Passive Wifi

Grist.org recognizes that graduate students are “behind almost all scientific and technological advances.” In this case, Vamsi Talla and Bryce Kellogg in particular.

Hours and Hours of Office Hours

I am a TA for a graduate level class this quarter, and my professor is asking me to hold 4 hours of Office Hours. I feel this is too much. I had TA’d the same class last quarter, and I had five hours of Office Hours, way more than any other grad class in my department. It was incredibly stressful, and I grew to hate the work because of the long hours. I was hoping that this quarter I can have office hours similar what others in my department hold. How do I tell my professor? I want a good recommendation letter from him eventually and don’t want to piss him off, but there simply doesn’t seem to be an indirect way to tell him what I want to say. —Anonymous

This is exactly the type of situation to take to the Office of the Ombud. They specialize in handling conflicts with others at UW and will help you approach your professor with your concerns. Additionally, you can consult the Center for Teaching and Learning for tips on how to manage office hours and handle the stress that comes with teaching.

Ask the Grad School Guru is an advice column for all y’all graduate and professional students. Real questions from real students, answered by real people. If the guru doesn’t know the answer, the guru will seek out experts all across campus to address the issue. (Please note: The guru is not a medical doctor, therapist, lawyer or academic advisor, and all advice offered here is for informational purposes only.) Submit a question for the column →

Building and Maintaining Momentum

It’s nearing the end of winter quarter, and we know it can be difficult to keep your spirits and energy up as you work to fulfill on and off campus responsibilities. We are right there with you. Here are five tips to help keep you going:

Set achievable goals. Rather than promising yourself that you’re going to spend 5 full hours in one sitting to work on a paper, approach time management realistically. Try writing in 30 minute chunks. Take a short break and pick it right back up. This approach can be a great stress reliever, because you can make progress one step at a time.

Set boundaries. Set healthy boundaries on campus, at work, and at home–and if you haven’t done so, now is a good time as any to practice. Take stock of what you have to get done in the next two weeks. You can hold off on any tasks and responsibilities that can realistically wait for the next few weeks or month. Boundary setting helps you realize that you do have control over your schedule.

Meet with your support system. Have you checked in with people who’ve got your back? This may include faculty, graduate program advisors, loved ones, student peers, or work colleagues. More than one person in your support system is better. Check in with faculty via e-mail or in person and focus on one or two goals you have for the rest of the quarter. Meet with a peer at the library or a coffee shop to write and go over ideas and drafts. Connecting with loved ones and community is important and can remind you that you are more than just a graduate student. Call, text, skype, share a meal, and/or make plans to spend time together.

Keep yourself nourished. What keeps you going and energized? Do you need a glass of water? How about a snack or meal? A short nap or a good night’s sleep? Is there a song, movie, hobby, or activity that restores your motivation? Is there something you are looking forward to during Spring Break? Post an image or word in your work space or apartment that reminds of you of what you are looking forward to–to keep yourself moving toward that finish line. And it’s always helpful to reflect back on why you’re here in graduate school in the first place (insert personal, intellectual, and professional goals here).

Have faith in yourself. You do have what it takes. Really, you do! You can do your best now and it will be enough.

Warmly,

Jaye Sablan, Kelly Edwards, Ziyan Bai
Core Programs Team

Gratuitous to Grade Grammar?

I’m a TA for a graduate-level course, and many of the students are not native English speakers. I am grading assignments with significant grammatical errors: incorrect tenses, wrong plurals, missing articles, etc. I’m struggling with the tension between not unfairly penalizing students, since English isn’t their first language, but also holding them to a high standard for academic writing, given that they are getting a graduate degree. How have other TAs or instructors handled this? —Grammar Nerd

(This week’s answer is courtesy of Katie Malcolm, Instructional Consultant, Center for Teaching and Learning.)

Thank you for asking—this is a question we hear often in the Center for Teaching and Learning. Although we recommend that TAs check with their supervisors to see if their departments have specific policies about this, the TAs we have worked with over the years and our own teaching experiences have given us some helpful perspectives. When thinking about how to fairly assess my own international and multilingual students’ writing, I ask myself two questions: 1) What are my goals for the assignment? What do I need to prioritize? and 2) How can I communicate these goals to my students in ways that will help them succeed?

1. First, I think about what is important to prioritize for my students in each assignment, given my realistic learning outcomes for a 10-week course. What is the primary goal I want students to achieve through each writing assignment?

In my own assignments, my first priority is for students to develop and sustain a logical argument in conversation with relevant research. If students’ errors leave me unable to understand their argument, I can’t assess it meaningfully, and—whether English is their first, second, or fifth language—I will ask them to edit and revise the assignment in order to receive credit.

