Aristotle believed that scholars shoulder a dual burden: They must strive to understand their specific discipline and also be skilled at communicating their knowledge to the public. Otherwise, instead of enriching society, the fruits of their labor will wither like unharvested grapes. But University of Texas (UT), Austin, communication professor and associate dean Rick Cherwitz thinks the modern ...
According to decisions disclosed yesterday, November 1, by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), New York University's graduate, teaching, and research assistants have won the right to form a union. In what is being heralded as a historic decision, NYU is set to become the first privately run academic institution in the U.S. to house a graduate union. NLRB board members ruled that graduate a...
Just before beginning my graduate studies, my supervisor asked me, "Are you certain you want to get a Ph.D.?" It wasn't until several years later that I understood why she asked. Graduate school is a major commitment, which will affect your life profoundly and should not be undertaken lightly. Yet, at the same time, graduate school can be very exciting, a period of personal growth and self-fulfil...
Melanie Egorin doesn't usually think about obscure government guidelines and audits. But when Egorin, president of the Graduate Student Association at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), learned of a new report that claimed UC graduate students were making too much money, she was perplexed. On 29 June, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) issued a report claiming that 24% of U...
Graduate students are reacting with dismay to a decision by the organizers of the Graduate School Survey * not to distribute rankings of student satisfaction in graduate departments across the country. "The promise to release scores specific to the departments was THE selling point of the survey," says University of California, Berkeley, chemistry grad student Elisa Cooper. "It is a terrible betr...
Few would argue that the life of a graduate student is hectic. Between attending classes and lab meetings, carrying out research, and meeting teaching obligations, students are often left with precious little time to squeeze in some networking or efforts to find balance between their careers and their personal lives. Opportunities to network with and seek advice from other women are even fewer fo...
At her very first invitation to give a seminar about graduate life, Micella talks to other students about the trials and tribulations of graduate school.
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS--When graduate students at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, overwhelmingly rejected joining the United Auto Workers (UAW) last month, they scotched what would have been only the second student union at a private U.S. university. A week after the 24 October vote, UAW organizer Joan Moriarty, a Ph.D. candidate in labor economics, still shakes with anger as she recoun...
jmlogan@artsci.wustl.edu More than 50 faculty members were there to be honored. Students, staff, administrators, and colleagues filled the room to capacity to watch these professors be recognized and thanked for their outstanding achievements as graduate student mentors. The standing-room-only crowd was there to attend the First Annual Outstanding Faculty Mentor Awards ceremony of 'the Graduate S...
My first full month as an assistant professor of chemistry at Claflin University was exciting and very hectic! Not surprisingly, my biggest challenge has been learning to balance the time I spend teaching, grading, mentoring, and advising students; attending faculty meetings; and developing a research program. Trust me, 24 hours a day is not enough time! But, I am adjusting, nevertheless. Teachin...
In August 1999, I began a new career path in the area of student employment as manager of Dalhousie University's Student Employment Center. Having worked for 15 years at universities in alumni relations and fund-raising capacities, Dalhousie recognized that my experience in relationship building, marketing, and working with people should transfer well to servicing students and employers. My first...
Finally, after all the experts and all the reports, recommendations, and best practice" guidelines, it is time for the nation's graduate students to have their say. And 32,000 have raised their voices in a common place--The National Doctoral Program Survey (NDPS). Overall, the students' message is clear--more than 80% of all respondents report positive mentoring experiences, including continuous ...
We live in a culture in which using the Internet to communicate and disseminate information is no longer optional but expected. The world of the university is no exception. Increasingly, students expect faculty to have a course Web site and electronic mailing list for communicating class information and facilitating discussions of class content. Moreover, job postings from a variety of fields cle...
Today Geoff Davis, creator of PhDs.org, and Peter Fiske, motivational speaker and columnist for Science's Next Wave, announced that they will not be ranking graduate departments based on the anonymous online survey that they conducted from 25 April to 8 July 1999. One of the primary goals of the survey was to rank graduate school departments based on student satisfaction. And although the America...
Aging tenured professors often describe graduate school in terms reserved for first loves and walks in the Paris moonlight. They were happy, free to explore, intellectually stimulated, and their productivity soared unfettered by the burdens of administration and teaching. Lacking the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia, grad students tell a rather different story. They know that even at its best, gr...
You wake up early in the morning with plans of what needs to be done filling your mind. You rush through the day with long experiments that invariably do not produce the desired results. In the middle of all this, you find time and energy to make your way through an endless jungle of research articles. You end your day making plans for what needs to be done tomorrow. And when you finally reach yo...
The American Astronomical Society (AAS), like any good professional scientific society, has a vested interest in graduate education. At its January 2003 meeting in Seattle, organisers held a session entitled "Innovations in Graduate Education in Astronomy." The purpose of this session was to keep graduate education front-and-centre within the organisation, and to encourage astronomy departments a...
Statistics Canada has released its annual report on university tuition fees, and in all but three provinces, the news for graduate students is not good. But as students prepare to face the rising costs of a higher education in Canada this year, one university is implementing a strategy to ensure that its Ph.D. students have the resources to complete their studies. According to the report, the ave...
