drawing of Nick and his brothers (problem 9) was submitted by Joanna Gerr, a student at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.

John William Hardy, 1930–2012

John William Hardy, Elective Member of the AOU since 1964 and Fellow since 1971, died in Gainesville, Florida, on October 1, 2012, at 82 years of age. Like many ornithologists, Bill Hardy was a boy birdwatcher, collecting Fuertes cards from his mother’s Arm & Hammer baking soda packages, finding a Summer Tanager nest in the backyard when he was four years old, and at seven helping his uncle install a Purple Martin house in the yard. He would go on to pioneer the creation, collection, and distribution of sound recordings that are now considered as important as study skins and skeletons in many museums’ bird collections. Bill was born on January 12, 1930, in Murphysboro, Illinois, a small town 50 miles north of the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. His biology teacher at Murphysboro Township High School, E. Esther Smith, was an important influence. She had a strong interest in natural history, and The Auk was among the journals and books available in her laboratory. She joined the AOU in 1949 and remained a member at least until 1985. Through the school’s Audubon Biology Club, which Ms. Smith began, students were encouraged to prepare projects for yearly state science fairs sponsored by the Illinois Academy of Science. These were often small research projects based on original data. One of Bill’s projects, with two other students, was a study of the seasonal occurrence of birds in the state’s seven southernmost counties. Although not publicly distributed, this was the first checklist of the birds of southern Illinois. While in high school, Bill spent a few hours a day closely observing martins, putting into practice the outline for a life-history study in Joseph J. Hickey’s (1943) Guide to Bird Watching. Years later, in 1962, Bill and Richard Johnston, his graduate advisor at the University of Kansas, coauthored a paper based mainly on a Kansas martin colony but including Bill’s Illinois observations from the 1946 season, when a few pairs had double brooded. From 1948 to 1952, Bill continued his education at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, less than 10 miles from home. He majored in zoology, worked part-time in the Cooperative Fisheries laboratory, and founded the Southern Illinois Bird Club, which held a few meetings but did not survive his graduation. For graduate work, Bill moved out of state, taking a teaching assistantship at Michigan State College (soon, University) in East Lansing. His advisor was George W. Wallace, a fine ornithologist who was at that time working on the first college ornithology textbook, An Introduction to Ornithology (Macmillan 1955). When Bill wrote Wallace’s memorial for The Auk, he noted that Wallace had ‘‘nurtured my qualities and gently began the process of sharpening me for the tough road ahead.’’ The two years in Michigan provided good experiences beyond the connections with Wallace and fellow MSU JOHN WILLIAM HARDY in Florida in 1985. Photo credit: Thomas A. Webber

How to Pick a Graduate Advisor

In this NeuroView, I provide a guide for young scientists on how to select a graduate advisor or postdoctoral advisor. Good mentorship is not only pivotal for career success, but it is pivotal for driving innovation and for the health of our universities. Universities need to do much more to teach faculty how to mentor and to ensure mentoring quality. I propose an M-index to measure mentoring quality. I also call here for better studies of what great mentorship entails, better reward for great mentors, and more consideration of mentoring quality when awarding prizes and grants.

James C. Knox (1977) Human impacts on Wisconsin stream channels. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 67: 224–244.

James C. Knox’s 1977 paper “Human Impacts on Wisconsin Stream Channels,” published in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, was a key component of a suite of three papers by him defining the response of rivers to the introduction and management of agriculture and to climate change. In this paper he used the Driftless Area of southwest Wisconsin as a laboratory where he could define fluvial responses by their sedimentary signatures in floodplain deposits. Land-use records dating back to the early 19th century along with shorter climate records provided his understanding of the drivers of change. He found that floods increased as an outcome of land-cover change. Upstream tributaries became wider and shallower as coarse deposits limited their adjustments, while main stem channels became narrower and deeper. His paper reflected the influence of his graduate advisor and especially of prominent faculty colleagues at the University of Wisconsin from fields ranging from soils and climatology to geomorphology and history. The paper was the subject of considerable debate in the professional community, but it remains a much-cited example of Knox’s work in unraveling the Quaternary and Holocene history of rivers of the Driftless Area and by extension the upper Mississippi River system.

