stanford advance: a novel program for transitioning phd students to graduate school

1
–– ç ç ç ç ç ç ç –– Stanford ADVANCE: A Novel Program for Transitioning PhD Students to Graduate School Laura Sanman , Rhea Richardson , Vanessa Burns, Lilian Lam, Benjamin Naecker, Terry Reyes, Alex Scharr, Tiffany Williams, Laleh Rongere, Anthony Ricci, Terrance Mayes Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford CA Summary Future Directions Acknowledgements Program Structure Funding: Office of Graduate Education Stanford Biosciences Biochemistry, Bioengineering, Biology, BMI, Biophysics, Neurosciences, and Stem Cell Home Programs Support: Stanford Biosciences Student Association (SBSA) Biomedical Association for the Interest of Minority Students (BioAIMS) Office of Graduate Education (OGE) Daniel Herschlag Program Leaders and Aides Principal Investigators that took ADVANCE Students Postdoctoral mentors Panelists Logistical: Point person within each Biosciences Home Program Programmatic: Expand upon transition to graduate school programming Key career programming towards a more interactive format Collect longitudinal information regarding success of participants – including retention, fellowship awarded, time to degree Office of Graduate Education Administrators Graduate Student Program Leaders ADVANCE Students Postdoctoral Mentors (Journal Club) SBSA/BioAIMS, Biosciences Community Programmatic Decisions Informal Mentoring Community Building Academic Development Academic Development Participant Demographics Programmatic Assessment Academic, Social, and Career Development Metrics 2013 Program Outcomes Abstract Background: A major challenge that students face when transitioning to research-based PhD programs is that graduate education comes with a completely different set of expectations than that of undergraduate education. In addition, students entering PhD programs often have different socioeconomic, academic, and ethnic backgrounds, making it difficult to prepare universally effective programming to ease the transition to graduate school. The Stanford Bioscience ADVANCE Summer Institute was created to address this unique challenge. ADVANCE is a collaborative effort to ease the transition to graduate school for Biosciences PhD students, with a focus on those with diverse backgrounds. The specific goals of ADVANCE are to foster community, academic excellence, and career readiness in an interactive learning environment. To achieve these goals, we held social events, panel discussions on careers and campus resources, workshops on scientific presentation and grant writing, and provided students with postdoctoral, faculty, and student mentors. We hypothesized that this program would improve student confidence, facilitate graduate and post-graduate career planning, and promote academic success. We further hypothesized that student feedback would facilitate future event planning for PhD students. Methods: We chose to measure the success of ADVANCE through surveys and personal dialogue. Surveys were collected before and after the ADVANCE program and after each event. Students reported self-confidence, readiness, awareness of resources, and effectiveness of each event. Academic success will be measured longitudinally by scoring time to degree, number of publications, and intellectual satisfaction. Results: Students reported overall increased confidence in their academic skill-set and preparedness for future endeavors. However, students reported dissatisfaction with career panels due to perceived applicability to older students and lack of intimacy. Notably, senior PhD students attending these panels did not share this dissatisfaction. Conclusions: The inaugural year of the Stanford ADVANCE Summer Institute met its goals of fostering community and building academic skills. It also identified needs of students in different stages of their PhD; incoming students benefited from skill- and community-building exercises while older students benefited from career advice. In future years, we will provide more interactive discussions, especially regarding career planning. We hypothesize that this will increase overall reported satisfaction with and effectiveness of ADVANCE. Goals Increase the socio-economic, racial, sexual- orientation, and gender diversity of the graduate student population Foster community, academic excellence, and career readiness within the incoming graduate students Increase faculty confidence in admitting students from diverse backgrounds Provide leadership opportunities for current graduate students ADVANCE recruited and benefited a diverse population of students There was a consistently general increase in academic preparedness for amongst participants There was a higher level of social inclusion and satisfaction amongst participants Noted dissatisfaction with career programming - perhaps due to differential needs of graduate students at different stages of their PhD Community Building Career Development Academic Developmen t Teamwork Exercise Happy Hours Hiking Excursion Imposter Syndrome Workshop Faculty Panel Strengths Quest Skills Assessment Data Blitz Grant Writing Workshop Presenting Scientific Papers 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Post-Event Student Evaluation Rating 28% 16% 56% Division of Time in Workshops Community Building Professional Development Academic Development Latino 38% Asian 19% Native American 6% Unreported 6% African American 6% White 25% Workshop Development and Evaluation Series1 0 20 40 60 Post-Graduate Planning Pre-ADVANCE Post-ADVANCE % Confidence Series1 0 10 20 30 40 50 Career Options Pre-ADVANCE Post-ADVANCE % Confidence Series1 0 20 40 60 80 Graduate Career Planning Pre-ADVANCE Post-ADVANCE % Confidence Series1 0 20 40 60 80 Coursework Pre-ADVANCE Post-ADVANCE % Confidence Series1 0 20 40 60 80 Research Preparedness Pre-ADVANCE Post-ADVANCE % Confidence Series1 0 20 40 60 80 Oral Presentations Pre-ADVANCE Post-ADVANCE % Confidence Series1 0 20 40 60 80 Resource Awareness Pre-ADVANCE Post-ADVANCE % Confidence Series1 0 20 40 60 80 Goal Setting Pre-ADVANCE Post-ADVANCE % Confidence Series1 0 20 40 60 80 Time Management Pre-ADVANCE Post-ADVANCE % Confidence Series1 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 Male Female Percent “I really feel like I am in a great position to start my program now. I have a lot of tools to think about what things to look out for in my first year and continuing on through grad school and a post-grad career." --ADVANCE fellow 2013 “Meeting students from other programs and getting settled before classes begin. We were definitely lucky to have this experience” --ADVANCE fellow 2013 “I fully support the idea of the program and wish I had something like this when I was a new grad student” --Stanford faculty member Laboratory Mentors Principal Investigators

