Students pass through the library quad at Oregon State University. (photo: Theresa Hogue)

A study by three Oregon State University librarians has found that graduate students have a strong desire for more support, more resources and better communication networks with their fellow students.

The researchers found that graduate students pose a unique challenge to those who provide university services because they take on multiple roles, including student, teacher and researcher. And depending on the college or department that is supporting them, those students face a range of obstacles in accessing the kind of support they’re looking for, whether that be social, academic or financial.

What began as a focus group to assess how the library could better utilize its space for graduate students led librarians to discover that some of those students struggle with basic research and teaching needs.

“Seemingly small hurdles can add undue stress and frustration to the lives of graduate students,” the librarians said.

In February 2010, an OSU Libraries graduate student services committee gathered 36 graduate students from eight colleges and 26 departments across campus and held focus groups to identify barriers to their success. Librarians Hannah Gascho Rempel, Uta Hussong-Christian and Margaret Mellinger then analyzed the results of those conversations to break down the types of needs identified. Those results are being published in an article in the November edition of the Journal of Academic Librarianship.

The support requests surprised the librarians. Many students had simple needs, like, for instance, a three-hole punch, or access to free copy services so they didn’t have to pay to photocopy items for their undergraduate students on their own dime.

“Some of the graduate students didn’t even have funds available for printing out the handouts they needed to teach class,” Mellinger said.

While some students in the better-funded colleges seemed to have a strong level of support, other students, the “have-nots,” as Gascho Rempel referred to them, talked about sharing one office and two computers with three other graduate students.

“Some of these students are not as well-supported as others and were bearing a substantial cost,” said Hussong-Christian. “That was a little shocking.”

Because of the complex role they play on campus, and because they’re often sequestered in their own departments, outreach to graduate students isn’t always easy.

“You can get ‘siloed’ a little bit (in your area of expertise) and it’s easy to not see where the gaps are,” said Gascho Rempel. “So in seeing this broader cross section of folks we started thinking about a more holistic way of looking at graduate students.”

Among the responses was a request that spanned all students — a way to interact with graduate students outside of their discipline, whether that was a physical or a virtual space where they could communicate with other students, learn about their research and perhaps support each other.

“The desire to communicate with students outside of their own field was expressed by many,” Hussong-Christian said. “And they wanted to learn about what other research is happening on campus and make connections with other researchers.”

Many graduate students wanted to see an online database of the research projects going on across campus, mainly for the opportunity to do cross-disciplinary, collaborative work with other students, or to learn about equipment available in labs outside of their department that might aid their own work.

Other issues, including creating a shared graduate student social space or an online research database, will have to be taken on in conjunction with or by other units on campus.

“While it is important to remove policy and procedural barriers and develop long-term plans to accommodate graduate students, this study alerted us to problems that go well beyond what the library can do alone,” the researchers wrote.

Many of the issues identified in the report have also been noted by the OSU Graduate School, which is working on the development of a new five-year strategic plan. One priority goal identified in this plan focuses on improving the quality of graduate student experiences, including: the creation of a Graduate Student Network for improved peer-to-peer collaboration; a Graduate Student Liaison position to improve outreach to students across campus; and increased financial and mentorship resources. Another goal identified in the plan is providing increased support and resources for interdisciplinary graduate student research.

The Graduate School will be asking for feedback and input from graduate students over the coming year to ensure their voices and needs are reflected in the five-year strategic plan.

The librarians hope to do a follow-up study to look at the difference between the better supported versus the resource poor graduate student populations, and find ways to focus library services on the most underserved populations.

~ Theresa Hogue

The following Oregon State University faculty members have received official emeritus status from the university:

Sharon Rosenkoetter: Associate Professor Emeritus in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences
Susan Hanna: Professor Emeritus in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics
Philip Brownell: Professor Emeritus in the Department of Zoology
George Rohrmann: Professor Emeritus in the Department of Microbiology
Christine Snow: Professor Emeritus in the Department of Nutrition and Exercise Sciences
Clifford Mead: Associate Professor Emeritus in the OSU Libraries
Tim Righetti: Professor Emeritus in the Department of Horticulture
Loretta Rielly: Associate Professor Emeritus in the OSU Libraries
Lea Murphy: Associate Professor Emeritus in the Department of Mathematics
John Cassady: Professor Emeritus in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Sally Francis: Professor Emeritus in the Department of Design and Human Environment and Dean Emeritus of the Graduate School
Lizbeth Ann Gray: Associate Professor Emeritus in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences

Graduate students raise money for food bank

The Coalition of Graduate Employees at OSU joined with a similar group from the University of Oregon to raise money and food for their regional food banks last month. The money and food were collected at a concert held the evening before the Civil War football game. The OSU students raised more than $500 for their local food bank.