Because my primary goal is not for students to write as though English were their first language, if incorrect verb tenses or missing articles do not detract from my ability to understand a student’s point, I tend to overlook or “read through” them, or point out a couple of occurrences in the margins and then make a note of these patterns in my end comments. (Showing students the patterns of their errors helps them learn how to avoid these kinds of errors in the future). Just as students need time and practice to develop fluency in their pronunciation and speaking, they also need time to develop fluency in academic, discipline-specific English writing.

2. Once I have articulated my expectations for students’ writing, I clearly communicate these expectations to students in several ways:

At the same time that I introduce an assignment, I share the assignment grading criteria, usually in the form of a rubric. When writing style is an important aspect of the assignment (as it often is), I make sure that it is part of the grading criteria and weighted appropriately.

I assign multiple drafts so that students know that I do not want them to start a paper the night before it’s due (often a major culprit of unedited papers). I’ll ask students to bring an early draft to class for peer review, or to bring a draft to my office hours, and/or to visit the Odegaard Writing and Resource Center (OWRC) to get feedback on their writing early in the process.
I share writing resources with my students, including information about OWRC, which has drop-in hours for graduate student writers in the Allen Library. There are also a number of great online resources on proofreading that may be helpful to students, such as the Purdue OWL’s “Finding common errors” page and their pages dedicated to multilingual writers. UNC also has some helpful editing resources.

Again, thanks for asking this great question — if you would like to talk more about this or other aspects of your teaching, please don’t hesitate to contact us at thectl@uw.edu.

Negotiating Salary and Your Start-Up Package

In February 2016, the UW Career Center convened a panel of recently hired faculty members to share their perspectives on how to negotiate salary in pursuing an academic career. Here are some highlights from the workshop:

Top Tips:

(Almost) Always negotiate.
Check your attitude (you want to aim for humble-confident).
Think broadly. Beyond just salary, there are moving expenses, set up costs, teaching load, professional development funds, staff support, and etc.
You can’t get it all, but ask yourself: What will help me be a happy, productive faculty member? What are the deal breakers?

Before Asking:

Frame your thinking and communications as a faculty member, not as an aspiring graduate student or postdoc grasping for a position.
Think hard about what you want (what kind of position). Understand fit. What kind of institution are you looking for? What kind of institutional culture? What kind of experience do you want as a professor? What is possible to ask for within the kind of institution in which you are applying?
Do your research. Know what the salary range is for your discipline and type of institution. Know what you can ask for. In order to do this, you can talk with your network, e.g. people who have gotten positions in the last 3-4 years. This helps you know what to expect.

When to Ask?

Never give the first number, even if they ask. Do not talk about salary until you get a job offer.
Do not respond right away after receiving the offer of salary. Let it sit for at least 24 hours.

What to Ask?

Ask for what you need to be successful. Negotiation implies give and take.
Things to ask for: Remember to tie all asks back to your productivity and impact.
- Salary. Consider cost of living in the city, hard money/soft money split – how long before you need to bring in more of your own salary.
- Summer support. Justify it as research/productivity time. It is easier to give since it is a one-time commitment.
- Moving costs. You can get estimates for your move and negotiate for higher amount – usually institutions have set amount whether you move from near or far.
- Tech, grant, and/or teaching support.
- Travel and development. As junior person, you might need to ask for 2 conferences in first 3 years as you build your network and your position.
- Reduced teaching load. How many preps do you want each year (new courses)?
- TA or RA support
Make sure you have what you want at the end of the negotiation.

How to Ask?

Be honest, have integrity. Don’t “BS” – people can see through that.
Be gracious in the way you ask.
Remember humility – you deserve to be treated well (but not better than) all the other faculty.
Tie your requests back to how it will facilitate your contributions and success as a faculty member – you are not asking to be selfish, you are asking because you want to make good on the investment they are making in YOU.

What if…?

You receive multiple offers.
- Be honest. Never misrepresent. Keep in mind these are your colleagues who will be in your national network.
- You can always ask – if you haven’t heard from top choice yet, you can ask where you are in the process because you have another offer.
- Be gracious in asking for more information, and for more time. Search Committees take time, the whole process takes time. E.g. “I have an offer from another institution, but I would be very interested in hearing from you.”
You are moving with your partner who is also pursuing academic career.
- Don’t start asking right away – it can create a barrier.
- You want to be honest. You want to be upfront. But think about when to say it.
- Certain states have “anti-nepotism laws” – strict rules about having relatives be in potential positions of power over each other. Or resource constraints. Research institutional culture/practices – some institutions can be very helpful.
- Sometimes they find “options”, but they are not options that are desirable for your career.
- Sometimes you can ask for career services for your spouse.

