GRADUATE STUDENT CORNER

Hello everyone. This month, I used a great idea one of the faculty/professional mentors suggested to make things a little different. The idea was to do a "flip" and let the faculty and non-academic professionals ask graduate students the questions.

I believe that doing this could serve several purposes. First, letting faculty and non-academics ask the questions gives them the opportunity to find out directly how to help graduate students without having to worry if the graduate students they are asking are just telling them what they want to hear. Obviously, all faculty and non-academics have been students before, but they may have attended school at a different type of university or in a department with a different climate. Second, letting graduate students answer the questions can offer a unique opportunity to find out exactly what is needed so that targeted improvement in services that are specifically available to them can be made. Finally, by answering questions and then reading the responses of others, graduate students can see a column of this type as a resource that assures them that they are not alone in their experiences. Though it is reassuring to know that others have made it through and are out there to support them (faculty and non-academic professionals), it is also comforting to know sometimes that others are currently enduring similar events.

With all that being said, there was a healthy response from faculty and non-academics in soliciting questions for the graduate students. The response from the graduate students was a little short this month, which is completely understandable with it being mid-term time. In order to make up the shortfall, I answered a couple of the questions myself. Therefore, the responses below are not as representative as they could be, but I hope that they will provide some interesting food for thought. I do think that this is a good idea and I hope that in the future, we can try it again or another columnist will think about trying it.

I can't believe it, but it's almost conference time again. To that end, there are several conference-relevant questions that should be of timely interest. I would like to thank all of the faculty, professionals, and students who took the time to send in questions and responses. Also, one of the faculty members was kind enough to write in and respond to student questions that went unanswered from the previous column. You will find those at the end of the article. If you have any suggestions or comments, please feel free to E-mail me at khefley@ou.edu. Have a terrific remainder of the semester and I hope to see many of you at the ASC conference soon.

Contributors:

Professors and Non-Academic Mentors: Brenda Blackwell, Kathleen Cameron, Mona Danner, Joanne Kaufman, Susan Miller, Angie Moe

Students: Rachel Bandy, Amanda Burgess-Proctor, Lisa Fahres, Kristen Hefley

What types of guidance/support/help (etc.) would graduate students like to get from Professors before, and at, professional conferences?

Being new to conferences, I was pretty intimidated. I also wasn't sure how to best spend my time. Prof's have kindly offered pre-conference 'dry runs' in front of a dept audience of my presentations with feedback. They also offered suggestions about how to maximize the conference experience (what receptions to attend, etc). I believe that these simple acts have really helped professionalize me into academia.
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I would like to know what is considered important at the conference and what is considered less important, so I can prioritize and try to be present at the most significant events and don't feel like I missed out on anything, and also so I can meet people and network.

What should departments/faculty/mentors do to help you prepare to present and attend conferences? What do you expect from your faculty while you are attending conferences (e.g., attending your sessions, introducing you to other scholars, etc.)?

I think faculty should encourage students to attend conferences as undergrads so they can first see what the world of academia is like. I came home so inspired after my first conference. I think it will help students decide if graduate school is for them. Second, I think faculty members and mentors need to encourage graduate students to present at conferences more. All to often it is the same people from my department going to conferences and presenting and the same ones who are not. Last, departments need to offer graduate students funding specifically for conference attendance. As graduate students we are on limited budgets and these budgets can sometimes discourage students from presenting independently because they do not have the funds needed to travel to and attend a conference.

While at the conference I do not expect my mentor to attend my session every time. Once in a while is nice in order to get some critical feedback on the presentation. However, usually my mentors have read drafts of my presentation so they already know what is being done. It is nice for mentors to introduce you to other scholars while you are at conferences. There is nothing like meeting the people whose work you have read throughout your career and having the opportunity to talk with them. In some cases it can be like meeting your favorite Hollywood celebrity.
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I am very fortunate because grad students in my department are definitely socialized to attend and present papers at conferences. This is accomplished in several ways. First, and most fortunately for us, grad students receive funding once a year for travel expenses. Second, faculty members strongly encourage students to present papers that have been completed as class assignments. So, for example, after one of my statistics classes my professor encouraged us not only to present our work at ASC or ACJS, but also to submit the paper for publication. Third, our department hosts a lunchtime "brown bag" series, in which students can sign up to practice their paper presentations before the actual conference. (This also applies if students on the job market wish to practice their job talks before interviews begin.) Similarly, grad student in my department work closely with one another. You'll often find students practicing their presentations with each other, or making plans for carpooling to conferences (especially for regional conferences, which typically are easier to get to than national ones). Finally, we have a department newsletter in which news of student conference presentations is published.
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The first time I ever presented, I wanted faculty members, friends, acquaintances, everyone in the room with me. Now it is nice to have that support from a trusted faculty member who you know will provide you with quality feedback later, but I don't absolutely need it for support anymore. Before the conference, I like to show my overheads and/or notes to my advisor to let her look over what I have to say and see if it makes sense. If she is willing to do that, I am happy. I have tried not to be a pest and follow the faculty members around that I know while I am at conferences, but it can be pretty intimidating at first because a lot of times we don't know anyone unless they go to our university. Now I am a lot more comfortable going out on my own, mostly due to the DWC. I think that is one of the ways that I have been helped the most is by being introduced to a stable group of attendees whom I can connect with and talk to about common interests while I am at the conference. Though I still think of faculty members a little bit as my anchors, it is less so more than it used to be. I don't expect faculty members to do anything for me, though.

