PhD Committee

Chair/Co-chairs: Tova Walsh 

Fall 2021 Committee Members: Committee or Group: Lonnie Berger, Paja Charles, Kiley McLean & Emmy Roper 

2021-22 (December) Report Out 

3 Goal Areas 

#1 Increase the diversity of our students, staff, faculty, and other governing bodies is a priority for our committee.  

Objective(s): Expand access to information about the PhD program among potential applicants from underrepresented and marginalized groups. 

Current & Future Action Steps/Timeframes: 

• Aim to recruit and support a diverse community of students in the PhD program, including students who are Black, Indigenous, or other people of color, LGBTQ students, students who are parents, students with disabilities, students struggling with finances, students who are first-generation college or first-generation graduate students 
• Increase applications from students from underrepresented and marginalized groups, admissions, and acceptances of our offer of admission by expanding targeted outreach efforts. 

• Widely advertise and hold a virtual information session on October 26, 2021. 
• Disseminate program information broadly within Wisconsin (e.g., to MSW students at UW-Milwaukee) and nationally, with an emphasis on organizations and professional associations serving students and social workers from underrepresented and marginalized groups 
• Outreach will occur throughout the year, with fall outreach reflected in applications received prior to our PhD program admissions deadline of 12/1and later outreach reflected in next year’s admissions cycle. 

#2 Improve a sense of inclusion for students, faculty, and staff. 

Objective(s): Connect students with more faculty around their skill-building, mentoring and networking needs. 

Current & Future Action Steps/Timeframes: 

• Continue to develop our collective mentoring initiative by completing a collective mentoring booklet for faculty (about students and their mentoring, skill-building, and networking needs) as well as one for students (about the faculty and their mentoring, skill-building, and networking resources), disseminating the booklets, and encouraging their use. 
• Over the summer and into the fall, the PhD program worked with faculty and PhD students to gather information for the booklets. 
• PhD Program Coordinator assembled two booklets and made them available to faculty and PhD students via Box, where they can be “living documents” and get updated over time as student needs and faculty resources evolve. 

• Over the course of the 2021-22 academic year, we will regularly remind students and faculty to consult the booklets when students are seeking a specific skill-building / mentoring / networking opportunity or when faculty have an opportunity or resource to offer to students. 
• Issue reminders at the PhD Program Faculty meetings and to PhD students in SW 946 and 947 and remind faculty and students at the start of each semester, and others on an individual basis as opportunities arise. 
• It is our intention for these booklets to be utilized by faculty and students to identify opportunities to create new connections and expand a sense of inclusion among PhD students as students connect with more faculty around their skill-building, mentoring and networking needs. 

#3 Equip our students, staff, faculty, alumni, and social work community partners to be social justice leaders who can address diversity, equity, and inclusion in their lives and careers. 

Objective(s): Center a DE&I lens in all professional development offerings to increase student preparation to be social justice leaders who can address DE&I in their lives and careers. 

Current & Future Action Steps/Timeframes: 

• Support student participation in a wide range of professional development activities centered on DE&I as well as invite workshop presenters who bring a DE&I lens to their work. 
• Throughout the 2021-22 academic year, the PhD program will support student participation in professional development activities including the SWCARES series on Dismantling Racism in Social Work, the Critical Race Scholars in Social Work Annual Convening, and the #SWEduActs monthly drop in-group for social work educators working to address racism and intersecting oppressions in social work education. 
• Invite professional development workshops for PhD students from presenters including Dr. Torsheika Maddox, Director of the Office of Strategic Diversity Planning and Research in Spring 2022 on Building Confidence for Networking. 

Committee Name: PhD Committee

Committee Members:  Kristi Slack, Pajarita Charles, Tova Walsh, Emmy Roper, Seungmi Cho, Luke Muenter

Strategic Plan Goal: Improve a sense of inclusion for our students, faculty & staff.

Objectives:

1) Review/begin to address equity in opportunities for training /research experiences.

2) Connect students with more faculty around their skill-building, mentoring, and networking needs.

Progress on goal since February 2021

Objective 1:

Have been able to place 3 students in hourly research positions to create more equity in research opportunities

Update: inequities in compensation remain in place, however, given that L&S HR forces a choice between a student hourly pay cap of $15/hr. or requires partial tuition remission if we set up a PA-ship to complement an existing PA/RA/TA-ship.  Tuition remission for these additional research experiences is beyond our budget capacity. As a result, these additional opportunities either cannot be offered at all or create situations where some PhD students getting paid less than their counterparts.