Elizabeth Tibbetts

Elizabeth Tibbetts

Teaching Global Perspectives through Camera Work: Naïve to Nuanced Pictures—from West Virginia University to China

A renowned photojournalist at The Washington Post and now a professor of visual communication at West Virginia University, Lois Raimondo finds fresh ways to maintain the tradition of cross-cultural exploration, immersion, and understanding she adopted as a graduate student. Much as her graduate advisor forced her to be aware of both her comforts and discomforts, her filters of awareness, and her degrees of difference as she traveled to China for the first time more than 20 years ago, Raimondo teaches her students to open their eyes, ears, and apertures to delve into the wonderful world of light and shadow where nuance plays.

How to Find a Good Graduate Advisor and Make the Most of Graduate School

When graduate students gather, a few common conversation themes repeat themselves. On a good day there might be discussions of fresh data or a recent paper. On a bad day, there might be complaints about field assistants or projects that are not going according to plan. Consistently, however, the conversation winds its way back to advisors, because graduate advisors play a critical role in the success of graduate students and in the overall graduate school experience. Along with lab mates, the graduate advisor is the person with whom students will interact the most during their academic careers. Some students conducting fieldwork may even find themselves living and working in close quarters with their advisor for extended periods of time. Given the length of graduate programs, choosing an advisor represents a long-term relationship, and the success of a student is dependent on this relationship.

Creativity and Introductory Physics

When I was an undergraduate physics major, I would often stay up late with my physics major roommate as we would digest the physics content we were learning in our courses and explore our respective imaginations armed with our new knowledge. Such activity during my undergraduate years was confined to informal settings, and the first formal creativity assignment in my physics education did not come until well into my graduate years when my graduate advisor demanded that I write a prospectus for my dissertation. I have often lamented the fact that the first formal assignment in which I was required to be creative, take responsibility for my own learning and research objectives, and see them to completion during my physics education came so late, considering the degree to which creative attributes are celebrated in the personalities of great physicists. In this essay I will apply some of the basic concepts as defined by creativity-related psychology literature to physics pedagogy, relate these concepts to the exchanges in this journal concerning Michael Sobel's paper1 “Physics for the Non-Scientist: A Middle Way,” and provide the framework for a low-overhead creativity assignment that can easily be implemented at all levels of physics education.

Contributors

Contributors

Constitutional Artisanship and Institutional Diversity: Elinor Ostrom, Vincent Ostrom, and the Workshop

Constitutional Artisanship and Institutional Diversity:Elinor Ostrom, Vincent Ostrom, and the Workshop Filippo Sabetti (bio) A story is told around the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University that when Elinor Ostrom received a call from Nobel representatives in the very early morning of October 10, 2009, her words to Vincent, her spouse and colleague, went something like this: "Wake up, honey. We have won a prize." 1 The emphasis on "we" is not surprising as Elinor Ostrom—Lin for many of us—has always acknowledged that "none of us [at the Workshop] could have achieved what we have done without [Vincent's] inspiration, criticism, encouragement, and help." 2 Thus, Lin's selection as a recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences also helped to spotlight the pioneering quest of Vincent to understand public affairs. As the good news spread, the Workshop was inundated with congratulatory messages from Workshoppers around the world, sharing in the "we have won a prize" celebration. I and other first-generation Workshoppers joined the present sixth-generation in a chorus of congratulations. 3 For me, it all started, in the spring of 1968, when I had the good fortune of receiving a telephone call from Lin, then the graduate advisor in the Department of Government (as it was called at that time), urging me to choose Indiana University for graduate studies in political science. She challenged me to learn more about a new and exciting interdisciplinary field of public choice that also drew on the Italian school of public finance and fiscal theory. For the first time I heard someone stressing the importance of the works of James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, whose papers I had distractedly noticed in earlier issues of Il Politico, a University of [End Page 73] Pavia journal edited by Bruno Leoni. He had welcomed their contributions when most Anglo-American non-economic journals were not so readily disposed to their innovative thinking. After accepting a position in the 1968 class of graduate students, who formed the first generation of Workshoppers, I found that indeed Buchanan and Tullock were among the pillars of the Workshop curriculum. In the fall of 1968, I took my first graduate course with Vincent Ostrom. The course was based on readings derived largely from classical texts on America and the first generation of public choice scholars. It was not an easy course for me not just because that was my first introduction to readings like The Federalist, Democracy in America, Leviathan, The Calculus of Consent and The Logic of Collective Action but also because I was confronted with a novel approach to these texts. It was the approach to pursue the logic of the propositions as testable hypotheses (at least by experience, if not by rigorous field research) that set Vincent's teaching apart. No one read these books as he did. I was attracted by his challenge and philosophical vision and thus became one of Vincent's Ph.D. students. I served as his Teaching Assistant in two of his undergraduate courses—a most enriching experience for me as well as for the undergraduates. By now, I have read all of Vincent's scholarship since 1968 and much of his earlier work. In the earlier years of the Ostroms' tenure at Indiana University, Vincent had the heavier teaching schedule. By the early 1970s, Lin's courses applying the Workshop's theoretical conceptions in rigorous fieldwork of police studies as well as in other modes of quantitative analysis and modeling, including game theory, had became part of the core curriculum, complementing Vincent's "macro theoretic" approach with empirical studies and "micro theory." Although I somehow missed taking a course from Lin, I experienced what anyone who has read Lin's work, beginning soon after she completed her Ph.D. in 1965 through her most recent award winning works, cannot help but see: the amazing creativity and innovative thinking that were a mainstay at the Workshop. She combined these qualities with a human touch that was genuine, generous and disarming. Her positivity and humility about life were sources of encouragement and strength for all of us and for me in particular...