Do you glean significant benefits from the DWC at the conference? Are there sessions that you feel assist you in your growth as a budding scholar? Would you like to see more of such sessions?

I would be absolutely lost without DWC. I look forward to going to DWC events every year and seeing people I remember from the previous conferences. The stability, support, and inspiration is what means the most to me. The non-research oriented DWC sessions (on teaching, publishing, etc.) seem geared more toward either faculty or very late term graduate students, so while I expect them to eventually be useful, I haven't yet found that they apply to me.

For graduate assistants, do you have recommendations for how faculty can better work with you in generating feasible assignments, assignments that do not require constant supervision, yet are still challenging and learning experiences?

Wow. I think this may only be possible in independent study with a professor and student who are both on the same page, but maybe not. Some things that I always found challenging but that I did not feel completely lost when I had to do them were class presentations over reading material and coming up with weekly questions to discuss. If I, as the student, am responsible for the material, I can't exactly ask the professor to supervise me, as long as I understand the assignment. I think one pitfall though is that some students who aren't self-motivated will not challenge themselves and will just "make up" random questions or present things that are loosely related. Yet you can grade them subjectively (on how complex the questions are, for example, or how well they presented the material) or objectively (on how much discussion their questions generated). These are my paltry suggestions.

I am curious what kind of mentoring is most desired and helpful? How can your mentors be of most help to you?

From my experience and from talking with my colleagues in my own department, it seems that many new students are intimidated when they first come into a department and some, perhaps mostly females but maybe not, think they don't have the right to approach professors with an interest or question or think that they have anything interesting to talk to professors about, especially in a department where faculty give off the impression that they are "very busy." I think what would have been helpful to me at the beginning would have been if faculty members at least initiated more contact and projects with me until I gained some of my own graduate school "self-esteem," so to speak, and also learned the norms of the department and figured out that interacting with faculty was not only okay, this was a part of the process. So I guess a big part of mentoring may be making us feel included so we can start feeling more independent, which may sound like a contradiction.

What would graduate students like for an "ideal" mentor? (Describe the types of support, deadlines, co-authorship opportunities etc.)

To use a terrible cliche, someone who is going to go to bat for you. Besides all of the things that typically come with mentorship (guidance, advice-giving, etc.), I think that it is really important that the person who acts as your mentor be very, very supportive of your work. This does not necessarily mean that you mentor need be like-minded or that she do the exact same type of research, but only that she be a staunch supporter of you and your work. Also, more specifically, I can't say enough about how much I appreciate my mentors introducing me to people at conferences. It can be very intimidating to walk up to respected people in the field and introduce yourself -- mentors, please be sure to drag your grad students along to events and make introductions!
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From a mentor I would like someone who is realistic about what can be accomplished over a certain period of time. In our department we have some faculties members that are a little too relaxed with their students and others who are to nit picky and hold up their students progress. The mentor I currently have seems to have a good balance when it comes to this area. This person has me go through several drafts of things to get it to a good quality and will sign off on it with the understanding that we will come back to it and polish it for publishing.

Since getting a job as an assistant professor in many institutions depends on the number of publications it would be nice to have faculty members who are willing to publish with their students. First, as a graduate student publishing something is a scary process. It would be nice to have your first potential publication co-authored with a faculty member to get you through the sometimes harsh criticisms from reviewers.

What type of climate do you need within a department in order to feel supported and welcome?

