Developing a State University System Model to Diversify Faculty in the Biomedical Sciences.

Amid increasing demands from students and the public, universities have recently reinvigorated their efforts to increase the number of faculty from underrepresented populations. Although a myriad of piecemeal programs targeting individual recruitment and development have been piloted at several institutions, overall growth in faculty diversity remains almost negligible and highly localized. To bring about genuine change, we hypothesize a consortia approach that links individuals to hiring opportunities within a state university system might be more effective.

The Dissertation House Model: Doctoral Student Experiences Coping and Writing in a Shared Knowledge Community.

The problem of PhD attrition, especially at the dissertation-writing stage, is not solely related to mentoring, departments, or disciplines; it is a problem that affects the entire institution. As such, solutions require collaborative efforts for student success. Building on Yeatman's master-apprentice model, which assumes mastering disciplinary writing in singular advisor-student contexts, and Burnett's collaborative cohort model, which introduced doctoral dissertation supervision in a collaborative-learning environment with several faculty mentors in a single discipline, the Dissertation House model (DHM) introduces a model of doctoral dissertation supervision that involves multiple mentors across several disciplines.