Remembering Andrzej W. Olbrot [Historical Perspectives

Although Andrzej Olbrot is no longer with us, memories of him remain in the minds of the academic community and his friends. Andrzej was handpicked by Michael Polis, then the chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Wayne State University, and came to the university as a visiting faculty member in the mid-1980s. Andrzej had a positive impact on the department and soon became the graduate advisor. In this position, he became highly popular among students, and I often found a long queue of students waiting to ask advice from him. He revamped the graduate studies program by modifying the qualifying exam, unifying directed studies requirements, and requiring that every student publish a research paper before submitting the Ph.D. thesis.

Fostering a theoretical and practical understanding of teaching as a relational process: a feminist participatory study of mentoring a doctoral student

We were seeking to disrupt the practice of fostering theoretical understandings about teaching and learning in our graduate courses that had little connection to students’ teaching practices. We also desired a mentoring approach for graduate students in education that would foster an understanding and practice of teaching as a relational process. This paper provides a practitioner account of an action research study focused on the development of such an approach. In a semester‐long feminist participatory study, we utilized weekly dialogues, reflective journals, classroom observations and written documents to explore the mentoring experience of one graduate advisor, one graduate teaching assistant, and two critical friends. Through the action research process, a new mentoring approach grounded in the relational process of teaching was realized along with a new understanding of the place of authority and vulnerability in negotiations between mentor and student.

Improving electrical engineering education at the American University of Sharjah through continuous assessment

The electrical engineering (ELE) program at the American University of Sharjah (AUS) is designed to fulfill the ABET criteria. Several assessment tools are used to qualitatively and quantitatively measure the level of achievement of the program's educational objectives and outcomes. These tools include alumni, employer, and graduate advisor surveys. Results of such surveys are used to continuously improve the program curriculum, design activities, and the overall educational experience of the students. We believe that the techniques utilised in this process are crucial to the level of success that the ELE program at AUS has achieved over a relatively short-time frame. This has been reflected in the excellent academic reputation of AUS in the Middle East. Furthermore, the ELE program at AUS has received ABET accreditation in 2006 for a period of six years, which makes it the first ELE program to be fully accredited by ABET outside the USA.

The Influence of Graduate Advisor Use of Interpersonal Humor on Graduate Students

The current study is the fourth in a series on various components of advisor-advisee communication. In the latest study, the influence of a variety of communication variables on the graduate advisor–advisee interpersonal relationship is examined. Graduate students' perceptions of their graduate advisors' use of humor as it relates to other communication variables (nonverbal immediacy, social support, mentoring, and relationship satisfaction) were investigated. Results revealed a positive, statistically significant relationship between an advisee's perception of his or her advisor's use of humor and that advisee's perception of the advisor's nonverbal immediacy, social support, and mentoring as well as the relationship satisfaction reported by the advisee.Relative Emphasis: theory, research, practice

A Graduate Advisor Comments on Graduate Socialization

Anthropology NewsVolume 49, Issue 1 p. 19-20 A Graduate Advisor Comments on Graduate Socialization Susan U Philips, Susan U PhilipsSearch for more papers by this author Susan U Philips, Susan U PhilipsSearch for more papers by this author First published: 24 December 2008 https://doi.org/10.1525/an.2008.49.1.19AboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume49, Issue1January 2008Pages 19-20 RelatedInformation

