Journeys in Graduate Study: Exploring Ways to Improve the Graduate Student Experience - Speakers
A symposium for graduate faculty, students, and alumni
Monday, February 20, 2006, 1:00-5:00 p.m.
Illini Union Rooms A,B, & C
Speakers
A surprisingly high proportion of doctoral students never complete their degree. Why do students leave? Is some attrition okay? This event, sponsored by the Graduate College, will explore what faculty and students can do to proactively improve the graduate student experience.
Dr. Chris M. Golde is a Senior Scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, where she is research director for the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate. For the last decade her research has focused on doctoral education, particularly the experiences of doctoral students. Her dissertation work was on doctoral student attrition, and she is the lead author of At Cross Purposes: What the Experiences of Today's Doctoral Students Reveal about Doctoral Education, the 2001 report of the national Survey on Doctoral Education and Career Preparation, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts (www.phd-survey.org). She was the featured respondent for the Chronicle of Higher Education colloquy about doctoral student attrition (January, 2004). She is co-editor, with George Walker, of Envisioning the Future of Doctoral Education. Preparing Stewards of the Discipline, published in late 2005.
Dr. Kim Graber is an associate professor in the Department of Kinesiology where she coordinates the undergraduate and graduate programs in pedagogy. She received her bachelor's degree from the University of Iowa, her masters from Columbia University, and her doctorate from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Her research focuses on teacher socialization, faculty micropolitics, and research methods. Specifically, she is interested in understanding the process by which students learn while enrolled at a college or university. She has served as President of the National Association for Sport and Physical Education, chair of the Curriculum and Instruction Academy, and is a fellow in the Research Consortium. At the University of Illinois she serves on the Graduate College Executive Committee, the UIUC Senate, and chairs the Committee on Committees. She has published her scholarship in a wide variety of journals and has presented her work at dozens of national and international conferences, including an invited keynote address at the Healthy Schools Summit in Washington, DC. She particularly enjoys teaching and mentoring undergraduate and graduate students.
Paula Havlik received her BA ('77) and MA ('79) degrees from the Department of Speech Communication at the University of Illinois. She has been a UI staff member since 1984, serving in public relations, development and alumni affairs positions for a variety of units, including WILL-AM-FM-TV, the Office of Women's Studies, Robert Allerton Park and Conference Center, and the School of Social Work. In her current role as the UI Alumni Association's Associate Director for Club & Constituent Programs, she oversees relationships with college and department-based alumni associations and regional alumni chapters throughout the world.
Tyson Miller is an assistant professor of chemistry (chemical education) at the University of Connecticut. He completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in May 2005 under the direction of Prof. Stanley Smith and Prof. Scott Denmark. His chemical education research focuses on conceptual mastery and retention of general and organic chemistry. Prof. Miller's non-conventional dual-advisor path to his doctorate contributed greatly to getting his current position, but also afforded an interesting case study on the role of contrasting mentorship styles toward graduate student success.
Jill Schreiber received a bachelor's degree with honors in Psychology from Indiana University in 1988. She began her doctoral studies in 1990 in the department that was then known as Human Development and Family Studies in ACES. She followed her advisor, Judy DeLoache to the Developmental Psychology department. She decided to leave the PhD program after 3 years and completed the requirements needed for a Master's in Psychology. Schreiber then took some time off from academia and later returned to Illinois to complete a Master's in Social Work in 1996, in order to prepare her for a more applied field. She worked for several years as a child therapist in a mental health center. She took time off from that job to raise a family and is currently serves as Mentor and Volunteer Coordinator for Champaign Unit 4 Schools.
Rakhi Sen is a Clinical Counselor at the UIUC Counseling Center. She graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in 2001 with a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology. Her primary advisor was Dr. Helen Farmer and Dr. Dorothy Espelage served as her co-advisor. She came to UIUC as an international student from India in 1994, and has been working full time at the Counseling Center since 2001. In her current position, she does clinical work (individual and group counseling), trains pre-doctoral interns and practicum students, and coordinates outreach efforts to international students on campus.