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Summary Description How does the department/program help students develop as researchers and scholars? What strategies are used? What elements of the program contribute to students' ability to share findings? At ASU ... Developing students as researchers and scholars begins in the classroom, specifically the research seminar. Not only do we encourage students to share their findings with each other, but faculty encourage students to think about ways of sharing their findings with a larger audience, whether through conference presentations or publication in journals. Conferences At ASU, students can fund their own research conferences through the graduate college; faculty encourage them to sumit papers and panels for regional and national conferences, often facilitating this process by serving on program committees or networking with other scholars. The department offers support for students to attend conferences, where they meet scholars from other institutions. Journal Publication Another way to foster the sharing of research findings is to encourage students to publish in professional journals. ASU graduate students have been particularly successful in this endeavor, with several students winning prizes over the past several years. Journal publication increases visibility and introduces students to the process of peer review and editing for publication. Turning Dissertations into Monographs Finally, faculty network with university presses to ensure that graduate students think in terms of publishing their dissertations as monographs. These first books serve as the foundation of an assistant professor's record when they go up for tenure and promotion, and the sooner the graduate student conceives of his dissertation as a monograph in the making, the better chance that the result will be a sound, solid, and polished book.
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Goals for Students By the time students complete the PhD how should they have developed in their ability to share findings and communicate results? What should they know? What should they be able to do? How should they be able to think? At ASU ... Part of graduate training involves training students to convey their findings and explain their methodology in their speaking as well as their writing. They should be able to report their findings through round tables and discussions, paper presentations at conferences, and articles and monographs: they need to explain the significance of their work and their approach as they apply for financial support. from funding agencies. In the Classroom In this case experience is the best teacher. Professors need to stress the importance of conveying one's findings to entering students as well as ABD candidates. In class discussion this may mean challenging a student's lazy or incomplete commentary; in grading papers this may mean offering fairly direct comments as well as advice on how to do things better, perhaps with examples at hand. In readings courses we ask students to discuss and take apart books; it is useful to remind them that some day their work will be subject to the same sort of scrutiny. Learn from Others Job talks by prospective candidates offer graduate students a chance to observe how scholars present their work to their peers and answer questions about their research. They learn that if you can't explain your work to others, you may not really understand it yourself, and that discussing what you are doing offers an excellent opportunity for you to think about what you are doing. From Paper to Presentation and Publication We work very hard at preparing students to present their work in front of their peers and how to evaluate the work of their peers; we take that experience and apply it by encouraging students to present their work at conferences, where they gain exposure and gather feedback. Faculty must encourage students to turn seminar papers and other writings into journal articles, both for the intrinsic worth of having one's work published and because the process introduces students to what they will experience when the time comes to submit a monograph to an academic/university press.
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Program Context Why do you do what you do? How does it fit with other elements of the doctoral program? We foster an environment that fosters partipation and publication from the beginning because we believe that by showcasing their scholarship our graduate students will draw attention to their work and thus to their institution. In the case of an institution with name brand recognition, so to speak, that may not be so important. In our case, we need to have our students show the profession at large what they can do; in turn this builds a record of scholarship that can be used to recruit more graduate students, thus building momentum. That may be less obvious than the point that by presenting and publishing, students make themselves more attractive candidates on the job market, but it is true that institutional as well as individual reputations are enhanced through publishing widely and well.
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How Do We Know? How do you know students have met your goals? How do you know if they have not? Are students evaluated? What tools do you use? At ASU ... The proof is in the pudding. The presence of so many of our students on professional programs and the feedback we get from these presentations offers one measure of success; so do the number of articles that appear in professional journals, especially those singled out for special recognition. We've had great success in turning dissertations into book manuscripts, especially in American history. Thus, when students don't produce, we know because the failure to produce is evident. There's another way in which we know that in this area we've been successful. Over the last ten years we have been building an environment of expectation among our students. They see what their predecessors have achieved in this regard; they begin to spur each other on; they see the value in communicating their findings, and they know that participation in professional conferences and publication is now an expectation. It's essential in this regard to remind students that graduate school is not an entity unto itself, but the place where one establishes the foundation for future scholary endeavors, and that what they accomplish in graduate school has long-term implications for their professional development and career path.
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