Section 7. Fostering Change in Academic Communities: Case Studies
At the May 2019 three-day Summit for Heads, Chairs and Graduate Program
Directors, 53 individual institutional action plans were developed and
submitted. Of these fifteen reported on their progress in the fall of
2020 or 2021, two indicated that no one else on their faculty had any
interest in making changes, and many of the others indicated that
responding to the COVID‑19 pandemic had consumed all their workplace
bandwidth and no progress had occurred. In 2021 and 2022 a second
progress report was provided by ten of those who had previously
documented their progress.
Clearly the onset of the COVID‑19 pandemic in the spring of 2020 had a
significant impact on implementing action plans, and later reports
(2021, 2022) from heads/chairs discussed related factors that impacted
their efforts, such as low faculty morale, budget issues, lower
enrollments, loss of faculty, new personnel in upper administration, and
other changes. Also, many plans became outdated during the pandemic,
and/or new heads/chairs with different priorities took over.
At the 2022 workshops, many additional departments reported on changes
they had made. They had learned about the 2018 Geoscience Employers’
Workshop and 2019 Heads/Chairs Summit results, either through the
AGI/AGU webinars, the Jackson School of Geosciences Summit webpages, or
from the graduate programs section in the 2021 Vision and Change
undergraduate report. Despite the smaller number of progress reports,
these case studies show the types of successes and implementation
strategies that worked, and the kinds of issues that different programs
faced.
Overall, the participants at the 2019 Heads/Chairs Summit reported that
they had presented the results of the Geoscience Employers Workshop and
the Summit to their faculty, which was followed by faculty discussion on
the best ways to promote graduate student academic and professional
development. Some also had their faculty participate in the AGI/AGU
webinars summarizing the results of these events.
Many heads/chairs found broad support among their faculty, with everyone
on board regarding the need to improve graduate education, even in
departments that had much less success in making changes to their
undergraduate programs. In some cases, all the faculty were very
supportive, while in others either the senior or junior faculty were
less resistant to change. Approaches like those taken related to their
undergraduate transformation efforts, such as mini-retreats, full day
faculty retreats, and NAGT workshops, were found to be very helpful.
Also, taking time to get collective buy-in, and efforts by individual
faculty or graduate advisors, were instrumental in making
department-wide changes.
“We held a full faculty retreat during August 2019 to discuss
improvements to our graduate curriculum, inspired by the NSF Workshop I
attended in May 2019. As anticipated, department faculty were
enthusiastic about attempting to implement many of the improvements that
I was able to propose on the basis of the workshop experience. A number
of such improvements were subsequently implemented, or are in progress.”
“We’ve had both quick success and incredibly good luck. Our department
culture is the foundation for the quick successes, as our faculty
enthusiastically embraced the ideas presented to them based on the
workshop presentations. I thought we would, but I’m gratified to say
that turned out to be true. We did not have to contend with any negative
attitudes toward the idea of students interested in careers beyond
academia.”
“Success has occurred across the spectrum, with most coming at the grass
roots level by faculty that are responding to the challenges of a
changing workforce landscape in the geosciences. This has been supported
by the Dean and Chair.”
“I summarized the main points gleaned from the workshop at a faculty
meeting in fall 2019. There’s a definite sense that the more junior
faculty are more onboard with the need for developing these
non-technical skills though specific action items rather than just being
picked up via osmosis during the normal course of graduate school.”
“I have thought it was revolutionary from the start and it has been
terrific in every way! Do it!”
(R1 universities)
As mentioned above, only two described no interest from their
colleagues. For example,
“There was little (no) enthusiasm to hear much about the summit or
explore any of the findings or suggestions. It is increasingly clear
that everyone is mostly interested in their own research and students
and their development rather than a coherent strategy that would require
change. I have grown increasingly frustrated and disillusioned and have
basically given up trying to fight windmills and pursue any changes.”
