Building for Sustainability: Dissertation Boot Camp as a Nexus of a Graduate Writing Support

Abstract

Researchers in graduate education and writing studies have expressed concern over the quality of the graduate student experience (Golde and Walker; Kamler and Thomson). Several factors fuel these concerns. Dismal academic job markets and high graduate student attrition rates (40-50 percent in US institutions) have prompted numerous programs to reform graduate education. Given the central role of communication in one’s progress toward a graduate degree—and to one’s professional life in science and academia—this appeal for graduate education reform has accompanied calls for graduate level writing support (Simpson, “Problem”; Starke-Meyerring).