Graduate Student Professional Development Research Articles

Through many doors at once: rethinking the multiverse of graduate student professional development

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore how the phenomenon of academic professional development looks through the eyes of graduate students navigating the increasing complexity of postgraduate careers. This study pays particular attention to how current students navigate the interplay between their beliefs, intentions and behaviors when it comes to making choices regarding their engagement in professional development.Design/methodology/approachThis is a qualitative study, based on a phenomenological analysis of seven in-depth interviews with advanced PhD students from the earth sciences college at a large, public, research-intensive university located in the mid-Atlantic area of the USA (Penn State).FindingsFramed in the Theory of Planned Behavior, the findings of this study suggest that the interviewees varied across all aspects of Theory of Planned Behavior: in their beliefs about valued career paths, in their convergence or divergence from the departmental or institutional norms they perceived and in their sense of control over their career pathways. They all shared, however, a strong desire to successfully navigate the widening array of possibilities to achieve a range of personal and professional goals, but they often lacked the ability to align those intentions with actions related to professional development.Originality/valueThis study suggests that institutions may wish to rethink their positionality in the professional development of graduate students, moving away from centralized models of direct support and towards more indirect, informal and co-created means of exerting influence and building community.

Preparing Future Faculty: Pedagogical Practice in Graduate School

AbstractThis chapter describes the University of Minnesota Preparing Future Faculty program, focusing on pedagogical approaches and assignments that have made the program relevant for over 20 years. It concludes with a look at the future facing graduate student professional development.

Interculturality and GTA Training in the Age of Globalization

German, and increasingly French and Spanish, programs are by nature global because they attract graduate students and faculty from around the world. Most have studied the language and “big C” cultural products during their graduate studies, but they have not necessarily learned approaches for fostering intercultural communicative competence in the classroom. The demands of communication in the global age require not only that language learners examine cultural products and practices but also that they investigate the unique perspectives that underlie them. This need suggests that graduate teaching associates (GTAs) receive training in how to foster intercultural communicative competence and that the responsibility lies with language program directors to incorporate new aspects of teacher training into graduate student professional development. With that in mind, this conversation explores (1) how to promote interculturality within individual language programs that are characterized by global teaching staffs and (2) the training of GTAs on strategies for cultivating intercultural communicative competence in the classroom. Through added modules during pre‐service orientations and ongoing professional training, graduate teaching associates can be better prepared to meet the needs of 21st century students.

Continuing The Conversation: Graduate Student Professional Development At Mason

SESSION LOCATION: Johnson Center Cinema (Ground/Bottom Level of the Johnson Center) NOTE: This is a co-located workshop, meaning that it is open to both ITL attendees and the broader community. You do not have to be registered for the conference to attend this session. If you do plan to attend this session, please register with Graduate Education to receive follow up communications and access to event materials (ITL attendees: please also register with this link in addition to your conference registration). Building on previous community forums on graduate education, a community conversation about graduate student professional development was held on August 16, 2019. Results from the Mason Community Conversation: Graduate Student Professional Development event and some preliminary mapping of graduate student professional development programming at will be shared. Following this brief introductory presentation, participants will have an opportunity to map out the support they or their unit currently offers graduate students and identify needs and future ideas. The remaining time will be dedicated to townhall style discussion about the future of graduate student professional development support at Mason. Note: This session is focused on professional development opportunities for students, NOT financial support. If you are interested in discussing the financial support models for graduate students at Mason, please visit the What's New in Graduate Education at Mason? poster during the poster session 4:15-5:45 in Dewberry Hall.

The Impact of Multi-Institutional STEM Reform Networks on Member Institutions: A Case Study of CIRTL

Multi-institutional networks have become an increasingly common change mechanism in higher education, especially in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education reform. However, little is known about the impact of such networks on participating institutions. This study examined one network, the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL), to understand the multi-level impact of network membership on participating campuses. Framed by CIRTL’s mission to prepare future STEM faculty, results showed that the Network provided four major benefits for member institutions, which were translated and used to expand and modify local teaching professional development programs, subsequently impacting program participants and campus perceptions of graduate student professional development.