Were able to facilitate students who hit their financial aid caps getting to keep their merit award money, but it was on a case-by-case basis.

Update: It is federal (Dept. of Education) policy that drives the problem of students whose financial aid caps have been maximized being unable to receive merit awards outright. Instead, federal policy requires such awards to be applied toward paying down student loans, resulting in students without as much financial need being able to keep their merit awards, and students with more financial need not being allowed to do so.  Advocacy is needed at the federal level to change this policy.

Update: some students described the process of increasing their financial aid caps as “intrusive” and “humiliating”, given the nature of the questions and the requirements for proof of need. PhD Program Chair met with the Director of the Office of Financial Aid to make her aware of this problem, and to request that anything that can be done to make this process less problematic for students would be greatly appreciated.

We are holding two discussion sessions with students on creating an anti-racist and anti-oppressive PhD program and curriculum.

Update: We held two of these sessions, and notes will be compiled and distributed to students and faculty before the start of AY21-22.

Objective 2:

Collective mentoring initiative (to connect more of our faculty with more of our PhD students) is being further implemented this year, and we are in the process of collecting information to complete a collective mentoring booklet for faculty (about students and their mentoring, skill-building, and networking needs) and one for the students (about the faculty and their mentoring, skill-building, and networking resources). 

Update: We are still waiting on a few faculty to complete the survey they were sent and we decided to hold off on administering the student survey until after the semester is over, due to students feeling survey fatigued.

Our peer-mentoring initiative continued this year, but we initiated the peer mentoring over the summer prior to the arrival of the incoming cohort, and this helped to build community between the new and current students before the semester began.

Update: We are off to an even earlier start with the incoming cohort of students this Fall.  Peer mentors have all been assigned.

We have invited two national speakers to talk about leadership development from a DE&I lens.

Update: We ended up hosting only one national speaker in the Fall to discuss leadership, given the excessive time demands on students and reports of Zoom fatigue. These invited talks will resume next year and may be held virtually in some cases, given that classes will be back in-person and students will not be spending so much time on Zoom.

Both Objectives 1 & 2

We have created a more efficient system for circulating information on events, trainings, and other resources and opportunities to students in the PhD program using Teams channels to centralize such information. We have ramped up including items related to DE&I and leadership skills.

Update: Our move to Microsoft Teams as a central platform for sharing information has worked really well and greatly reduced the burden on students of receiving too many emails. A review of the opportunities we have shared throughout the year shows that topics addressing diversity, equity and inclusion were prevalent.

When students in our program have expertise to share through workshops or lunch and learns, we are able to compensate them with up to $150 in academic books.

Update: We did this initially, but then were informed that we cannot purchase books for students. We are now giving students $150 scholarships instead.

What is your committee’s message to all stakeholders (including students) on the progress of meeting those goals?

We are making steady progress on our goals but have hit some roadblocks that are situated in other campus units (HR, Financial Aid, Business Services).  Students are highly engaged in efforts to improve the program, as are our faculty. Challenges going forward are to keep advocating for campus changes that allow us to fully implement our goals, to achieve meaningful buy-in from all of our PhD faculty on the collective mentoring model, and to articulate and operationalize a vision for an anti-racist PhD Program.

Chair/Co-chairs: Tova Walsh

Objective(s): Expand access to information about the PhD program among potential applicants from underrepresented and marginalized groups.  

Spring 2022 progress update:  

We are working to recruit and support a diverse community of students in the PhD program, including students who are Black, Indigenous, or other people of color, LGBTQ students, students who are parents, students with disabilities, students struggling with finances, students who are first-generation college or first-generation graduate students.  Some of the actions we have taken this year include: 

• Disseminated program information broadly within Wisconsin (e.g., to MSW students at UW-Milwaukee) and nationally, with an emphasis on organizations and professional associations serving students and social workers from underrepresented and marginalized groups  
• Widely advertised and held a virtual information session on October 26, 2021 
• Increased support for applicants to navigate the PhD application process.  Created an FAQ video, met with applicants by request, offered guidance to applicants who were not admitted and requested pointers on how to prepare a strong PhD applications  

• Nominated incoming students from underrepresented groups for UW-Madison fellowships 
• Assisted current students from underrepresented groups with identifying and applying for external awards and fellowships 

Objective(s): Connect students with more faculty around their skill-building, mentoring and networking needs.  