“We were amazed at how much we were able to do together. We gave the canned food to Food for Lane County in Eugene and the money went to Linn Benton Food Share here in Corvallis, “ said Rob Hess, president of the OSU Coalition of Graduate Employees.

Two Navy ROTC midshipmen commissioned

The Navy ROTC Unit at Oregon State University recently hosted a ceremony during which two graduating Midshipman were commissioned Ensigns in the United Sated Navy.  On Friday Dec. 10, family, friends and the Midshipmen of the “Beaver Battalion” gathered to witness and celebrate this milestone event.

Being commissioned were  Ensign Max Geiszler, a computer science major and Ensign Jordan Landauer, an electronic and computer engineering major (Magna cum Laude).  ENS Max Geiszler will serve as a Surface Warfare Officer and ENS Jordan Landauer will attend Nuclear Power School in Charleston, SC followed by service in Submarines.

The NROTC program was established to develop midshipmen mentally, morally and physically and to imbue them with the highest ideals of duty, loyalty and Navy core values in order to commission college graduates as Naval officers.  Those who complete the program possess the basic professional background and are motivated toward careers in the Naval service.

College of Education Assistant Professor Jessica White leads a graduate student seminar on teaching for TAs. Students from left, Ian Pfingsten, Catherine Searle and Evan Bing-Sawyer look on. Date: Feb. 15, 2010 (photo: Theresa Hogue)

Oregon State University graduate students teaching introductory biology labs are now being taught how to be more effective teachers, engage their students in critical thinking, and even craft their own curriculum.

The students are part of a Graduate Teacher Training Program supported by a portion of a four-year Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant the university has received. The training program is operated by members of the Biology Program and the College of Education.

When Bob Mason was a graduate student, he remembers being assigned to teach a course with no preparation.

“They said, ‘Here’s your section, knock ‘em dead,’” he recalled. “That’s not really an exaggeration.”

Now chair of the Biology Program in OSU’s College of Science, he recognized a strong need to better prepare graduate students who are teaching a class or leading a lab section for the first time.

“Not just anybody can get up in front of a class and teach effectively,” he said. And better preparing graduate students to be TAs doesn’t just benefit the graduates. It also benefits the undergraduate students, many of whom are not science majors but are taking introductory courses because they’re part of the baccalaureate core requirements.

Students Mattie Squire, left, Gwen Bury, center, and Sarah Moore discuss teaching techniques in a seminar aimed at helping TAs become better teachers. Date: Feb. 15, 2010 (photo: Theresa Hogue)

Mason said that across the country, interest in pursuing science as a career is lagging. He suggested that students who are taught by innovative, enthusiastic TAs might encourage more of them to become interested in science.

For the last five years, College of Education assistant professor Jessica White has been looking at the graduate student experience, and more specifically, what keeps some students in their graduate programs while others leave.

“There’s a much lower persistence to degree completion rate among graduate students than there is among undergraduates,” White said.

Part of the research involved interviewing graduate students at OSU and MIT about their assistantship experience, whether it be research or teaching. White said it appeared that being a TA both helps and hinders graduate student retention. It helps because students reinforce their own learning through teaching, but it can also add a lot of stress and strain to their lives.

“I had students in my office crying and telling me how woefully unprepared they felt and they felt they weren’t delivering the student experience they wanted to,” White said.

So when Mason approached her about helping craft a TA training program for graduate students, she was excited to participate.

College of Education Assistant Professor Jessica White leads a graduate student seminar on teaching for TAs. Date: Feb. 15, 2010 (photo: Theresa Hogue)

“It was a great dovetail to the research I’d already done, and took one vein of what we’d found and allowed me to go into greater depth about what the TA experience is like,” she said. “This allowed me to take it from the theoretical into practice, and that’s really exciting.”

After two years of planning, in Fall 2008 they launched the pilot TA training program. Each term, approximately 30 graduate TAs who teach introductory biology labs attend a weekly Monday night seminar. The graduate students come from the departments of zoology, botany and plant pathology, microbiology, molecular and cellular biology, biochemistry and biophysics and environmental science.

Additionally, a number of undergraduate teaching interns in biology take the seminar. The undergraduates either want to become teachers, or plan on going to graduate school and recognize they could benefit from the program.