The Chemistry Teaching Fellowship Program: Developing Curricula and Graduate Student Professionalism

The Chemistry Teaching Fellowship Program (CTFP) is offered to graduate students and postdoctoral researchers at the University of Toronto as an opportunity to undertake curriculum development and chemistry education research. Projects are run with faculty supervision and focus on designing new laboratory activities, lectures, tutorials, workshops, and assignments. Since its launch in 2002, many CTFP projects have been implemented in the departmental undergraduate curriculum, and several have been published in this Journal. The structure and history of the CTFP and its impact on undergraduate education and graduate student professional development is discussed in this paper, with a selection of projects highlighted as case studies. The CTFP provides a successful model of curriculum renewal that can easily be incorporated into other chemistry departments.

"A Way to Talk about the Institution as Opposed to Just my Field": WAC Fellowships and Graduate Student Professional Development

"A Way to Talk about the Institution as Opposed to Just my Field": WAC Fellowships and Graduate Student Professional Development

The importance of student-led initiatives in rethinking the Ph.D.

In this article, we share our own experiences with graduate student-led professional development opportunities. With this focus we contribute to the theme of this special issue: rethinking professional development and the training of geography Ph.D. students. Citing our own graduate experiences at Penn State University and Ohio State University, we discuss the importance of informal professional development seminars, graduate student conferences, community outreach, and service learning for enhancing graduate student professional development. Our hope is that such discussions can lead to a rethinking of the Ph.D. in geography and help graduate students as they make the challenging transition from doctoral student to junior faculty member.

Results of a Practicum Offering Teaching-Focused Graduate Student Professional Development

Providing chemistry graduate students with opportunities to learn about evidence-based teaching and to practice teaching skills in a mentored environment is crucial to their professional development. Herein is described the model for a graduate-level teaching practicum course specifically focused on the chemistry discipline. This course addressed current issues and trends in chemistry education, familiarized students with chemistry lecture and laboratory resources, and allowed students to practice their teaching skills in a mentored environment. Course assignments and projects were structured for inclusion in each student’s teaching portfolio. A Likert-type attitudinal survey was used to assess the course. The graduate students who completed the survey (N = 8) ranked highest in terms of average perceived usefulness the more tangible and experiential course components: (i) preparation and presentation of review session; (ii) preparation of student final lecture project; and (iii) preparation of teaching philosophy statement. This course was also perceived as useful to the average graduate student’s long-term career goal of attaining a postsecondary teaching position because it enhanced their teaching portfolios and concomitantly improved marketability for the academic job market. This course can be modified and adapted to fit the teaching professional development needs of graduate students at other institutions.

Preparing for Life “Beyond Academe”: Professional Skills Development for Graduate Students in Canadian Universities

