Excellence in doctoral education: defining best practices

College Student Journal, June, 2007 by Marianne Di Pierro

At Western Michigan University, the Graduate Center for Research, Writing, and Proposal Development sustains both doctoral students and graduate advising faculty through the doctoral dissertation process and represents one best practices approach that promotes persistence in graduate education - an especially important benefit, given the national doctoral attrition rate of 50%. Document analysis of the records of graduated doctoral students reveals important information that correlates to students' trajectories through the doctoral educational process and that informs programmatic initiatives aimed at retention and graduation. The data also inform institutional policies and procedures that further sustain educational pathways to the Ph.D.

**********

In light of the 50% national attrition rate for doctoral students, a rate that has not decreased in recent years, it is important that the conversation continue. The necessity to preserve the nation's contingents of doctoral students will have significant bearing as we embrace a more technologically complex world that must avail itself of the research, creativity, and talents of a diverse body of scholars. The dearth of scholars reflected within certain fields, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), for example, only heightens the critical issue of doctoral attrition, and the lack of representation in terms of gender and ethnicity compounds an already serious national circumstance. Further, institutions must remain competitive in their educational offerings: those institutions which do not invest research dollars, time, and initiative into assessments of the quality of their doctoral programs, including time to degree, attrition and completion rates, as well as technical and psychosocial support mechanisms that increase opportunities for persistence, will lose students to other institutions that value and maintain such a competitive edge. The opportunity to write about and discuss the crisis in doctoral education illuminates the problem from multiple perspectives and provides rich insight; however, it is also necessary for doctoral granting institutions to conduct their own institution-specific research, discuss their successes, and engage in dialogue that opens up to collaborative interchange and partnerships through which doctoral persistence can be enhanced through best practices.

Best Practices Approaches to Attrition Research and Retention at Western Michigan University

Despite the numerous critical studies on doctoral attrition, it is apparent that much of the conversation concerns identification of various factors that contribute to attrition, without the benefit of conversations that address the implementation of best practices, those interventions currently in use that ameliorate this trend. It is most important that universities strive for more transparency of data and share their research findings in an effort to reverse the untoward occurrence of high doctoral attrition. Best practices, and the research and subsequent institutional policies that guide them, require an open forum. The means through which higher education addresses this problem collaboratively will provide a solid framework that lends to reform of the doctoral educational process.

The Graduate Center for Research, Writing, and Proposal Development at Western Michigan University (WMU), Michigan's fourth largest research university and one of only 102 public universities to hold the Doctoral/Research Universities-Extensive classification by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, represents a best practices approach to the issue of doctoral attrition. The Center, five years in existence, is a unique entity that departs theoretically and pragmatically from standard writing centers in that it offers no remediation services. Instead, it offers a complex of programs and support structures that educate students regarding the technical elements of proposal development, professional development through publication, practical strategies for writing the dissertation, communication strategies to heighten the effectiveness of the advisor/advisee relationship, preparation for dissertation proposal defense, preparation for the oral defense, as well as programs that encourage students' psychosocial development and well being during the dissertation process. Moreover, the sustained mentorship, the focused guidance and support that it provides to all doctoral students throughout the tenure of their course of study, enhances opportunities for degree completion, and thus, embodies a highly evolved retention strategy.

Most importantly, the Center is cognizant of the necessity to address not only the needs of doctoral students, but also to identify and address the needs of graduate advising faculty as they contend with the rigors of the advising process, an unprecedented approach. Currently, at many universities in the United States, there are no formal mechanisms in place that educate or provide training for advising faculty, a fact that certainly must affect the efficacy of the advising process. As a result, the opportunities for miscommunication, misconception, and flawed expectation between advisor and advisee are fife. Two communication workshops, one for graduate students, and a mirror program for graduate advising faculty, provide extensive information on several different types of advising styles that professors may use, and also address strategies for communication that best suit each advising style. Advisors' workshops on conducting qualitative and quantitative dissertations also address various dimensions of proposal development and include demonstrations centered in developing conceptual conversations with students. Future workshops focus on the ethics of advising, culturally diverse advising, leadership, and self-management.