Spring 2022 progress update:  

• We assembled collective mentoring booklets for faculty (about students and their mentoring, skill-building, and networking needs) and for students (about the faculty and their mentoring, skill-building, and networking resources) and made them available to faculty and PhD students via Box, where they can be “living documents” and will get updated over time as student needs and faculty resources evolve.  

• Throughout the 2021-22 academic year, we regularly reminded students and faculty to consult the booklets when students are seeking a specific skill-building / mentoring / networking opportunity or when faculty have an opportunity or resource to offer to students.  
• Over the summer and into the fall, we will collect information from incoming students about their mentoring, skill-building, and networking needs to add to the collective mentoring booklet for faculty; invite clinical faculty to add information about their mentoring, skill-building, and networking resources to the collective mentoring booklet for students; and we will gather updates from those who have previously contributed to the booklets to ensure that the booklets reflect current mentoring needs and resources.  
• It is our intention for these booklets to be utilized by faculty and students to identify opportunities to create new connections and expand a sense of inclusion among PhD students as students connect with more faculty around their skill-building, mentoring and networking needs.  

Objective(s): Center a DE&I lens in all professional development offerings to increase student preparation to be social justice leaders who can address DE&I in their lives and careers.  

Spring 2022 progress update:   

• Supported student participation in a wide range of professional development activities centered on DE&I, both at UW-Madison and external to UW-Madison 
• Throughout the 2021-22 academic year, the PhD program supported student participation in professional development activities including the SWCARES series on Dismantling Racism in Social Work, the Critical Race Scholars in Social Work Annual Convening, and the #SWEduActs monthly drop in-group for social work educators working to address racism and intersecting oppressions in social work education.  
• Invited and hosted workshop presenters who bring a DE&I lens to their work, for example, a workshop presented by Gardy Guiteau on networking, with an emphasis on connecting with potential mentors and building relationships.  Mr. Guiteau is an equity and inclusion leader and trainer who has designed and facilitated social justice and diversity training for students, faculty, staff and community leaders at higher education institutions (and K-12 schools, community organizations, etc) for 15+ years. His workshop for doctoral students focused on gaining confidence for networking with attention to how uneven experiences of advantage, opportunity, and privilege might impact students’ comfort accessing and navigating different spaces for networking (e.g., academic conferences), and how to not only access these spaces but connect with potential mentors and build relationships.  The workshop was followed by discussion with students on how our program can better address structural issues discussed in the workshop. 
• Invited and hosted presentations from PhD graduates centering equity in their research, practice and policy work, including a presentation from Dr. Michelle Robinson, Director of the Wisconsin Department of Health Services Office of Health Equity 
• Collaborated with the School of Human Ecology, bringing together doctoral students for shared professional development to facilitate opportunities to learn from and with each other, and connect with students from another unit 

Chair/Co-chairs: Tova Walsh

Committee Members: Pajarita Charles, Lonnie Berger, Emmy Roper & Leslie Orrantia

We continue to work on the objectives listed in the April 2022 report and below we describe our 2022-23 progress.

Objective(s): Expand access to information about the PhD program among potential applicants from underrepresented and marginalized groups.

Spring 2023 progress update: 

We are working to recruit and support a diverse community of students in the PhD program, including students who are Black, Indigenous, or other people of color, LGBTQ+ students, students who are parents, students with disabilities, students struggling with finances, students who are first-generation college or first-generation graduate students.  Some of the actions we have taken this year include:

• Disseminated program information broadly within Wisconsin (e.g., to MSW students at UW-Milwaukee) and nationally, with an emphasis on organizations and professional associations serving students and social workers from underrepresented and marginalized groups
• Widely advertised and held a virtual PhD program information session on October 20, 2022 together with UW-Milwaukee Helen Bader School of Social Welfare
• Increased support for applicants to navigate the PhD application process.  We feature an FAQ video on our website, meet with applicants by request, and offer guidance to applicants who were not admitted in a previous cycle and request pointers on how to prepare a strong PhD application
• Nominated incoming students from underrepresented groups for UW-Madison fellowships
• Assisted current students from underrepresented groups with identifying and applying for internal and external awards and fellowships

Objective(s): Connect students with more faculty around their skill-building, mentoring and networking needs.

