Working for three years in the School of Interdisciplinary and Graduate Studies, I researched and designed professional development workshops and events for graduate students and faculty through the PLAN program:
The PLAN is a framework for understanding and addressing the professional development needs of graduate students. Run by the School of Interdisciplinary and Graduate Studies (SIGS), PLAN helps students take charge of their own learning and development by offering workshops, social events and resources to meet the needs of graduate students across the four areas: Professional Development, Life Skills, Academic Development, and Networking skills. PLAN is developed with an understanding of the literature about graduate student success, and feedback from graduate students, directors of graduate studies, faculty, and staff. PLAN is designed to help students in getting started, moving on through their programs, and moving beyond graduate school.
PLAN program folder
Co-created and led the following workshops:
Technology for Professional Development
Teaching with Technology
Be Searchable: Developing an Online Portfolio
What is Peer Mentoring?
Peer Mentoring for Recruitment
Establishing Peer Mentoring Relationships
Ongoing Mentoring: Peer and Co-Mentoring for Continuing Students
Faculty-Student Learning Community on Mentoring
2012 Mentoring Kick-Off
Peer Mentoring Orientation for College of Education
Women in Academe
Women in Leadership
In addition to developing and presenting workshops, I worked closely with the Dean and Program Director to articulate a vision for the PLAN program as a whole, and redesigned the website to invite students to engage with their professional development as an ongoing reflective process rather than approaching professional development as a series of discrete workshops and actions. I also established and maintained connections with key faculty and students from across the university whose contributions enlivened and enriched our program.
As part of my work to support graduate student development and success, I have focused on developing programs, resources and other opportunities to support mentoring on our campus, including faculty and peer mentoring. To begin, I developed a Spring Mentoring Kick-Off to start conversations about graduate student mentoring at both the faculty and peer levels. This half-day workshop was a great success, and was followed the next academic year by a series of workshops, learning communities and a reading group of Directors of Graduate Studies who have a special investment in graduate mentoring. In addition to such events, I created the content for and built the MentorCenter website, which provides online mentoring resources for faculty and graduate students.