Insights for faculty on how to guide their doctoral students to success. Featuring Bradley Ryner, associate dean of graduate initiatives in The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Danielle Wallace, associate professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

The season of giving is here! There are various ways to give thanks, from cooking with a loved one, establishing a meditation practice or sending a card. Here's how to express more gratitude in your life!

The Graduate College Dashboard is a collection of interactive, visual tools that deliver insights into graduate student enrollment, degree resources and program trends to leadership data. The questions below are meant to be used as a guide for leaders to analyze program priorities, performance, assets and needs. Ultimately, we hope that use of these data collection will inform admissions, enrollment and retention strategies as well as program development.

In today's academic and career environments, graduate students face a great deal of stress, both from external sources (faculty committees, academic chairs, lab supervisors) and internal ones (the pressure to achieve, need to live up to expectations). Under this barrage of expectations, nearly every graduate student will face what’s called imposter syndrome at some point in their academic career.

Concurrent programs are a way for units to link two graduate programs that may not otherwise be connected, offering students the opportunity to earn two degrees in a shorter amount of time. Concurrent programs are a way for units to link two graduate programs that may not otherwise be connected, offering students the opportunity to earn two degrees in a shorter amount of time.

The Interactive Plan of Study (iPOS) allows graduate students to plan and navigate their degree program through graduation, including the selection of their committee. Graduate advisors and faculty can help students progress to program completion by using the iPOS for monitoring student progress and communication. This best practice guide provides nine tips for getting the most out of the iPOS system.  

Program handbooks help students understand their program’s mission, visions, requirements and expectations, as well as offer thoughtful and inclusive resources for being a graduate stuudent at ASU. The Graduate College requires all programs to create handbooks and distribute them to students upon enrollment. Handbooks should be made accessible and readily available to download from the program or department websites.

By Barbi Honeycutt

Most faculty job interviews include a research presentation and a teaching demonstration as part of the on-campus interview process. Postdoctoral scholars are experts in research. They know how to design experiments, test ideas and hypotheses, and analyze the findings. But while a postdoc may feel confident and prepared for a research presentation, the same person may not feel as prepared for the teaching demonstration.

Mentoring is a relationship entailing formal or informal processes whereby a mentor provides intentional guidance, motivation, and encouragement. Mentors also share knowledge, experiences, and perspectives to empower the mentee in the advancement of specific goals that improve their lives and careers. Mentorship allows both mentor and mentee to build networks of resources, develop best practices, and sustain connections for lifelong learning. 

Mentoring is a relationship entailing formal or informal processes whereby a mentor provides intentional guidance, motivation, and encouragement. Mentors also share knowledge, experiences, and perspectives to empower the mentee in the advancement of specific goals that improve their lives and careers. Mentorship allows both mentor and mentee to build networks of resources, develop best practices and sustain connections for lifelong learning. 

Graduate school necessarily stretches us. When we strive to achieve experiences, content and context expertise, and professional mastery, we rely on every part of our intellectual, emotional, physical and purposeful self. Stretching in these ways is inherently stressful, and according to the National College Health Assessment (NCHA) graduate students report stress, feeling exhausted, and anxiety to be factors that can surface in different ways than they did in undergrad.

Research shows that a digital portfolio is a valuable tool to help you better track your academic progress and more favorably position yourself for post-graduate success.

A digital portfolio is an electronic collection of evidence over time where you can demonstrate critical thinking and problem-solving skills, articulate thoughts and ideas, highlight professionalism, engage a broader audience and provide a well-rounded picture of yourself as a scholar/future employee.

Public speaking is stressful. In fact, researchers use public speaking to induce stress in reticent humans (known as the trier social stress test). Thankfully, there are a wealth of strategies to keep audiences engaged and attenuate some of the unpleasantness of public speaking.