Enhancing the Graduate Experience
by Isaac M.Colbert
From the MIT Faculty Newsletter, Vol. XV, No. 4

In my role as advocate for graduate students, I've been working for several years to stimulate and inform the discussion about graduate community at MIT. Some earlier phases of this effort are described in two previous issues of the Faculty Newsletter (Vol. XIII No. 3, January/February 2001;Vol. XIV No. 3, January/February 2002). This work has raised in my mind a number of questions about what it means to be a graduate student today. The world in which today's graduate students live and work has changed from that of my generation. It is more racially and culturally diverse, international, and interdisciplinary – a reality requiring students to develop skill sets not necessarily learned within the circumscribed context of a traditional research lab, where they are primarily acculturated to their fields.

Naturally, this suggests a dialogue with faculty around the evolving relationship between faculty and their graduate students, focusing on questions such as: What is the difference between faculty expectations for a graduate student's work ethic and the student's desire for a "more balanced" graduate experience? To what extent can or should faculty encourage students to strive for such a balance? Is there any realistic alternative? What are implications for research productivity, professionalism, and time-to-degree?

This article describes two strands of work conducted over the past year that shed additional light on the discussion. Two outcomes of this work are an analysis of answers to three open-ended questions included in the online graduate student survey administered last October; and, second, a set of proposals for enhancing the graduate experience, submitted to me in two request-for-proposal cycles.

As you know, the springboard for the ongoing discussion of community has been the educational triad, the three essential components of the ideal education at MIT. Since the triad was introduced in the 1998 report of the Task Force on Student Life and Learning, the relevance of academics and research has not been challenged. But the role and relevance of community as the third leg of the triad have been, especially for graduate students.

To explore this discrepancy, I've surveyed graduate students, faculty, and alums in focus groups to learn what they had to say about community. There has been surprising alignment between students and alums, although less so – at least initially – with faculty. For example, students and alums considered experiences of community as essential for grad students who, after graduation, step into roles as global leaders. They linked community experiences with refining communications skills, the ability to explain, clarify, persuade, teach, and "sell" their ideas to others. They agreed that community experiences were vital to the student's cognitive development, and that the lack of emphasis on community at MIT limits the graduate student's potential contribution. On the other hand, faculty are certainly not aligned uniformly with these views; they may not agree that community can exist institutionally for graduate students.

This past year, I saw another opportunity to enlighten the discussion, using the graduate student survey as a vehicle. Together with the Office of Institutional Research, I crafted three open-ended questions to include in the survey. The first of these questions addressed the relevance of the triad for graduate students. The second and third questions asked students to comment on their personal experiences.

• The September 1998 report from the Task Force on Student Life and Learning states that "An MIT education should prepare students for life through an educational triad composed of academics, research, and community." How is this relevant for graduate students?
• If you could change one thing about your experience to make it more successful or fulfilling, what would it be?
• What three things would you like to see happen at MIT to enhance the quality of life for graduate students?

Forty-four percent of the graduate student body, or 2,765 students, responded to the survey. What they had to say offered strong support for the original focus group research. Seventy-one percent of the students who responded to the triad question agreed on its relevance, and 37 percent of those who qualified their responses believed that the community element was lacking at MIT.

Typical comments included:

"Simple. You need to gain knowledge: hence academics. You need to also expand the bounds of knowledge: hence research. And you need to learn to relate all these to the people around you: community."

"It [community] is relevant for graduate students in creating a balanced and fulfilling graduate education. Graduate students should leave the Institute not only competent in their field but also understanding the impact they can have when their perspective includes the world as a whole."

"I think MIT does an excellent job preparing grad students in the areas of academics and research. I think MIT needs to do a little more work in the area of community though. Things like getting along with one's peers. The days of the lone genius coming up with Nobel quality work are more or less over. These days most of us work, or will work in a lab with others, and we need to know how to commend them for their great work, and to disagree with them when the need arises. I think we often assume if our brains are fine tuned, others will excuse our social ineptitudes. If we can, why should we not just be more perfect individuals?"

The second strand of work was motivated by the availability of $200K in student life fee funds. This was the perfect opportunity to gather fresh ideas about programmatic efforts that might make a difference for the graduate experience. Deciding to request proposals for enhancing graduate life, I assigned a committee (four graduate students and three administrators) to publish a set of proposal guidelines and design a selection process open to the entire community. In just over six months, 50 unique proposals were submitted by students, administrators, and even one alum; of these, 23 proposals have been funded to date, at a relatively modest cost.

Some proposals encourage socialization among different groups while others focus on integrating academic and social aspects of graduate life; some proposals hope to strengthen communications and outreach to the entire student body, while others support the arts. Still others are sound programmatic efforts that might serve as models for community building. A few examples: the Physics Pride Campaign sparks student interest and involvement in fostering community among graduate students through orientations and social events that convene faculty and students from widely dispersed departments, labs, and centers. The hugely successful arts reception at the List Visual Arts Center introduced graduate students (only) to the student loan art program. Plans for a Research Expo, a conference-style venue for celebrating the research being conducted at MIT, are already underway.

Two by-products of this process are important to note: the variety in the proposals submitted, and the accumulated wisdom of the selection committee. Proposals describe what students perceive as missing, the opportunities they wish were available as part of a common graduate experience. In implementing the selection process, the committee came closer to articulating what we mean by graduate community, and by discerning patterns in the kinds of proposals accepted for funding – and those that were not – how we might "operationalize" such an elusive concept. We have learned that students want support for integrating academic and social aspects of graduate life; strengthening communication and outreach; focus on the arts; bringing together diverse constituencies; and developing additional facilities and infrastructure for community life.

In focus groups, in answers to questions posed on the graduate student survey, and in proposals submitted for enhancing the graduate experience, students are expressing a desire for something different, more relevant, from their graduate experience. This requires a broader effort than what departments already do so well in preparing their students intellectually and socially within their chosen fields. The question now has to do with our collective responsibility: What does it take to reorient our thinking to address students' changed expectations and to realign our efforts and priorities? Departments can't do it all, so how do we organize and coordinate a broader effort that effectively bridges institutional initiatives to departmental activities?

My view is that a collaborative approach leverages the efforts of a broad array of organizations and individuals, and moves us in the right direction. In a variety of ways, I'll be seeking broad input from the faculty to further articulate issues about evolving graduate student expectations. I welcome observations and suggestions from individual faculty and from others who have already been engaged in exploring issues of "community" at MIT.

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For their contributions to this work, I wish to thank Barrie Gleason and Blanche Staton in the Graduate Students Office; and for their recent efforts, Lydia Snover and Greg Harris, Institutional Research.

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