(R2 university)
“Although I honestly still can’t quite believe it, there was absolutely
no positive response and no interest from others. I think that it is the
usual mix of resistance to change, fear of new things, and unwillingness
to put effort into something new and extremely worthwhile. My experience
was actually the opposite … I anticipated strong positive response and
a willingness to try, none of which actually happened.”
(R1 university)
Others found that the easy things or those that did not require
additional resources were most successful. Also, if the head/chair or
graduate advisor could accomplish the changes on their own, it was
easier than those requiring a larger group of their faculty to agree to
or take on the effort to make the changes.
“The easy things were successful. Things that required more faculty
effort (like establishing new courses, etc.) are taking more time, and
have been somewhat side-tracked by reacting to the impact of the COVID
pandemic and having to do deal with modifying instruction and research
activities.”
(R1 university)
“Anything that I could do by myself as Grad Advisor was successful.
Anything that required a group effort was not. Altering grad courses,
educating grad students as to desired skills and giving those students
those skills in the Intro Course was successful because I was in
control. Having other faculty embed these core skills has been less
successful.”
(R2 university)
Individual Development Plans and Mentoring
The most widespread and successful change was in implementing Individual
Development Plans (IDPs) and in changing approaches to the mentoring of
students. Over half of the progress reports indicated at least a partial
implementation of IDPs, and many of the participants in the 2022
workshops who had not participated in the Summit had also instituted
IDPs. Programs with a required introductory course for all incoming
graduate students incorporated the development of IDPs into that course,
as this allowed all students to complete an IDP over time. These
programs also found that positive responses by students to this process
resulted in widespread implementation for students at more senior
levels. Other programs implemented a pilot program and had faculty test
its success with their own students before wider adoption. One
department chair is working to increase the number of faculty
participating after a core group of them started the process with their
own students. Several mentioned using another department’s website,
which posted a description of their process and the forms they used or
said that more non-postdoc examples, particularly for master’s students,
would be of great help. [see Appendices A & B for examples] In most
cases students developed their IDP’s through discussions with their
advisor or graduate committee.
“Having the students personally see how helpful the IDPs were for them
as a reflection tool, and in aiding communication with their advisors,
has in turn allowed the faculty to see that they (the students) actually
want this for their own accountability. I suspect that has gone a long
way towards the faculty/Graduate Committee seeing the IDPs as something
worth requiring.”
(R1 university)
“By implementing an IDP myself and working with one of my closer friends
(also a full professor), I now hope to produce some sample/examples
others can launch from and also will identify any challenges as I review
my own students’ plans.”
“I now think adding the IDP process into a Grad Seminar class I am
teaching this fall will allow me to be the primary pilot test.”
(D/PU university)
One program started a new annual student reporting process that
emphasized the use of IDPs, while another department modified its
doctoral time-to-degree timeline to include aspects of professional
development and self-assessment. A more in-depth approach taken by some
was having students complete an IDP and then write a required reflective
statement about their strengths and what areas they wished to focus on
in the coming year.
Some universities are beginning to introduce individual development
plans across the board in their graduate degree programs, and this
helped department chairs to increase the use of IDPs.
“We have been able to implement the IDP and committee mentoring for our
graduate students. The Graduate School was just becoming interested in
implementing IDPs, so we were able to be the beta-testers. This has
worked well, but it was slow going to prod the reluctant faculty into
complying. Fortunately, by the end of the semester we had nearly 100%
compliance.”
(R1 university)
Even where it was not part of the formal structure, one department
indicated that many students completed them regularly, and the faculty
were working to integrate them into their program in a more systematic
way.
“It was very helpful to be able to initiate a trial run of the IDPs at
scale across the department so that students could see the benefit of
them. I believe having IDPs become a formal requirement for our graduate
programs will help clear some other roadblocks, e.g., communication
breakdowns between advisors and advisees based on goals and subsequent
progress.”
“The Summit approaches have given students and postdocs even further
ease and confidence in discussing their progression planning and
futures.”
