The Graduate Student Experience
Redesigning the Graduate Student Experience So More Graduate Students Can Flourish and Finish
October 29-31, 2025
Chicago, IL
We are inviting your participation in the second national convening to discuss improving the graduate school experience to better serve our national interests as provider of the gold standard for global graduate education.
Don’t miss this opportunity to contribute to the future of graduate education.
The Big Why
While undergraduate education has received much attention over the past forty years, with specific focus on concrete ways to increase student success (e.g. “first year experience”), the same attention has not been paid to graduate students. We think it is time for a more deliberate set of efforts to increase student success using a holistic perspective that addresses student retention, progression, and completion rates, mental health and wellbeing, and career preparation. We are inviting your participation in the second, national convening to discuss improving the graduate school experience in order to better serve our national interests as provider of the gold standard for global graduate education.
Call to Action
More students and their families now decide that an undergraduate degree is not enough. A graduate degree is a new “must.” But the challenges facing them have changed. Students face challenges of transition and more debt and personal responsibilities than ever. Our traditional models for graduate school culture and practices were designed for different students and circumstances. We must be a part of the larger American higher education enterprise to improve our outcomes!
The aims of this conference are threefold:
- reduce graduate student attrition and separations,
- increase credential completion, and
- enhance the total student experience, including students’ wellbeing, while strengthening post-graduate outcomes.
Participants will come from roles such as:
- graduate school administrators
- graduate faculty and staff of graduate colleges/schools
- graduate students
- graduate teaching assistants
- graduate and undergraduate academic affairs/student affairs/ student success administrators
- undergraduate student success experts
- undergraduate faculty
- student success researchers in higher education
- foundation program officers
- institutional research, assessment and accreditation liaisons
- state coordinating/governing board staff
Fees
Register before August 1 for the early bird rate: $795
After early bird date: $855
Student rate (graduate and undergraduate): $425
Registrants from Transformation schools receive a 20% discount on the posted fees
Registrants from non-Transformation schools who register for both The Graduate Student Experience and the Symposium on Transforming the Postsecondary Experience receive a 10% discount on the combined fees. Contact events@gardnerinstitute.org for code.
Registration Fee includes: Opening reception, two breakfasts, two lunches, refreshment breaks, and conference materials.
IMPORTANCE OF THE GRADUATE STUDENT VOICE: Given this is a conference that focuses on the graduate student experience, graduate student presenters and co-presenters are encouraged. A discounted registration fee is available for currently enrolled graduate students.
Register for the Conference
Call for Proposals
Call for Proposals will open on January 27, 2025 and Close on April 14, 2025.
You are invited to:
SHARE your knowledge, experience, and commitment to graduate student success in a contributed professional development session
INFLUENCE the developing national conversation about the Graduate Student Experience.
HELP create shared resources for replication on other campuses
PRESENT on topics that may include but need not be limited to those examples of possible topics listed below. We need your knowledge and imagination to transcend ours!
Concurrent Session Topics:
- Including graduate students in the student success movement
- Increasing partnerships of undergraduate and graduate school educators, including faculty, academic and student affairs/ student success administrators
- Financial models for increasing support for graduate students
- Models and efforts for addressing the bifurcation of undergraduate and graduate student support
- Practicing equitable, outcome-diverse graduate admissions
- Devising curricula for twenty-first century graduate students
- Revising policies and practices that hinder graduate student progress
- Providing comprehensive orientation for new graduate students at both institutional and unit levels
- Providing more support for online graduate students
- Extracurricular activities to improve graduate student quality of life
- Creating graduate student affinity support and social groups
- Providing wrap-around services to address food & housing insecurity
- Understanding the changing demographics of graduate students as adult learners
- Addressing mental health and wellbeing
- Supporting graduate students with families
- Providing comprehensive support for career decision-making and post-degree employment, including:
Career building, internship, and mentorship experiences;
Multiple mentorship models for peers and advisers;
Curricular and co-curricular approaches to career development;
Enhancing workforce readiness;
Professional development for teaching assistants and teaching preparation for future academics;
- Helping students develop financial literacy, debt management, and financial planning
- Addressing the myriad economic ramifications of the rise of dual-credit BA-MA students
- The impact of graduate faculty workloads on needed graduate student mentoring and advising
- The challenge of adapting graduate programs at universities near military bases to make these programs military student-ready and friendly.