Spring 2023 progress update: 

• We continue to develop our collective mentoring initiative, facilitating connections among PhD students and faculty to expand a sense of inclusion and increase opportunities for students to connect with more faculty around their skill-building, mentoring and networking needs.
• We regularly update and encourage the use of booklets we have developed for faculty (about students and their mentoring, skill-building, and networking needs) and for students (about the faculty and their mentoring, skill-building, and networking resources) and make them available to faculty and PhD students via Box.
• The PhD program hosted multiple social and academic events for PhD students and faculty to bring people together and support students in growing their networks and identifying additional mentors

Objective(s): Center a DE&I lens in all professional development offerings to increase student preparation to be social justice leaders who can address DE&I in their lives and careers.

Spring 2023 progress update: 

• Supported student participation in a wide range of professional development activities centered on DE&I, both at UW-Madison and external to UW-Madison
• Throughout the 2022-23 academic year, the PhD program supported student participation in professional development activities including YWCA Madison’s Racial Justice Summit and the Critical Race Scholars in Social Work Annual Convening.
• Invited and hosted workshop presenters who bring a DE&I lens to their work, including Durrell Washington Sr., a PhD candidate at University of Chicago, who joined us on November 4, 2022 to speak with us about abolitionist perspectives in social work research, education, policy and practice; Craig Fischer from the UW-Madison Office of Legal Affairs, who joined us on March 22, 2023 to speak about the current landscape of higher education and 1^st Amendment rights, including efforts to restrict what can be taught at public universities in relation to race, gender, sexuality, and US history; and Dr. Nichole Garcia of Rutgers University who will visit on May 25^th and speak with us about ways of applying critical theoretical frameworks when doing quantitative or mixed methods analysis.  Each workshop has been followed by discussion with students on how our program can better address structural issues discussed in the workshop.
• We are building up a “Little Library” for doctoral students with books and other professional development resources, including Genevieve Negrón-Gonzales and Magdalena L. Barrera’s The Latinx Guide to Graduate School,  Jessica Calarco’s A Field Guide to Grad School: Uncovering the Hidden Curriculum, and Rebecca Paradiso de Sayu’s The Purposeful PhD.
• We encouraged PhD students in our program to attend the Graduate School event on “Uncovering Grad School’s Hidden Curriculum” with Jessica Calarco on August 30, 2022.  We subsequently invited students to submit questions about the hidden curriculum of social work doctoral programs through an anonymous survey and incorporated these questions and responses throughout the Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 as part of SW 946 and SW 947, seminars that aim to foster professional socialization for social work doctoral students.

• To address two aspects of the doctoral program that students have identified as particularly challenging, we offered two new programs for doctoral students in August 2022.  We offered a “stats bootcamp” to prepare incoming students with less background and/or confidence in statistics to be successful in the statistics sequence that PhD students typically take in the first year, and we offered a “mentoring up” workshop to support students in developing understanding of their own needs and skills to navigate mentoring relationships to ensure their needs are met.  The Mentoring Up workshop was grounded in recognition that mentorship occurs within a cultural context and is influenced by the social identities of the individuals engaged in mentorship activities.
• We are increasing opportunities and support for PhD students to build skills for DEI leadership, e.g. by inviting PhD students to facilitate small group discussions among MSW students as part of JEDI orientation and help with conference planning and moderate sessions for SWCRIC. We are also increasing recognition of students who demonstrate DEI leadership, including by presenting an annual award to recognize exemplary leadership in advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work community, the UW-Madison community, and/or the broader community.
• We hosted a series of events related to varied career paths that PhD graduates may be interested to explore, with attention to the many personal and professional considerations that factor into individual decisions about the sectors, jobs, and communities that they might want to work and live in.

Our new programming this year is directly responsive to student concerns – to address two aspects of the doctoral program that students have identified as particularly challenging, we offered two new programs for doctoral students in August 2022.  We offered a “stats bootcamp” to prepare incoming students with less background and/or confidence in statistics to be successful in the statistics sequence that PhD students typically take in the first year, and we offered a “mentoring up” workshop to support students in developing understanding of their own needs and skills to navigate mentoring relationships to ensure their needs are met.  The Mentoring Up workshop was grounded in recognition that mentorship occurs within a cultural context and is influenced by the social identities of the individuals engaged in mentorship activities.