(R1 universities)
At the 2022 combined academic and employer workshops, much discussion
centered around problems associated with mentoring and recommended
possible changes. Several progress reports indicated they had made
efforts to address such problems. One department made sure that each
graduate student meets with their committee twice a year. Other
departments concentrated on mentoring new students. One developed a new
“Pod” mentoring program for first-year students that surrounds the new
students with several mentors including faculty, research staff, and
more senior students. Another revamped their onboarding to build
cohorts.
“We have ensured that each graduate student meets with the committee
twice a year. This gives broader mentoring and a better sense of
empowerment to graduate students.”
“Effectively on-boarding of new students eases inequalities in mentoring
across the department and helps students develop a cohort.”
(R1 universities)
Two departments augmented their mentoring activities by reaching out to
their alumni and developing alumni mentoring programs. Another is
offering graduate students the ability to mentor undergraduates in their
REU program. It was also noted by several departments that introducing
IDPs has served as a helpful tool for increasing communication between
advisors and advisees.
In one case, the graduate students successfully petitioned for a change.
Although they were required to annually submit a progress report signed
by their advisor, they found that many committee members were not aware
of the direction the research had progressed and this often resulted in
problems at defense time. This program now requires a formal meeting of
the entire committee with the student to discuss their research after
their comprehensive exam and at least one semester prior to their
dissertation defense.
One department has specific written guidelines for advisors and
co-advisors that, among other recommendations, includes setting clear
expectations and goals for students regarding their academic performance
and research progress, and meeting regularly and often to provide
feedback on progress. Their guidelines also state that advisors should
acknowledge that some students will pursue careers outside of academia
and/or outside their research discipline, that their advisors and
committees should assist them in achieving their chosen career goals,
and recommends scheduling meetings to discuss topics other than
research, such as professional development, career objectives and
opportunities, climate, laboratory personnel relations, etc. Guidelines
for graduate students are also provided. Another department developed
“TA agreements that allow for clarity of expectations between TAs and
supervisors.”
To increase student input, one department now has two student-selected
student representatives participate in faculty meetings. Another has
implemented an “Ask A Graduate Student” webpage, with five current
students working in representative fields in Earth Sciences who can
answer questions by perspective students. “Each time the students are
approached by the public, they brief the Graduate Coordinator on the
interaction, and further contacts are then programmed, if warranted. The
Grad Coordinator also offers feedback on the students’ performance.” The
goal is predominately to help with student recruitment, however, another
goal of this exercise is to “provide these students with some
informal — yet important — experience in navigating the recruitment
process from the position of recruiter, a novel experience.”
New Courses and Content Changes
Developing new courses and embedding more skills development into
existing courses was the next most successful change.
The main new courses added were in machine learning and data analytics.
One department started an experimental course on machine learning,
called “Machine Learning for Atmospheric Science”; another developed
both a machine learning and a data analytics class, and another
instituted a cross-disciplinary machine learning tutorial/workshop.
Taking this further, one program developed a diverse curriculum and
certificate program of graduate and mixed undergrad/graduate classes in
machine learning and data analytics in conjunction with faculty from
non-geoscience departments.
Working in collaboration with other units on campus to foster skills
development was a successful approach for several departments, including
statistical applications, computer programming and training on
instrumentation. One program has written three intra-University funding
proposals involving collaborative efforts across broad groups within the
University with the goal that graduate students will benefit from
training in working with broadly diverse groups in a team setting.
At the 2022 workshops, the participating faculty clearly recognized the
importance of students learning data analytics, and one progress report
from the 2019 Summit noted that by 2022 their faculty had also
recognized this need. In contrast, one report indicated that the need
for such new courses was not embraced because they had no course
requirements.
