Years in the Balance: An Informal Discussion and Mentoring Series for First- and Second-Year Graduate Students

Tiffany Aldrich
I am facilitating a number of informal roundtable discussions to be held over the course of the 2001-2002 academic year. During these sessions, which would be open to all departments, graduate students who have completed coursework will present to their junior colleagues personal experiences with and approaches to solving problems endemic to the first years of graduate school. These presentations will be followed by a question-and-answer and discussion period that will allow beginning students to articulate their experiences and reactions, as well as to seek advice and support. The session topics that I propose are intended to address common anxieties leading to attrition in the first and second years of graduate school: balancing teaching or research duties with the obligations of being a student; pre-professionalizing and fostering relationships with professors; pursuing service opportunities and leadership positions; formulating a rough final project topic; and maintaining a "real" life in the world outside of school. After each session, as a means of assessing and evaluating the success of the roundtable discussion, I will ask participants to complete a brief questionnaire designed to solicit feedback on the relevance and helpfulness of the meeting, and I will consider the responses when planning the next session. Additionally, I will create a listserv for the series, through which I will solicit ideas for topics, and on which I will post important information from the roundtables. At the end of the year I plan to create a web-based troubleshooting guide for future first- and second-year graduate students.

Scholarly Publication Writers' Groups for Postdocs

Joanne Bookmyer
Postdoctoral scholars need to acquire a broad complement of research, technical and professional skills to compete in a competitive job market, one of the most important being the art of generating scholarly publications. They are also encouraged to participate in the academic community, one that fosters the collaborative sharing of knowledge and expertise with their colleagues and peers.

The number of postdoctoral scholars in the social sciences and humanities on the UC Davis campus is relatively small and they are scattered across a number of departments. As a result, many work in relative isolation. For my PFTF project I plan on forming a special interest group for this population. Participants will meet with postdoctoral scholars from other disciplines on a regular basis. The goals are to encourage a sense of community that transcends departmental barriers, to share knowledge and expertise with future colleagues and, most important, to encourage group members to write.

Publishing in the Academy

Sharon Braden
The project on which I and my colleague Hope Medina are currently working creates a series of roundtable sessions that will address particular issues directly related to academic publication. Certainly, the demands and requirements of the publishing world vary depending on fields of study. These roundtables will be multi-disciplinary in content and guests and will speak to both the specific and generality of publishing. Our first roundtable will highlight the experience of graduate students from both the sciences and humanities who already have successfully published in their fields. Our second will be with new faculty members discussing publishing a first book, finding an editor, managing graphics, and copyright issues. Our third will be a roundtable including more senior faculty members that sit on editorial boards discussing professional demeanor, what makes their jobs easier, and the possibilities and problems of online publishing. Our series will conclude with a presentation by Bill Germano, Vice President of Routledge, and author of Getting it Published.

Equation-free statistics & experimental design cookbook

Joseph Garner
Confusing, overwhelming, impregnable, frightening, stressful Ð statistics courses are often the low point of any graduate career. Few students, unless they are in the math program, readily understand all those nasty squiggles in the textbook. Most learn to reproduce them, and to perform the exercises required for a passing grade in midterms and finals. However, passing a statistics midterm is very very different from really knowing how to approach the design and analysis of your own research. Good experimental design and statistics are the most fundamental aspect of almost any successful scientific experiment, but most journals are littered with statistical errors. As a result, being taught to identify and avoid such errors provides a head-and-shoulders advantage to the young scientist. I aim to develop an interactive workshop course designed to teach graduate-level statistics from the point of view of experimental design, and a handful of fundamental concepts. The workshops will use real-world practical examples to illustrate and lead a cook-book approach to theory, discussing when a particular test should and should not be used, and the common pitfalls involved in using it. Discussions will revolve around journal articles or proposed experiments chosen by the workshop participants from their own research backgrounds. I hope that through learning to identify and correct the flaws in real research, the workshop participants will become adept at 1) criticizing the work of their peers, and 2) avoiding similar mistakes themselves Ð in other words at designing elegant experiments and analyzing them appropriately.

Developing a "Healthy Nutritional Habits" Handbook for Graduate Students

Caroline Kurtz
In graduate school, we are taught that studying hard, being independent, having a positive mentor/student relationship, and the all-important funding will get us through the graduate school process. However, positive nutritional habits are often neglected and many times not even recognized by students as a major contributor to their success in graduate school. Much nutritional information is available to the public in the form of magazine and newspaper articles. However, much of it is questionable at best. In addition, the information may be confusing and require a background in nutrition to understand. Moreover, those who do recognize their behavior as counterproductive may not know how to improve their situation. For my PFTF project, I will develop a handbook to guide graduate students through specific nutritional and health issues. The handbook will be written so that students across all disciplines can first recognize the issues and then learn how to deal with them. Students can also attend talks by recognized experts in the field of nutrition and health. The talks will elaborate on one or more of the nutritional and health issues presented in the handbook, and will allow students to ask questions, thereby resulting in a better understanding of how they might improve their academic performance.