Preparing for Life “Beyond Academe”:Professional Skills Development for Graduate Students in Canadian Universities Marilyn Rose (bio) It is a well-known fact that the vast majority of today’s graduate students will need to find employment in non-academic settings. More specifically, it is currently estimated that as few as 20 percent to 25 percent of today’s PhD graduates are likely to find work as academics in the disciplines in which they have been trained.1 While some argue that we are simply preparing too many graduate students—especially doctoral students with their deep investment in years of advanced study—for too little available work, research suggests otherwise. Brent Herbert-Copley, Vice President, Research Capacity at the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, for example, notes that the need for PhDs in Canada is actually growing but that our students are graduating into “an increasingly complex, globalized labour market” and universities have been slow to develop strategies that will “align doctoral studies more effectively with a range of jobs beyond academia,” which is where the opportunities are most plentiful at present. [End Page 4] One of those methods of alignment is the development of professional skills training for graduate students while they are completing their graduate programs. It is true that all too often students emerge from Canadian graduate programs without a clear sense of how to seek work beyond academic environments and particularly without awareness of how to present themselves as viable candidates with relevant expertise for positions in other kinds of workplace settings. However, universities have begun to address this issue, and my own recent research project, Graduate Student Professional Development: A Survey with Recommendations (2012),2 examines the range of professional skills training programming in place for graduate students in universities across Canada. That report, which was begun as my seven-year term as Dean of Graduate Studies was drawing to a close, arose from my own increasing concern— and that of both sshrc and the Canadian Association for Graduate Studies, which sponsored the report—about whether or not we were doing enough in Canadian universities to help graduate students while they were completing their degrees to prepare themselves for finding meaningful work after graduation in workplace environments of all kinds. By “professional skills,” I refer to programming in universities that is dedicated to the acquisition of transferable skills and competencies, which is to say “carry-forward” or “work-ready” skill sets relevant to competing for positions within, but especially beyond, the academy. What I discovered is that there is a tremendous amount of activity in place at Canadian universities with respect to two kinds of skills training. The first is what I call “academic skills” training, which refers to research and teaching competencies—those areas that many universities have dedicated themselves to for some time, and do very well. The second type involves the acquisition of competencies sometimes referred to as “soft skills,” which have to do with self-development, self-management, self-presentation, communicating effectively to targeted audiences, and above all the ability to “translate” their achievements as graduate students—their knowledge, experience, and transferrable competencies—into language that can be understood and respected by potential employers outside the academic sector. [End Page 5] Terms such as “soft skills,” “interpersonal skills,” or “self-marketing skills” are not universally embraced by academics, given their own understandable focus on what they see as the “hard skills” relating to research and research dissemination that are their primary focus in supervising graduate students. Yet the challenge of marketing themselves to potential employers who might not speak the esoteric language of our cherished disciplines is a very real issue for students seeking meaningful work in other than academic settings where they can apply what they have learned through their highly-specialized graduate programs of study. As is to be expected, such programming takes different forms in our widely differing institutions. For some of the smaller universities with few graduate programs and few resources available for dedicated work with graduate students, programming is minimal: typically student service units offer some workshops or special guidance for graduate students focusing on work-readiness skills, and these offerings are supplemented...

15: TOMORROW'S PROFESSOR TODAY

The University of Virginia's Tomorrow's Professor Today (TPT) program is a broadly conceived graduate student professional development program designed to facilitate the transition from student to academic professional. Begun in 2005 in response to the recommendations of a number of national reform initiatives, TPT focuses on improving preparedness in three key areas: teaching, research, and service. We describe the key elements of the program and ongoing assessment efforts. Pre- and postprogram participant surveys from the first eight years show that TPT is improving perceptions of preparedness in twenty-one competencies tracked; follow-up studies support long-term impact.

Training scientists in a science center improves science communication to the public

the language of science is inherently academic and often inefficient in its delivery of key concepts to nonscientists (10a). When President Obama spoke at the National Academy of Sciences in April 2009 (15b), he issued the following call to think of new ways to engage young people in science,

Introduction to the Theme Section: Graduate Student Professional Development

Introduction to the Theme Section: Graduate Student Professional Development

The Professional Development of Future Professors of Foreign Languages: Looking Back, Looking Forward

Although the professional development of graduate students in foreign language (FL) departments is of critical importance, discussion of its significance and evolution was all but absent in the 2007 Modern Language Association report “Foreign Languages and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changed World,” a document advocating curricular and structural reforms of FL departments in forthright terms. This lacuna drove the current review, which traces the forms and foci of research appearing from 1987 to 2008 on the professional development of future professors of foreign languages. Empirical studies on the relation of graduate students’ beliefs and identities to their FL teaching experiences have integrated increasingly sophisticated research designs and theoretical frameworks over the past two decades; however, the primary focus of this field remained moving from a training perspective to a professional development perspective and substantiating this change with new practices that address FL graduate students’ long‐term needs as teachers and scholars. The authors call for a renewed focus on empirical research in this field and a more symbiotic relationship between research investigating the processes and outcomes of FL graduate student professional development and the practices called for in FL departments.

Forensics as a Gateway: Promoting Undergraduate Interest in Science, and Graduate Student Professional Development through a First-Year Seminar Course

A group of five graduate students and a faculty mentor used the cultural popularity of forensics to develop a first-year undergraduate seminar. This course fulfilled two main objectives: First, the graduate student instructors developed professionally through a two-year process of creating, instructing, and revising a course. Second, a variety of pedagogical techniques including lectures, in-class demonstrations, laboratories, student presentations, and mock criminal investigations were used to teach an introductory-level forensics seminar course with substantial chemistry content. Herein, we share our experiences in developing an effective course structure in which students were introduced to science through forensics, with an emphasis on the development of essential skills, including critical thinking and public speaking. An assessment of the project's impact on graduate students, undergraduate students, and the department is also provided.