Other new courses added included remote sensing and social
responsibility in atmospheric sciences. Another department was able to
transition a periodic 1- to 2-week short course in Economic Geology, run
in conjunction with members of their Alumni Board who work in economic
geology industries, to a full class by hiring a lecturer to work with
them:
“The course is specifically designed to introduce graduate students to
career possibilities beyond academic paths, and thus fulfills a major
goal of our curriculum improvement, to better prepare our students for
careers in industry.” The “first cohort of graduate students has already
benefited from the class and from the networking opportunities it
provided.”
(R1 university)
Another chair noted that he started teaching a class entitled
“Environmental Rules and Regulations”.
“Many of the programs geoscience majors choose involve some need to
understand science supporting rules, regulation, and legislation… It
is essential to understand the role of science in rule development. That
includes both the social sciences — especially economics — and the
physical, chemical, and biological sciences…. Many of the students who
participated in the class reported that the exposure was beneficial to
them in both consulting careers and as regulators. So, incorporating
some familiarity with rules is of value.”
(R1 university)
One department added an Introduction to Professional Geoscience course
through hiring a recently retired alumnus as an adjunct instructor who
collaborated with other local alumni to provide broader coverage of
potential careers. They hope to use Zoom to be able to tap into a
national pool of alumni as well. Another has an “Introduction to
Professional Geology” course that focuses on work practices and
expectations in the environmental and regulatory fields and discusses
preparation for the national Practice of Geology exam.
Of the several departments that offer an introductory course for new
graduate students, most have embedded lectures on universal skills
required by employers (see Section 4: Skills Framework), and one is
developing a follow-on course that will cover time management, ethics,
individual development plans and industry input. Others note that they
have expanded and improved non-technical skills training in many
courses, including for one department in a course on research conduct.
Another has expanded their ethics and research integrity course to
include other non-technical skills such as proposal writing, grant
management, etc.
One department strongly encourages their students to take a
semester-long course in a closely allied department that offers training
in developing activities suitable for inclusion as “Broader Impacts” as
defined by NSF.
One chair reported that “individual faculty have either expanded and
improved ’non-technical skills’ training or have added exercises and
instruction — with detailed feedback — in existing courses.” Several
other reports noted that faculty were discussing ways to incorporate
some of these skills into their courses, although at the time of the
progress report nothing specific had occurred. Other course changes
reported included developing and adding more field-oriented learning,
and adding courses that are relevant to natural hazards and climate.
Other Successful Changes
Programmatic changes occurred in a couple cases. One department is
updating their program goals and student learning outcomes to make it
explicit that training in formal graduate coursework should provide
students with many of the career skills needed beyond academia and
research-oriented careers. They are waiting for upper administration
approval. Another also defined new learning objectives and outcomes for
their graduate program. One department did curricular revision using
backwards design in an effort to align with employer priorities.
Professional development enhancements included a lunchtime professional
development series in one department, while several other departments
mentioned covering the need for developing non-traditional skills in
their graduate student orientations. One program conducts a regular
series of professional development talks by alumni and recruiters. Other
departments identified and publicized workshops and courses to their
students, from around campus and online, including professional
societies, and/or assembled a list of on-campus resources for graduate
students. In one case faculty PIs were given contract verbiage to
include professional development as a requirement for RA’s.
Alumni engagement was sought in many ways. In one department, their
alumni board was reinvigorated and now provides career advice,
mentoring, and is a source for internships; another reached out to their
alumni to try to create a professional advisory board. Others invited
alumni to speak about career experiences and opportunities, which has
helped students become more aware of professional opportunities outside
of academia. One department surveyed recent graduates on the skills
where they felt their graduate experiences provided them with training
and support, and what skills they found they needed in their professions
but didn’t get help in developing as graduate students. They used
emails, alumni visits to campus and professional society meetings to get
input.
In terms of communication, several departments sought to provide more
opportunities for their students to present their science at
conferences, developing an internal travel award competition that was
touted at workshops and within the department seminar series. One
program had a proposal pending to offer a Science Communication course.