UCD Come Together

Susan Lee
UCD Come Together is a project that will consist of informal events that will allow graduate students and postdoctoral scholars from diverse backgrounds and interests to interact. The goal of this project is to combat social and departmental isolation by bringing together peers in a unique environment to network and participate in the campus community. UCD Come Together is structured on informal events. This is a key aspect of this project. Many campus events consist of seminars in which the audience does not interact with the speaker or one another. Other events place pressure on each participant to interact with the group as a whole. Bringing the graduate students and postdoctoral scholars together informally, without a formal discussion topic or requirements, will allow the open exchange of ideas and experiences. Each activity will be planned and promoted via the campus newsletters, a project web site and email notices. The variety in the events should encourage a large segment of the graduate population to participate.

Publishing in the Academy

Hope Medina
The project on which I and my colleague Hope Medina are currently working creates a series of roundtable sessions that will address particular issues directly related to academic publication. Certainly, the demands and requirements of the publishing world vary depending on fields of study. These roundtables will be multi-disciplinary in content and guests and will speak to both the specific and generality of publishing. Our first roundtable will highlight the experience of graduate students from both the sciences and humanities who already have successfully published in their fields. Our second will be with new faculty members discussing publishing a first book, finding an editor, managing graphics, and copyright issues. Our third will be a roundtable including more senior faculty members that sit on editorial boards discussing professional demeanor, what makes their jobs easier, and the possibilities and problems of online publishing. Our series will conclude with a presentation by Bill Germano, Vice President of Routledge, and author of Getting it Published.

Graduate Student Attrition

Nicole Rabaud
I am developing a study of graduate student attrition at UC Davis. Attrition from graduate school is often poorly quantified because students do not need to file any paperwork to withdraw, and simply go on Planned Educational Leave Program (PELP) indefinitely, go on Filing Fee for more than 2 years, or just disappear. As a first step in my research, I will be interviewing graduate staff advisers for all campus graduate groups and programs, which will enable me to determine the extent of attrition numerically. Second, I will gather qualitative data by talking to current and departed graduate students. I am particularly interested in determinants such as financial background, gender and culture or ethnicity and their effect on success in graduate school. If you would like to contact me about these or any other aspects of graduate education and quality of life at UC Davis, please e-mail me at gradassistant@ucdavis.edu.

Where do we go from here?

Anna Sears
I am interested in how graduate students develop and alter their career goals as they progress through graduate school. When most students begin their ascent through graduate school, they have little understanding about what it is actually like to work at a university, or in other fields. What factors encourage some individuals to remain in academia, and others to work for industry or government? Within academia, what factors draw individuals to work at research institutions, and others to work at liberal arts colleges? Do students often experience a conflict between their career goals and their personal goals or responsibilities? With these questions in mind, I intend to survey a wide sample of graduate students, focusing particularly on the sciences. In this field there is a wide variety of career options, but many jobs are highly demanding, creating potential conflicts between personal and professional lives.

International Graduate Students and Academic Major Advisors

Samer Talozi
As of fall 2000, international graduate students comprised 20.24% of the UC Davis graduate student population. International students face many challenges upon arrival in the US such as language, housing, transportation, and maybe food. Graduate students face an additional challenge, which is to select and maintain a healthy relationship with their major advisor. This relationship is critical for all graduate students, but is more critical for international students due to differences in the academic culture between the US and other countries of the world. On this relationship depends the success of the graduate student in his/her studies.

My project will address the academic relationship between graduate students and their major advisor. My objective is to prepare a guidebook to help new and continuing international students in improving their academic relationship with their academic advisors which will tackle issues such as the differences in academic relationships in the US and other countries of the world, preparation for regular meetings with the major advisor, and what to expect from the major advisor. In addition, international graduate students will have the chance to attend two workshops on this subject in the winter and spring quarter of the year 2002.

Parenting in the Academy

Bibit Traut
As a participant mentor in a former PFTF project (Thriving in the Ivory Tower), it became apparent that graduate students, in particular women, are looking for models of professors who successfully balance a professional and personal life ("balanced model"). Moreover, many women students reject an academic lifestyle that excludes non-academic relationships and activities, including childrearing. This means after having children, many women drop out of graduate school. For my project, I am organizing a series of workshops that provide techniques, tools and resources to meet the challenges of parenting in the academy. It is designed for graduate students in general, not just women, as many men face the same challenge of balancing career and family. Topics will include: (1) career skills; (2) pregnancy and productivity; (3) parenting in graduate school; (4) parenting and professorship. Designing and implementing a workshop series on "Parenting in the Academy" enhances my personal and professional development by asserting my belief and hope that a "balanced model" can exist. The project will be a success if it brings together graduate students to share their experience of balancing family and academia, and more so if it helps to establish a network of mentors.

Making Use of the Portal: MyUCDavis for Graduate Students

Loriena Yancura
My experience as a graduate student, teaching assistant, and member of student government has taught me that most graduate students arenÕt aware of many campus resources available to them. One such resource is MyUCDavis, a custom-made Web Portal available to all students and instructors at UCD. MyUCDavis provides a virtual space for us to manage UC Davis-related coursework, communications, library services, and even campus activities. Its newest feature, which is scheduled to come out spring quarter 2002, includes an interactive grade book. I am part of the committee that is helping to develop this new module. My project is to conduct a series of workshops in spring to help graduate students learn to use MyUCDavis to its full advantage. As future faculty members and researchers, it is important that we learn to take advantage of technology that will help us to make valuable contributions to the academic community. I am looking forward to sharing MyUCDavis with fellow graduate students.