I'd like a dept with consistent, well-known rules which are mutually created and agreed upon (as is feasible). I'd also like a dept with an established expectation for professional behavior (no flying off the handle when a prof is in a bad mood and crosses a student's path).
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I would like a department which in which people do not feel alienated. I think there should be an emphasis on holding group activities, especially ones that are related to the discipline, but there also should not be pressure for people to participate. I think group cohesion is very important to departmental harmony.

What have been the one or two most important things that a faculty member has done to really help you?

The most helpful experiences I've had to date include a prof encouraging me to follow up a research paper with real research. He told me exactly how to secure modest funding, followed through with a letter of support and the necessary signatures, and then applied gentle, consistent pressure on me throughout the research process. He never let me rest on my laurels. He always pushed me to do more and showed me exactly how to do more. He explained the publishing process, the textbook publishing process, and kept me in the loop with his correspondences with editors. I learned a lot about writing for publication. Secondly, other professors have been flexible in letting me develop a class project that spoke directly to my interests rather than produce something strictly according to their syllabus. This allowed me to incorporate my interests into the class material while also having my writing evaluated by great profs.
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I don't even think I could begin to list them all; I have had so many positive, helpful experiences with professors, particularly a couple, and I can't even quantify it into single experiences. A couple of things that stand out are standing up for me when the research I wanted to do was over a sensitive topic, and giving me the inside scoop on the job market-things you can't read in a book.

What is the most important advice you received from a faculty member?

Honestly, to not take things so personally. And it's about the soundest and most prescient advice I've ever received!!
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To develop a thick skin, because between student evaluations and article rejections, I was going to need it if I was going to survive academia.

What has been the least helpful thing a faculty member has done for you or said to you?

I have had many more positive interactions with faculty members than negative, so probably the least helpful thing was doing nothing at all. There were times when a faculty member said, "Let's get together on that" or "I want to help you work on that" and it never happened.
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Least helpful thing said: "Don't get discouraged at the beginning about the job search. Keep in mind that the jobs that are listed early are for people from more prestigious universities. There will be jobs that will be better for you that are listed in November, December and January." The person who said it was not trying to be malicious, and thought the words would be well-received, but I don't even think I need to say how it made me personally feel.

What are the worst assignments you have had? The best?

The worst assignments I had as a graduate student were those that were so rigid, I could not glean any personal benefit from doing them, but had to do them to complete the requirements for the course. It's not that I don't trust the professor to know what is beneficial for me-I didn't want the entire project changed; in the cases I am thinking of, I actually wanted to expand on the project or topic slightly in a creative way. I could have used the professor's advice and maybe turned the paper into a publication. If you want examples, the worst were those where I was expected to essentially cut and paste literature together into a "research paper" like we all did as undergraduates, and where the professor wanted assignments that were almost verbatim copied out of the texts. So the best assignments are those that have practical value, allow for creativity, and are flexible in their applications.

Do you feel that there is a difference between the level and quality of mentoring that female versus male graduate students receive in your program (please do not name the program)? If so, what are the differences? Do you have ideas about why these differences occur and suggestions to address them?

While it is hard to make generalizations, looking back over the few years I have been here, if anything, in my department, I think that the males had it a little harder and some of the faculty (certainly not all) went a little harder on them, but I think that was probably because they expected more out of them and less out of the females, which is a travesty for all involved in my opinion. As far as the quality of mentoring, I don't think there was much of a difference.

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Responses to student questions from the Summer 2005 newsletter:

How many lecture-related activities/games are appropriate? Where can I find interesting, low-cost activities for my students?

I like to use about two-three activities each month though they vary widely depending on the activity and the course. By activities I mean games, videos, free-writes, in-class excercises, etc. The journals
Teaching Sociology and the Journal of Criminal Justice Education have good ideas. Many professional conferences offer some workshops or sessions on teaching. Also, there are a variety of websites that include ideas for classroom activities as well as about teaching in general (no endorsement of any of these is implied). Even if they're not in your discipline, they might spark some ideas. Finally, there's no substitute for talking to other faculty.

http://tep.uoregon.edu/resources/librarylinks/articles/icebreaker.html
http://teaching.berkeley.edu/compendium/
http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/teachtip.htm
http://www.lemoyne.edu/ts/tscyber.html - for info about how to subscibe to the Teaching Sociology listserv


As a grad student, for what salary and benefits is it appropriate to negotiate?

It's extraordinarily rare for graduate students to be able to negotiate salary and/or benefits. However, the worst that can happen is that you'll be told "no." So, consider what you need and then ask for that along with a justification for your requests.