Graduate Students' Perceptions of Outstanding Graduate Advisor Characteristics

The advising literature confirms the graduate student–graduate advisor relationship as the most important factor in graduate student success. To better understand the characteristics of graduate advisors that students find most helpful, we conducted a grounded theory study with a constructivist design that involved a qualitative textual analysis of Outstanding Graduate Advisor of the Year Award nominations from MD-PhD students enrolled in the Medical Scholars Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Five major themes emerged from this analysis, and the results indicate that students perceive the following graduate-advisor characteristics to be most helpful: demonstrated care for students, accessibility, role models in professional and personal matters, individually tailored guidance, and proactive integration of students into the profession.Relative Emphasis: research, practice, theory

A match made in academia: you and your graduate advisor

Joe shivered as he looked out of his window at the falling snow. Even the cockroaches that usually haunted his office had moved on to cozier places. He was working late on his dissertation proposal, as he had been doing for months. He had hoped to defend it in a week's time, but yesterday his advisor had postponed the committee meeting and requested substantial revisions. Joe was furious, and had spent the day searching for ways to prove his advisor wrong. Now he was exhausted and alone in his cold office at 3:00 am on a Saturday, he lacked adequate proof, and he finally had to accept that his advisor was right. Like Joe, we graduate students look to our advisors for guidance, but it can sometimes be hard to accept their criticism. With good communication, you can develop a strong working relationship with your advisor, that will have positive and long-lasting impacts on your career. If you hope to shine brilliantly as a job candidate when you finish your graduate degree, the key person who can help you shine (or dull you completely) is your advisor. Most of us have good relationships with our advisors. We meet regularly, have fun exchanging ideas, collabo rate on research projects, co-author papers, and generally like each other. If a student-advisor relationship does not work out, it is usually for one of two main reasons:

“Free Entry and Exit” from the Market: Simplifying or Substantive Assumption?

Economic theory, of necessity, presents an abstraction to the reader. Abstraction is required to achieve the perspective that allows for theory, that is to say, understanding and interpretation, to occur. If the abstraction is done well only inessential details are set aside -- details that would otherwise divert the theorist from grasping the essential or fundamental elements of the process under examination. For example a study of the mechanisms that cause a moving automobile to stop can reasonably abstract from the vehicle's color scheme. For this process to be valid it is critical that the theorist distinguish between and substantive assumptions. The former clears away the inessential. The latter elevates or prioritizes the inessential -- thereby contributing to a distorted understanding. The difficulty is that distinguishing between simplifying and substantial assumptions remains, and will always remain, something of an art. Fifty years ago the siren of Positive Economics proposed that this critical distinction could be reliably made by adhering to a set of clear and simple rules. While some economists and empirical psychologists maintain a nostalgic commitment to that eclipsed understanding of science, today most thinking practitioners are aware that such an epistemological stance, with its triumphant dismissal of the need for defensible assumptions, was naive -- even misguided. Out of this epistemological vacuum economists have retreated to several crude fixes to guide their selection of abstractions. Occasional assertions to the contrary, these methods are conventions. Innocent of any knowledge of these issues, many economists instinctively deploy the abstractions used by their graduate advisor, or rely on those that most frequently appear in what are held to be the profession's premier journals. Economics, perhaps more than ever, is now defined by what economists do. Ideally, the distinction betwee (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Meehl as colleague.

The author summarizes some memories and impressions of Paul Meehl as graduate advisor, classroom teacher, and departmental colleague.

Advisor–Advisee Communication Two: The Influence of Verbal Aggression and Humor Assessment on Advisee Perceptions of Advisor Credibility and Affective Learning

The goal of the current study was to further the research line initiated by the authors that examined the influence of a variety of communication variables in the Graduate Advisor–Advisee interpersonal relationship. The current study examined the relationship between advisee perceptions of advisor verbal aggression and humor assessment and the impact these variables have on advisee affect and advisee perceptions of advisor credibility (competence, caring/goodwill, and trustworthiness). Findings revealed that advisor humor assessment was positively related to both advisee affect and advisee perceptions of advisor credibility. The study further found that advisor verbal aggression was negatively related to both advisee affect and advisee perceptions of advisorp credibility.