White teaches the one-hour seminar, with assistance from two experienced mentor TAs. The topics include anything from creating a good syllabus to how to work with a student who has a disability, to how to deal with issues of academic dishonesty. In addition to the nuts and bolts, graduate students also learn pedagogy, including how to probe critical thinking and engage students in collaborative learning.

“They’re very practical and they very much want to see an application they can implement that week,” White said. “We may present some theory but always with an eye in mind toward effecting change or improving their daily work in the classroom.”

Graduate student Sarah Eddy participated in the program as a mentor TA, having had three experiences teaching in the introductory biology series. When she first began teaching, her nerves often got the better of her.

“I was self deprecating and obviously nervous while presenting to the students, I would defer to the other TA in the room, even though I was supposed to be the lead TA, and didn’t know how to write effective quizzes or grade student papers efficiently,” she said. “I definitely did not think about important components of teaching such as setting the tone in the classroom, developing a syllabus, being explicit in my expectations, etc.”

Mattie Squire examines a worksheet in a graduate student seminar on teaching for TAs. Date: Feb. 15, 2010 (photo: Theresa Hogue)

Although she had years of experience by the time she took the seminar, Eddy said she has benefited in a number of ways from the training program.

“I’ve learned that students generally do not learn best by passively listening to lectures. Instead they need opportunities to engage with and test their knowledge of the concepts pertinent to theirs labs,” she said. “With this knowledge, I have begun designing activities to incorporate into my introductions that allow students to apply the concepts I’ve introduced before they even begin the hands-on portion of the lab.”

Eddy’s experience with the program has already provided her with tangible benefits. She won the 2009 OSU Frolander Outstanding GTA award, and directly credits the program for her win.

For White, one of the most satisfying parts of the program is watching the students take hold of new ideas and learn how to apply them to their teaching experience.

“They really want to be good teachers,” she said. “They’re incredibly engaged in this experience. The classes are a whirlwind of participation and ideas.”

Former OSU graduate student Anthony Graziani is now a faculty member at Santa Rosa Junior College, and said the time he spent in the TA training program at OSU has helped him in his new position.

“The TA training program was an extremely worthwhile experience,” he said. “Not only did it serve its immediate purpose, making me and other TAs more effective in the classroom, but the skills and knowledge obtained were extremely valuable as I prepared and proceeded through the academic interview process and now as I face the challenges of my new position.”

Graziani said learning how to write syllabi, developing a good rapport with students and accurately assessing student learning was a daunting task, but the program helped him become more confident in his own teaching, as well as helping him become aware of areas where he needed improvement.

“I find myself continually referring back to the notebook I kept for ideas about learning activities, writing exams, and “shrinking” large classrooms just to name a few,” he said.

Mason said the Hughes grant runs out this academic year, but the university has applied for a renewal. The grant renewal application will include a curriculum design piece that would allow graduate students to redesign the introductory biology series with more inquiry-based, hands-on investigations, and would give undergraduates the chance to do real research.

He said the graduate TAs have already demonstrated they’re capable of creating exciting new approaches to undergraduate teaching, and he’s excited to move forward.

“It’s one of the best projects I’ve been involved with in my life.”

~ Theresa Hogue

She knew that OSU’s College of Education had a strong program in College Student Services Administration, and she was offered an assistantship that paid for her education.

The combination made OSU her ideal choice, and Azhderian said she’s fallen in love with the school since she arrived.
But one thing Azhderian discovered that OSU lacked was a thriving network of support specific to female graduate students.

“There’s a real need here for that niche,” she said, and after becoming inspired by an internship at the OSU Women’s Center, Azhderian decided to take on the creation of such a network herself.

The Graduate Women’s Network will provide advocacy for female graduate students, networking opportunities, and the chance to advance knowledge and skills that can lead to a more successful graduate level experience.

“Graduate school is a funny time, in some ways I have not felt as supported,” as much as she was during her undergraduate experience, she said. During graduate school, women may have a more difficult time finding peer support, funding for education, and finding advice about things like job searches, health care and sometimes, operating in fields predominated by men.

Although the group is in its early stages, Azhderian is already organizing activities including brown bag lunches, speaker panels, and workshop opportunities for graduate students to come together in more informative ways.

As a graduate student herself, Azhderian finds that female students will seek out support in their own departments, but she envisions the network as crossing departmental and college lines, to provide a broader net of support to students from all areas.

“The big focus right now is providing advocacy and support,” for female graduate students, she said.

The program will be housed in the Women’s Center. For more information, see http://oregonstate.edu/womenscenter/gwn.html

~ Theresa Hogue