Graduate students voice concerns

Although the majority of the University's graduate students claim to be satisfied with their overall educational experiences, several have pinpointed specific areas that could be improved.

Concern over several aspects of the Graduate School-such as its balance between research and real-life training, the caliber of graduate advising, its interdisciplinary curriculum and a lack of student interaction-has motivated proactive discussions among students and administrators.

Research vs. real-life training

Various departments within the Graduate School are currently facing the difficult challenge of balancing research and real-life training in graduate students' education. As a result, some graduate students said they feel that the dual aspects of their education-research and practical training-often conflict.

William Choi, a third-year graduate student in economics, said that a clear distinction exists between the theoretical academic atmosphere of graduate school and the practical environment of the career world. This difference poses a conflict for graduate students, he said. "If you're applied, you're not respected. If you're theoretical, you're more respected, but not practical," he said, adding that his department focuses primarily on research.

Students and administrators have discussed this problem at length, but some students are still concerned with a perceived lack of real-life training. Michael Tino, a fourth-year graduate student in cell biology and an at-large member of the executive board of the Graduate and Professional Student Council, said that the Graduate School has failed to train people for a wide variety of careers such as consulting, teaching and industrial or public policy work. He added, however, that he suspects this problem is common among graduate schools.

One possible remedy, Tino said, would be for the University to offer graduate students the opportunity to intern at nearby businesses and corporations or teach at local community colleges, thereby allowing them to gain practical experience in the non-academic world.

Other students said they think more emphasis should be placed on communication and management skills. Heather Hayter, a fourth-year graduate student in cell biology and an at-large member of the executive board of GPSC, said that although she is satisfied with the research aspect of her education, she is disappointed with the training she has received in writing, presentations and networking.

The variable quality of the Graduate School's student advising system, considered by many to be essential to educational progress, has elicited concern from students.

The inconsistent quality of mentoring is partially a result of the University's lack of emphasis on advising, Tino said, adding that neither teaching nor mentoring are emphasized in the tenure process. "Individual graduate mentoring and class teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels would improve if they were given more weight in tenure," Tino said.

Nevertheless, some students were pleased with the quality of advising within their specific departments.

Professors in the classical studies department, for example, are accessible and empathetic, said Patricia Fitzgibbon, a second-year graduate student in classical studies. "They seem willing to help us in any aspect of our studies, whether it is helping us with bibliography or defining a term so that we can find out things on our own," Fitzgibbon said. "If we have a hard day, they seem to be there to listen to us."

Jones said he feels that the consistency and quality of mentoring in the Graduate School's math department is superior to every other mathematics department in the nation. "The most important thing in math is access to your advisor," he said, "and Duke is exemplary in that aspect."

An interdisciplinary curriculum

Although administrators acknowledge that research has always been a priority for the Graduate School, they are also working with students to make the curriculum more interdisciplinary.

To achieve this goal, several graduate departments are reassessing their curriculum. "The Graduate School is always interested in supporting and facilitating interdisciplinary work through a variety of mechanisms, whether formal cross-disciplinary degree and certificate programs, or through more informal faculty and student interactions," said Leigh Deneef, associate dean of the Graduate School. "We currently have some 19 different interdisciplinary programs, with three new ones under active consideration."

Professors in the Graduate School agree that departments are making progress in varying the curriculum. "I think it's safe to say that old patterns of study are breaking down or expanding," said Elizabeth Clark, director of the graduate program in religion. "More graduate education is becoming interdisciplinary, [and] this trend will continue in the future."

Many graduate students also said that individual departments have succeeded at synthesizing a multi-disciplinary curriculum. "We're doing mathematical biology and medicine, working with computer applications, and there has been a mathematical finance seminar," said Ben Jones, a fourth-year graduate student in math.

But doubts linger about the Graduate School's ability to incorporate various fields of study into a cohesive program. "I wish departments cooperated more with each other because some departments overlap," Hayter said.

A few students expressed concern that the implementation of an interdisciplinary curriculum might eclipse traditional and accepted views of the educational canon.

Kent Lehnhof, a second-year graduate student in English, said that although his department is exciting and innovative, the movement toward interdisciplinary classes has eroded classic standards within his department. "It's hard to find a class on the graduate level on, say, Shakespeare," Lehnhof said.

Lack of student interaction

Students said that interacting with students in other areas of study is an important aspect of their education-an aspect noticeably missing from the Graduate School. "It's essential that graduate students have interaction with people in different fields and get different perspectives," Tino said. "I think it makes our academic work that much stronger."

Several students said they felt they had to make an extra effort just to meet graduate students they otherwise would not encounter. "You have to go out of your way to form relationships, professional or otherwise," Hayter said.

Efforts to encourage interdepartmental interaction, however, have not gone unnoticed. The interdisciplinary nature of the graduate program in religion, for example, allows graduate students to gain the benefits of interaction with students in other departments, Clark said.

But others said that they do not consider augmenting graduate student interaction an important issue.

The isolation graduate students sometimes feel is more indicative of the nature of graduate school itself, said Stacey Ballantyne, a first-year graduate student in molecular cancer biology. "The only people I'll have contact with are people in the biological sciences-and that's fine," she said.

Students added that inherent differences among some departments often discourages interaction. The disparity between disciplines that are "hard," such as the natural sciences and those involving quantitative reasoning, and those that are "soft," such as the social sciences and humanities, can make contact between science and non-science graduate students difficult at times. "We are very separated in the sciences," Jones said.