Things to Bear in Mind:

When negotiating, you are starting the beginning of a long term relationship. You want to start on the right foot. Be objective, be fair, look for a win-win solution (see Steven Convey). A teaching institution won’t be able to provide a Research I lab space. Know the context in which you are asking.
Don’t take it personally. When they throw a number out, don’t get excited or offended. Look at the range you know they use. It sets your starting point and you move from there. Do not agree on anything right away.
Putting your best self forward in negotiation. Word will get around about the “ridiculous” things you are asking for, or how unreasonable, or difficult you’ve been.
You have to communicate your sense of value. But not your value as “better than everyone else”. Be confident but humble.
If you give up too much, it also creates a lesser If you agree too quickly, you are not perceived as strong. You may end up resenting what others have.

Resources:

Check university websites for benefit packages.
Check with your professional society, or with publicly available databases to find out appropriate salary ranges for your field or the institution. Keep in mind years of experience will count.
Career Center resource on Academic Career: Salary Negotiation
Julia Miller Vick & Jennifer S. Furlong. (2008). Academic Job Search Handbook.
Linda Babcock & Sara Laschever. (2009). Ask for It: How Women Can Use Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want.

Acknowledgement to the panelists:
Dr. Thelma Madzima, Faculty in Biology, UW Bothell
Dr. Hala Annabi, Faculty in iSchool, UW Seattle
Catherine Basl, UW Career Center

Originally posted on February 11, 2016.

The Good Kind of Audit

There is no supervision in the practicum setting of the students in the [redacted] program. Every week, the students have to sign a form to turn into the board, although they did not receive the supervision they have signed off for. Questions are not being answered when they voice their concerns about this. Some people feel this program should be audited because the lack of supervision is only one concern of this program. —Anonymous

I’m so sorry to hear you’re having to deal with this in your program. While students cannot directly request an audit, you should know that the Graduate School conducts Academic Program Reviews for all departments on a rotating schedule. Without calling out your specific department, it looks like this is your year! Program reviews provide several opportunities for student feedback, including speaking to the review committee during the site visit and also sending written feedback.

Online Courses

The last thing you want to do is take more classes, but maybe there’s a gap in your knowledge or skill base you want to fill without paying more tuition. The UW offers free online courses, based on popular classes offered by UW degree and certificate programs.

Write Well

I am coming back to the regular stream of school after 35 years. I would like to improve my writing skill to the level of my cohorts. —Anonymous

Congratulations! And welcome back to school. Students returning to school after a significant amount of time have unique challenges. The most relevant resource for you would be the Odegaard Writing and Research Center. In Odegaard Library, they offer one-to-one tutoring sessions on any piece of writing.

You can make an appointment or drop in. See their website for details and hours. In Allen Library, they also offer Drop-in Consultations for Graduate Students. Sessions are exclusively drop-in and are specifically targeted for graduate students working on long-term projects. See details and hours. They also offer a variety of other programs that might suit your needs. There are also writing centers across campuses and many departments host their own. Here’s a list of resources on the Seattle campus. Bothell has a Writing and Communication Center and Tacoma’s Teaching and Learning Center offers writing consultations. Good luck! Ask the Grad School Guru is an advice column for all y’all graduate and professional students.

Real questions from real students, answered by real people. If the guru doesn’t know the answer, the guru will seek out experts all across campus to address the issue. (Please note: The guru is not a medical doctor, therapist, lawyer or academic advisor, and all advice offered here is for informational purposes only.)

Submit a question for the column →

Moving Past Barriers to Writing

Many of you are thinking about research questions, arguments, and citations for your final seminar papers. Some of you are close to beginning work on your thesis or dissertation. This may also be the first time you are engaging with graduate-level writing, if you are an incoming or first-generation graduate student. Fortunately, there are a number of campus-based and online resources that offer tips and tools to help you progress and complete these writing projects.

For example, the following insights were gathered from a National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD) workshop held at the Seattle campus recently. Facilitator Chadwick Allen emphasized that you must first recognize the kinds of barrier(s) you are experiencing before knowing how to address them:

Technical. Technical barriers–like constant e-mail and social media checking, watching Netflix during your designated writing time, or doing work at a noisy café–are activities you can manage or learn to avoid all together in order to get research and writing done. Close your e-mail program or internet browser. Set up an electronic block to the internet on a timer. Find a quiet place to work. Most importantly, set aside small chunks of time (30 minute writing blocks) to help you move a project forward at a quicker pace. The satisfaction of making progress will propel and motivate you. When you block time in your schedule to do your writing, it is important to honor that commitment to yourself, just like you’d honor an appointment with your faculty advisor or dissertation chair.