Upload: shino

Post on 22-Feb-2016

40 views

Category:

Documents


0 download

DESCRIPTION

Stanford ADVANCE: A Novel Program for Transitioning PhD Students to Graduate School. Laura Sanman , Rhea Richardson , Vanessa Burns , Lilian Lam, Benjamin Naecker, Terry Reyes, Alex Scharr, Tiffany Williams, Laleh Rongere, Anthony Ricci, Terrance Mayes - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Stanford ADVANCE: A Novel Program for Transitioning PhD Students to Graduate School

––

ç

ç

ç

ç

ç

ç ç

––

Stanford ADVANCE: A Novel Program for Transitioning PhD Students to Graduate SchoolLaura Sanman, Rhea Richardson, Vanessa Burns, Lilian Lam, Benjamin Naecker, Terry Reyes, Alex Scharr, Tiffany Williams, Laleh Rongere, Anthony Ricci, Terrance Mayes

Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford CA

Summary

Future Directions

Acknowledgements

Program Structure

Funding: Office of Graduate EducationStanford Biosciences Biochemistry, Bioengineering, Biology, BMI, Biophysics, Neurosciences, and Stem Cell Home ProgramsSupport: Stanford Biosciences Student Association (SBSA)Biomedical Association for the Interest of Minority Students (BioAIMS)Office of Graduate Education (OGE)Daniel HerschlagProgram Leaders and AidesPrincipal Investigators that took ADVANCE StudentsPostdoctoral mentorsPanelists

Logistical: Point person within each Biosciences Home ProgramProgrammatic:Expand upon transition to graduate school programmingKey career programming towards a more interactive formatCollect longitudinal information regarding success of participants – including retention, fellowship awarded, time to degree

Office of Graduate Education

Administrators

Graduate StudentProgram Leaders

ADVANCEStudents

Postdoctoral Mentors

(Journal Club)