“Our student-led seminar program was expanded, and its organizers were
briefed in detail to provide them with inspiration to facilitate
improvements in graduate student communication training. Subsequently,
faculty were allowed to participate in the seminar series, and both
organizers and presenters exhibited a marked increase in the seriousness
with which both presenters and audience brought to the effort.”
(R1 university)
Many heads/chairs indicated that they were making or exploring DEI
efforts within the department and/or with other STEM fields, including
holistic admissions, creating diversity and recruitment committees,
dropping the GRE requirement, and joining or applying to join AGU’s
Bridge program.
“We now have holistic admissions with required supplement prompts that
map to the traits for success in our program. We use a rubric system to
evaluate applicants.”
(R1 university)
Roadblocks and Other Issues
Unquestionably the main roadblock mentioned by respondents was COVID. As
with the rest of the world, it upended universities and colleges,
provoking a complete overhaul of instruction, disruption of research,
loss of contact with students, increased workloads, major impacts on
budgets, faculty burnout, student and faculty mental health issues,
decreasing enrollments, and loss of faculty, to name a few of the issues
listed. One chair reported in 2020 that he had discussed the concept of
IDPs with about 25% of the faculty and was “sowing seeds” to gain
acceptance but had made little headway a year later because he was still
trying to get the faculty and students “past COVID.” Generally, those
that already had started to implement changes were able to put these on
hold and restart them once things began to open again, and some who had
not made any progress have been able to get traction since then. Because
of the need to change their instructional modalities and approaches
during the pandemic, many faculty became more receptive to changing
their undergraduate pedagogies, courses, and curriculum. At the graduate
level, discussions at the 2022 workshops showed that during the interim,
faculty had become much more aware of the need for change, particularly
the importance of computer programing, data analytics, and science
communication.
The other roadblocks included resistant faculty, faculty apathy, poor
faculty morale, workloads that were too high, lack of department
bandwidth to reach out to alumni, and lack of resources and funds.
“Faculty are reluctant to change the ways that they have done things
until the problem impacts them. So, showing data that the problem is
impacting our department helped garner some buy in to change elements of
the graduate program.”
(R1 university)
“The second biggest road block has simply been faculty apathy. They see
the need, but they don’t feel they have the time, or they don’t think
these should be addressed in a systematic manner. I have not been able
to overcome this. I do what I can — but if I don’t have faculty buy
in, many of the proposed changes to our program will not happen.”
“Faculty reluctance to change. I find faculty to be rather risk-averse.
There is little willingness to take on new initiatives. Change
management is not easy. While transparency and democratic decision
making are fine, incentives must be created to drive change.”
(R2 universities)
Several progress reports mentioned issues with the upper administration.
In some cases, the appointment of new deans impacted the ability of the
departments to make change, for example, through new directives that
took precedence, or by requiring substantial work of faculty that took
time away from implementing changes to the graduate program. Also, some
deans did not allow faculty hiring to replace those that left or retired
or had such strapped budgets that they could not support any of the
proposed new courses, etc. Two departments mentioned a lack of upper
administration support for their Master’s program, which is an important
degree for geoscientists.
“There is an increasing sentiment that our administration does not
appreciate master’s degrees and there is a push to offer and support
Ph.D. programs rather than master’s programs unless the latter provide a
revenue stream.”
(R2 university)
A misconception expressed by the director of a doctoral-only graduate
program at the 2019 Heads/Chairs Summit, was that all of their graduates
went into academia, so the skills recommended by geoscience employers
were unnecessary. Clearly faculty with this attitude cause roadblocks to
change. A similar problem was expressed in a progress report:
“The Dean and several vocal faculty members successfully pushed for what
I can only describe as a free-for-all curriculum — no course
requirements of any kind for students.”
“The Dean said that it was “arrogant” to suggest anyone but a student’s
faculty advisor would know what training was best for their student.”
“We have a surprisingly large number of faculty who believe we shouldn’t
have graduate class requirements at all and think students will learn
everything they need to know in the lab.”