Graduate Student Professional Development in Applied Sociology Courses through Group Research Projects

Designing stimulating and scholarly course projects for graduate students in an applied sociology course is a challenge. We discuss the development and continued refinement a type of course project that involves all students in the course in a collaborative research project and helps them understand the process of conducting and reporting applied research. Objectives of the project for the students are: (1) professionalization and socialization into the discipline; (2) experience in defining, developing, executing, and delivering a real-world research project; (3) experience in working on a research team and working with other disciplines; (4) development of critical thinking and the sociological imagination in conceptualizing the project; and (5) output of a scholarly product for the students' vita. The students define the research problem, identify subjects, develop research instruments, collect data, analyze the data, and write a paper potentially resulting in a professional meeting presentation and publication in an academic journal.

Graduate Student Professional Development: A Case Study

Graduate students within the Tropical Plant and Soil Sciences Department at the University of Hawaii at Manoa developed a program that addressed their concerns regarding career enhancement and planned a Professional Development Seminar Series. Students identified topics related to enhancing their overall graduate experience and professional development, such as ethics in research, leadership in graduate school and beyond, interviewing skills, and writing critically for publications. Experts from the University of Hawaii and business communities presented 35- to 40-minute seminars on the various topics. Expectations of the students included participation in discussion sessions and completion of a critical thinking exercise after each presentation. Course evaluations revealed that the new seminar series was considered to be as effective as established courses within the department. On a scale from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree, students learned to value new viewpoints [4.2 ± 0.8 (mean ± SD)], related what they learned in class to their own experiences (4.5 ± 0.8), and felt the course was a valuable contribution to their education (4.4 ± 0.9). Students suggested offering the course during fall semesters to incoming students, reinforcing of the critical thinking exercise, and making the course mandatory for first-year graduate students.

German Graduate Student Professional Development: Report on a Survey of Perceptions (1994-95)

In order to be successful in the competitive job market of the 1990s, today's graduate student in German must become professionally active early in his or her graduate career. While foreign language departments have lost tenure-track positions (Huber, Changes), graduate programs in German continue to produce a surplus of Ph.D.s (Huber, MLA's 1993-94 Survey). Thus, competition for even temporary appointments is tight. But what does it mean to become professionally active? Are graduate students aware of what it entails to become a member of the professoriate? Is it accurate to presume that most are interested in a career in higher education? If most do plan to pursue such a career, to what extent are German departments across the country preparing the students for the academic triad of teaching, publishing, and service? These are some of the basic questions we asked graduate students in a survey on their own professional development. 1 The topic of professional development of graduate students in German has received considerable attention in recent years, yet we hear primarily from tenured, established members of the profession whose knowledge about professional preparation of the German graduate student population is based largely on personal experience in their own departmental situation. Our aim in designing this survey was to give a voice to the graduate students themselves and shed light on the national situation. Based on the results of our nationwide survey, this paper profiles graduate students' understanding of what being a member of the professoriate involves. In addition, it discusses to what extent German departments across the country are training graduate students for quality teaching, publishing and an understanding of university service early enough to assure their survival on the job market as well as in the academy. Two points must be clarified from the outset. First, this survey reports graduate students' perceptions of their own professional development. It should thus be seen as a gauge to understanding how these graduate students see their career preparation. Their perception of their own needs for professional development may not correspond to how others (e.g., advisors, departments) view necessary preparatory activities, relationships, and goals. Second, the age of the data is a factor which must be acknowledged briefly; however, we do not believe that age diminishes relevance. We hold that the circumstances at many university graduate programs have not changed so drastically in the past three years as to discount the perceptions of respondents who may still be enrolled in graduate programs or who are just entering the job market. Further, while the academy has paid increasing attention to professional development since the time this survey was taken (e.g., sponsored sessions at national conferences, articles in profession-related journals), such discourse remains either inaccessible or undiscovered to those whose faculty advisors do