SBSA/BioAIMS,Biosciences Community

Programmatic DecisionsInformal Mentoring

Community

Building

AcademicDevelopmen

t

Academic Development

Participant Demographics

Programmatic Assessment

Academic, Social, and Career Development Metrics

2013 Program OutcomesAbstractBackground:A major challenge that students face when transitioning to research-based PhD programs is that graduate education comes with a completely different set of expectations than that of undergraduate education. In addition, students entering PhD programs often have different socioeconomic, academic, and ethnic backgrounds, making it difficult to prepare universally effective programming to ease the transition to graduate school. The Stanford Bioscience ADVANCE Summer Institute was created to address this unique challenge. ADVANCE is a collaborative effort to ease the transition to graduate school for Biosciences PhD students, with a focus on those with diverse backgrounds. The specific goals of ADVANCE are to foster community, academic excellence, and career readiness in an interactive learning environment. To achieve these goals, we held social events, panel discussions on careers and campus resources, workshops on scientific presentation and grant writing, and provided students with postdoctoral, faculty, and student mentors. We hypothesized that this program would improve student confidence, facilitate graduate and post-graduate career planning, and promote academic success. We further hypothesized that student feedback would facilitate future event planning for PhD students.Methods:We chose to measure the success of ADVANCE through surveys and personal dialogue. Surveys were collected before and after the ADVANCE program and after each event. Students reported self-confidence, readiness, awareness of resources, and effectiveness of each event. Academic success will be measured longitudinally by scoring time to degree, number of publications, and intellectual satisfaction.Results:Students reported overall increased confidence in their academic skill-set and preparedness for future endeavors. However, students reported dissatisfaction with career panels due to perceived applicability to older students and lack of intimacy. Notably, senior PhD students attending these panels did not share this dissatisfaction.Conclusions:The inaugural year of the Stanford ADVANCE Summer Institute met its goals of fostering community and building academic skills. It also identified needs of students in different stages of their PhD; incoming students benefited from skill- and community-building exercises while older students benefited from career advice. In future years, we will provide more interactive discussions, especially regarding career planning. We hypothesize that this will increase overall reported satisfaction with and effectiveness of ADVANCE.

GoalsIncrease the socio-economic, racial, sexual-orientation, and gender diversity of the graduate student population

Foster community, academic excellence, and career readiness within the incoming graduate students

Increase faculty confidence in admitting students from diverse backgrounds

Provide leadership opportunities for current graduate students

ADVANCE recruited and benefited a diverse population of studentsThere was a consistently general increase in academic preparedness for amongst participantsThere was a higher level of social inclusion and satisfaction amongst participantsNoted dissatisfaction with career programming - perhaps due to differential needs of graduate students at different stages of their PhD

Community

Building

CareerDevelopment

AcademicDevelopme

nt

Teamwork Exercise

Happy Hours

Hiking Excursion

Imposter Syndrome Workshop

Faculty Panel

Strengths Quest Skills Assessment

Data Blitz

Grant Writing Workshop

Presenting Scientific Papers

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Post-Event Student Evaluation

Rating

28%

16%56%

Division of Time in Workshops

Community Build-ingProfessional DevelopmentAcademic De-velopment

Latino38%

Asian19%

Native American

6%

Unreported6%

African American

6%

White25%

Workshop Development and Evaluation

Series10102030405060

Post-Graduate Planning

Pre-ADVANCE Post-ADVANCE

% C

onfid

ence

Series101020304050

Career Options

Pre-ADVANCE Post-ADVANCE

% C

onfid

ence

Series10

20

4060

80

Graduate Career Planning

Pre-ADVANCE Post-ADVANCE

% C

onfid

ence

Series1020406080

Coursework

Pre-ADVANCE Post-ADVANCE

% C

onfid

ence

Series10

20

40

60

Research Preparedness

Pre-ADVANCE Post-ADVANCE

% C

onfid

ence

Series10

20

40

60

Oral Presentations

Pre-ADVANCE Post-ADVANCE

% C

onfid

ence

Series10

20

40

60

Resource Awareness

Pre-ADVANCE Post-ADVANCE

% C

onfid

ence

Series1020406080

Goal Setting

Pre-ADVANCE Post-ADVANCE

% C

onfid

ence

Series10

20

40

60

Time Management

Pre-ADVANCE Post-ADVANCE

% C

onfid

ence

Series101020304050607080

Male Female

Perc

ent

“I really feel like I am in a great position to start my program now. I have a lot of tools to think about what things to look out for in

my first year and continuing on through grad school and a post-grad career."

--ADVANCE fellow 2013

“Meeting students from other programs and getting

settled before classes begin. We were definitely

lucky to have this experience”--ADVANCE fellow 2013“I fully support the idea of the program and

wishI had something like this when I was a new

gradstudent”

--Stanford faculty member

LaboratoryMentors

Principal Investigators