Departmental Engagement in Doctoral Professional Development: Lessons from Political Science

Abstract

There is widespread discussion about the need to develop and enhance the career prospects of PhD graduates, and many Canadian universities are seeking to provide professional development programs and mentorship specifically for doctoral students. This paper considers doctoral career preparation from thedepartment level through an in-depth examination of how Canadian political science departments approach the issue, drawing on a survey of department chairs. We find that departments are supportive of professional development; while departments are not in the position to provide extensive programs andstruggle to integrate efforts systematically, they are well-positioned to participate in collaborative approaches and welcome improved communication and coordination. We argue that graduate faculties should consult with departments and engage them in professional development program design, perhapstailoring to specific disciplines as needed, and that departments should look for opportunities to work with graduate faculties before initiating their own programs.

The Design and Evaluation of Online Faculty Development for Effective Graduate Supervision

“…Informed by research on writing preparation and managing the dissertation (Ciampa & Wolfe, 2019;Roberts et al, 2019), a new "Academic Writing" module was developed for V2 of the QGS MOOC. A module on "Mentoring for Diverse Careers," was created for V2 to expand the focus from academic careers to include the many diverse career paths that graduates often pursue beyond academia (Berdahl & Malloy, 2018;McAlpine & Austin, 2018;Flaherty, 2019;Osborne et al, 2014;Sekuler et al, 2013), and the need for change in how supervisors support mentees' career development (McAlpine, 2017;Berdahl et al, 2019;.…”