External. These are life events that are completely beyond your control such as experiencing illness, difficulty in finding childcare if you are a parent, or coping with the loss of a loved one. In these circumstances, reach out to your professor or advisor and let them know what’s going on (only share what feels comfortable to you). You can often negotiate for a revised timeline or deadline if needed. If you can be up front about your challenges, faculty are willing to work with you as you cope with these stressors and changes. Sport ID has been designed to serve all sports and all centres. It’s quick to set up, and easy to implement buy fake id The easy way to track, chronicle, and relive every game you attend.

Psychological. Sometimes feelings related to imposter syndrome or perfectionism prevent us from doing our best work. Know that you are not alone in this, and there are tips for moving through feelings of inadequacy that can be found here or here. Try this out: During your 30-minute blocks, allow yourself to write in a truly unorganized manner. Don’t worry about grammar or sentence structure, just let your thoughts flow. The goal is to get words out on the screen or on paper. More often than not, you’ll have several ideas with which you can work with and build from. You may also find yourself stuck in doing online literature searches because you feel you don’t know enough about your topic. Bets are you do know plenty and have enough literature to at least begin organizing ideas for your paper. Once you’ve drafted an outline, you’ll start seeing gaps that need to be filled. Revisit doing the literature search after you’ve identified those gaps.

Additional Writing Tips and Resources

Schedule a consultation with a UW writing tutor: Bothell, Tacoma, Seattle
Why write alone, when you can work with peers for extra support and hold each other accountable? Check out this Writing Group Starter Kit from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Writing tips and guides from the Odegaard Writing & Research Center (UW Seattle)
10 Top Writing Tips and the Psychology Behind Them
If you want to get signed up for “Monday Motivator” messages to promote your productivity and writing, and to get invited to future community webinar events, students, postdocs, and faculty can sign up with the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity of which the University of Washington has an institutional membership.

Building Your Roadmap Through Graduate School

The Graduate Student Equity & Excellence (GSEE) program invited Core Programs to facilitate a Power Hour event called Building Your Roadmap Through Graduate School. We knew the students were the ones who really had the insight here, and we worked with several outstanding GSEE graduate students including Priya Patel, Osa Igbinosun, Greg Diggs and Juan Gallegos, to plan and facilitate the discussion. So many great insights were shared during the panel and small group discussions that we wanted to share out some of the insights with our broader UW grad student community.

Here are just a few:

Define success on your terms. It may not feel like it at times, but you can influence your pathway through graduate school. Periodically check in with yourself by asking the following questions: First, how are your research interests, courses, labs, or professional work meaningful to you? We know you won’t like every course, theory, lab work, or practicum—but overall, how is being in your grad program meeting your needs? Second—and this is related to the first point—are you setting personal, academic and career goals that are realistic and achievable? An individual development plan can help you keep track of your goals. Finally, how can you utilize feedback from faculty, peers and professional colleagues to enhance or strengthen your knowledge and skills? When people in your field give you feedback with constructive value, take it as a compliment that they have faith in you to grow in your work and career.

Be proactive and reach out for support. Taking the initiative to build relationships in graduate school is crucial to your success. Yes people are busy in and outside of academia, but more often than not they will make time to connect with you if you are consistent, proactive and prepared to meet with them. Which people do you need to connect with to get the support you need to thrive in grad school? Who do you need to network with outside campus to achieve your career goals, and how will you find them? What meeting agenda items and questions do you need to have ready to schedule that meeting via e-mail or phone? For example, the UW College of Education offers an excellent resource (revise and adapt as needed) that will help you prepare for your faculty advisor meetings.

Remain open to possibilities. Many of you already have a specific research and career focus upon starting graduate school at the UW. This is excellent, because you have a vision of what you want to achieve for yourself. At the same time, any of the following scenarios can happen: you read a text that a sparks a different trajectory for your thesis or dissertation, a conversation with someone inside or outside of the university inspires you to think about diverse career paths, or maybe after a few meetings with your advisor you realize you’re not a match. Any or all of these can be anxiety provoking (totally normal, btw) and be viewed as opportunities for you to think expansively about your educational, professional and interpersonal goals. What lessons can you learn from those situations about your interests, strengths and passions? Are you allowing yourself to be curious to explore different goals? What steps would you need to take to accomplish those goals? Remaining open to possibilities can help you see goal setting as a process rather than an end result.

Many thanks to Priya, Osa, Greg and Juan for their permission to adapt these insights for the Core Programs newsletter and for collaborating with us for the Power Hour event, held on October 20, 2015. Thanks also goes out to GSEE staff Vanessa Alvarez and Cynthia Morales for the initial ask to collaborate!