“The proposed curriculum will result in students not taking any classes
at all outside of their narrow discipline, nor will most faculty promote
non-technical skills unless they apply to their specific research.”
“Unfortunately, I have no advice for others. For substantial graduate
training change to occur one either needs substantial buy-in at the
faculty-level, or an administration that is passionate and willing to
support change. Both are ideal, but at least one is critical. Having
neither means going nowhere.”
(R1 universities)
One issue with IDPs was noted and points out the need for good
mentoring.
“Some students were not good at self-assessment and goal setting, so
their initial IDPs were not useful. We were not aware of this problem,
but we mentored students to think more in-depth about their strengths,
weaknesses, and goals.”
(R1 university)
The department that required each graduate student to meet with their
committee twice a year, received pushback from faculty but was able to
demonstrate it was worthwhile.
“Some faculty felt that organizing committee meetings took too much
time, especially if they advise more than 4 students or serve on a
larger number of committees.” However, “meeting with committees has
worked, as it has exposed faculty who have issues with particular
students and sheds light on the process for all.”
“Eventually, the argument that this investment of time would pay off in
the long run as it minimizes future issues won the day.”
(R1 universities)
Advice
Heads/chairs found various ways of convincing their faculty to implement
changes, from emphasizing that the geosciences have changed to appealing
to their sense of pride.
“Increase open debate and discussion to improve awareness of the need to
adapt in the geosciences or be left behind.”
“Engage the entire faculty within departments in coming up with the
final version of the action plan. Have them realize that the success of
students is part of the faculty legacy.”
(R1 universities)
Others stressed the need to have all the examples and samples of what
you are proposing collected as early as possible and have them ready to
hand out to other faculty before you try to get buy-in, or being
proactive and pushing ahead even though such changes may take you out of
your comfort zone. Some felt that it was important to get all the
faculty to buy-in whereas others took a more stepwise approach.
“It is important to get faculty buy in. If only one or two people are
interested in implementing improvements, things cannot be done in a
systematic and programmatic way.”
(R2 university)
“There are many relatively easy steps to make that have minimal impact
on faculty time, so go for it.”
(R1 university)
“Pick one battle at a time. This past year I ended up working on
holistic applicant assessment because it was easier to get everyone on
board for that one.”
“I will pick up other issues that need consensus building now that that
one is done.”
(R1 university)
Others noted that heads/chairs should not be discouraged if not everyone
buys-in.
“There will always be faculty who do not see the importance or have
dissenting views on the need to make major changes.”
“While we need to listen and acknowledge these viewpoints, as long as
there is a critical mass of energetic faculty who have buy-in to make
positive change, it makes it substantially easier to make forward
progress.”
“Don’t be surprised if people do not want to, or are not willing to,
understand.”
(R1 universities)
Several reports noted that there is a lot of graduate education reform
going on across STEM and that comparing notes with others in the same
institution should be helpful, especially as other science departments
will know how to work within the constraints of your institution.
While most mentions of funding and resources were in terms of
roadblocks — i.e., needed but not available, a couple departments
found support from their university.
“The good luck stems very, very clearly from the unexpected — and
unreliable! — injections of funding both into our department, in the
form of new faculty, and into the university as a whole to pursue
machine learning/AI based research. I doubt this is easily reproduced
elsewhere in the absence of serious funding support. History is replete
with examples of this phenomenon: when funds are available, rapid and
positive development follows.”
(R1 university)
“Convincing the central administration that the dept. was worth some
investment — It took some effort, but once you have their ears, and
you make a good argument, they can be swayed.”
(R2 university)
One report stressed the need to talk to graduate students to identify
their “pain points”. They recommended acknowledging that you won’t be
able to address them all, but being clear about how you will (or plan
to) make changes to the program accordingly — or how you will advocate
on their behalf. Another chair said that it was important to remind
faculty of the value of IDPs for students so that they continued to use
them in advising.
