Dr. Karen Klomparens
Assistant Provost for Graduate Studies and Dean of The Graduate School Michigan State University

"This workshop is a fine example of a growing national trend to provide doctoral students with the assistance they need to successfully complete their degrees. Nationally, only 50% of doctoral students graduate, and this statistic hasn't changed in 30 years. The national dialogue during the past two years has been focused on trying to improve the success rate. MSU is among the leaders in providing a multitude of workshops to improve completion rates and to offer opportunities for professional development for all graduate students."

Dr. Janet A. Swenson
Director, The Writing Center, Michigan State University
Chair, NCTE Conference on English Education

"In the Navigating the Ph. D.: A Writing Workshop, Catherine Fleck and David Medei, highly skilled teachers and workshop facilitators, lead participants consistently and consecutively toward plans for completing their Ph.D.'s. John Dewey (1902) described their work best when he said, "[I]deas come into the class, various persons follow out those ideas, and new points are brought out; and yet the teacher harmonizes it all, combining this play of variety, this expression of different elements, so that it leads consistently and consecutively in a definite direction."

Dr. Patricia Lambert Stock
Professor of English, Michigan State University
Vice President, National Council of Teachers of English

In "Navigating the PhD: A Writing Workshop," Catherine Fleck and David Medei, themselves Ph.D. candidates, have not only developed a workshop that brings graduate students from across the curriculum together to teach and learn from one another for their mutual benefit, but they have also created a model program for future faculty's continuing self-preparation.

Dr. Ann Austin
Associate Professor, Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education Program
Department of Educational Administration, Michigan State University

The graduate experience can be very challenging and exciting in the most positive ways, but, for many students, it can also bring a sense of isolation and anxiety. The "Navigating the Ph.D." workshops are creative, exciting efforts to help graduate students explore strategies for successfully progressing in their doctoral work, including ways to develop the kinds of collegial relationships that involve intellectual stimulation, thoughtful critique and feedback, and personal support. Students who have participated report with enthusiasm that these workshops help them develop new and productive perspectives concerning their doctoral work.

Catherine Fleck, Ph.D. student, Applied Linguistics
Interim Associate Director, The Writing Center
Michigan State University

David Medei, Ph.D. student, English
Michigan State University

As the designers and facilitators of "Navigating the Ph.D.: A Writing Workshop," we have not only witnessed the benefits of the workshop's peer mentoring focus, but have also profited from it. Graduate students ourselves, we participate in the ever-changing conversations that take shape with each workshop, and this has served to broaden our understanding of both the university community -- across disciplines, cultures, and discourses -- and our role in it as students. In addition to this, having had the opportunity to coordinate this workshop series has allowed us to develop professionally in a multitude of ways.