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.
Preamble
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 than ever decide that an undergraduate degree is not enough. Now a graduate degree is a new “must!” But many of these students bring with them, thankfully, not only the same high levels of determination and resilience, but also with some of the same challenges of transition they faced in undergraduate school and do this with more debt and personal responsibilities than ever. Our traditional western models for the graduate school experience, culture and practices were designed for very different students and circumstances. We must be a part of the larger American higher education enterprise to improve our outcomes!
The Conference organizers’ aims are threefold:
- to reduce graduate student withdrawals and separations,
- increase credential completion,
- and to enhance the total student experience and 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- To be announced
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: We need your knowledge and imagination to transcend ours!
Concurrent Session Topics:
- Expanding the undergraduate student success movement to becoming graduate student inclusive
- Increasing partnerships of undergraduate and graduate school educators
- Financial models for increasing support for graduate students
- Models and efforts for reducing, and mitigating the bifurcation between undergraduate and graduate student support
- Revising policies and practices that have negative impacts on graduate student progression
- Providing comprehensive orientation for new graduate students both at the institutional and unit levels
- Providing more support for online graduate students
- Enabling graduate students to be included in more activities which all students, both undergraduate and graduate, might enjoy and flourish in (examples: allowing grad students to be engaged in anything from joining a choir or an intramural team!)
- 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 needs of graduate students’ families
- Providing comprehensive support for career decision-making and post-degree employment include:
- providing career building, internship, and mentorship experiences
- providing multiple mentorship models – for peers and advisers
- providing curricular and co-curricular approaches to career development
- enhancing workforce readiness
- providing professional development for graduate teaching assistants and teaching preparation for future academics
- Helping students develop financial literacy, debt management, and financial planning
- Impact of dual credit students finishing bachelors’ degrees at younger ages, in turn, pushing up demand for graduate school both from students and also institutions losing undergraduate enrollments and striving to make up for this through expanded and combined graduate level offerings
- The impact of graduate faculty workloads making it more challenging for availability of faculty for needed graduate student mentoring and advising
- The challenge of adapting graduate programs at universities with proximity to 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: Half day or Whole day.
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, 4, 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.
Overarching Aspirational and Definitional Statement of The Graduate Student Experience
For submitting a proposal, we request that you attempt to relate your proposal in both thematic and conceptual substance to at least the spirit of, if not the entire letter of, the following guiding statement of our philosophy around the Graduate Student Experience:
The “Graduate Student Experience” refers to the comprehensive range of experiences, both positive and negative, that graduate students encounter during their academic journey. This includes their curricular and, where applicable, co-curricular activities. The term also represents an aspirational vision for what this experience should ideally be, emphasizing respect, dignity, fairness, and equitable support. It embodies an institutional philosophy advocating for the proper treatment and valuing of graduate students. Efforts to improve the graduate student experience focus on achieving better outcomes in retention, degree completion, and employment. The concept encompasses a holistic view of the student experience, considering intellectual, personal, social, physical, spiritual, vocational, and developmental aspects.
No proposal will be given final acceptance and scheduled until the registration fee is paid.
Contact if you have questions about/want to discuss your proposal ideas:
Sara Stein Koch: saraj@gardnerinstitute.org
John N. Gardner: gardner@jngi.org
Right of Refusal Statement:
The John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Higher Education reserves the right to refuse requests for any and all session proposals for all sponsored events that are not consistent with the organization’s mission and goals.
Conference Location Information:
Chicago, Illinois.
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
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, influences and connects with how graduate education is delivered, with what success, and for whom. This convening is a deliberate exploration of graduate student success as a logical extension of the Institute’s work and of the expansion of the student success movement to be inclusive of graduate students.