Session Types
Pre-Conference Workshops (To be held on Wednesday, October 29, 2025)
- Workshop: Either 3 or 6 hours.
For a more in-depth learning experience, that would be both didactic and highly interactive. The experience could:
- seek to design something such as a research study, publication, new intervention to support graduate students, a new assessment process,
- present a problem-solving experience,
- present case studies and create a new case study based on the participant’s home institution
- teach, model, and facilitate new skills development for mentoring, advising, providing feedback to students, and helping students design dissertation proposal
Workshops would be designed for either 3 or 6 hours. Please specify which length you want.
All session types except pre-conference workshops will be 45 minutes:
- Concurrent presentation
- Small Working Group or Roundtable Discussion around a common theme or issue. Should have a common theme or issue and include conversation, sharing out and identification of action items.
- Panel discussion: moderated, with 3 or more panelists all focusing on common theme.
- Brainstorming: to include statement of some objective or description of problem to be solved and generation by as many contributing group members to address needs of the brainstorming subject.
- Problem-solving: this session will focus explicitly on a problem of practice and with both presenter and audience focus on options for problem resolution.
- Case studies: Highlight institutional efforts, may focus on one or more institutions that will all relate to some common theme or issue within the graduate student experience. Should conclude with a synthesis.
- Policy examination and development of alternatives to address policies that pose challenges for graduate student adherence and/or successful compliance by students. For this session, a display-worthy Poster could also be utilized and which will be put on display after the session in a high-traffic area of the conference.
We would like each session to conclude with a brief “Call To Action” statement and some recommendations for future steps, refinement, research, reorganization, etc.
NOTE: All proposals and sessions/workshop content must address and be consistent with the guiding themes inherent in this working definition of the Graduate Student Experience found below.
Our Definition and Aspirational Concept for The Graduate Student Experience:
The “Graduate Student Experience” covers the range of experiences—curricular, co-curricular, and extracurricular— that graduate students encounter during their academic journey. We take a holistic view of the student experience, encompassing the intellectual, personal, social, physical, spiritual, vocational, and developmental. The term also represents an aspirational vision emphasizing respect, dignity, fairness, and equitable support. It embodies an institutional philosophy that values graduate students and treats them thoughtfully and properly. We seek better outcomes in retention, degree completion, and employment—and also wellbeing.
No proposal will be given final acceptance and scheduled until the registration fee is paid.
Contact Us:
Sara Stein Koch: saraj@gardnerinstitute.org
John N. Gardner: gardner@jngi.org
Conference Location Information:
Sheraton Grand Chicago Riverwalk, 301 E North Water St, Chicago, IL 60611
Chicago is home to cultural attractions, two scenic waterfronts, and the iconic deep-dish pizza. Chicago has been Voted the Best Big City in the country for a historic eighth year in a row. Enjoy an accessible and diverse city with theater, live music, and more.
Hotel Information:
Sheraton Grand Chicago Riverwalk, 301 E North Water St, Chicago, IL 60611
$205 per night
Reserve here: Sheraton Grand Chicago Riverwalk
Air Service:
Chicago O’Hare International Airport (18.0 Miles from hotel) and Chicago Midway International Airport (12.0 Miles from hotel).
About the Organizer:
This event will be planned and executed by the non-profit John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Higher Education (Gardner Institute).
The 25-year-old Gardner Institute has been focused on improving teaching, learning, student success, and completion in postsecondary education to advance broader societal equity and justice. The Gardner Institute’s focus to date has been on undergraduate education — which is the foundation for graduate education, and influences and connects with how graduate education is delivered, with what success, and for whom. This convening explores graduate student success as a logical extension of the Institute’s work. We mean to expand the student success movement to include graduate students.
