Insights and Resources
“The future of the graduate and professional student experience will be shaped by the ideas, insights, and experiences of those working every day to support students and improve institutions.”
— John N. Gardner, Co-founder and Executive Chair, Gardner Institute
Featured articles:
Déjà Vu All Over Again: Whoa—Not So Fast
John N. Gardner
Co-Founder and Board Chair, Gardner Institute
Not exactly a news flash: Our colleges and universities are scrambling to make up for declines in undergraduate student enrollment, and we are in search of new sources of revenue, hopefully even cash cows! Graduate students are coming to the rescue! If Yogi Berra were looking at us now, he could rightfully say: Déjà vu all over again!
He could be right, but I am here in print to tell you to hold on. We are learning from our history and are not going to make the same mistakes all over again if some of us, hopefully many of us, can prevent it!
I refer to what our adaptive higher education system did the last time we created a new consumer base: the millions of undergraduate students who joined us thanks to the Higher Education Act of 1965. We became mobbed with students whom we wanted but were not designed for in the first place.
These increased numbers of students required that we expand the sheer number of postsecondary institutions and the size of undergraduate populations. And in the name of improving opportunity, upward social mobility, and social justice for millions who previously had not had such access to higher education, we did just this.
We, most of us anyway, wanted those students. Higher education became a sort of Statue of Liberty! Not really prepared for college, no history of college attendance and degree completion in your family, no matter, we’ve got places for you!
Admit them, we did. We took their hopes, dreams, money, and credit, but we also drove huge numbers of them out and away. And they joined the ranks of about 40 million Americans whom we describe as “SCND,” “Some College, No Degree!”
Keep Reading: Déjà Vu All Over Again: Whoa—Not So Fast
As the student success movement expands to include graduate education, institutions face an important question: Are they intentionally creating the conditions graduate and professional students need to thrive?
Associate Teaching Professor, Associate Dean, Graduate College, Department of Communication
Graduate Student Success Is Student Success: Expanding the Student Success Imperative
Anne Converse Willkomm,
Assistant Vice Provost, Associate Teaching Professor of Communication, Drexel University
Over the past four decades, the student success movement has reshaped higher education. Building on foundational scholarship about undergraduate student persistence, engagement, and learning, the Gardner Institute has helped lead the movement over the past two decades by encouraging colleges and universities to become more student-centered and student-ready by intentionally designing educational environments that foster learning, persistence, and success.
As the Gardner Institute expands that vision to include graduate education, it raises a timely question: What does it mean to be student-centered and student-ready for graduate students?Today’s graduate students are navigating a landscape that looks markedly different from even a decade ago. They are balancing careers, families, research, financial pressures, and increasingly complex educational pathways. At the same time, institutions are grappling with demographic shifts, undergraduate enrollment challenges, and constrained resources that understandably require significant attention.
The result is an unfortunate paradox: graduate students need greater institutional support precisely when institutional attention is increasingly directed elsewhere.
Graduate Student Success Is Student Success
This is not an argument for shifting resources away from undergraduate education.
Rather, it is a reminder that graduate student success and undergraduate student success are deeply connected. When graduate students thrive, undergraduate wtudents benefit, faculty benefit, research advances, and institutions become stronger.
GRADUATE STUDENTS FACE A CONVERGENCE OF CHALLENGES
Keep Reading: Graduate Student Success Is Student Success: Expanding the Student Success Imperative
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Articles, Blog Posts, and Opinion Pieces Curated by the Hub Advisory Committee
Institutional Design · Article · From the Gardner Institute
Using the First-Year Experience Concept as a Model for Creating the Graduate School Experience
How proven first-year strategies like orientation, mentoring, and community building can be adapted to improve graduate student retention, completion, and well-being.
Dan Volchok and John N. Gardner, Gardner Institute; Originally published NASPA 2026 Knowledge Communities Publication
Getting Started · Podcast · From the Gardner Institute
John Gardner and Drew Koch discuss why graduate and professional students belong in the student success conversation, and what the new hub and the April 2027 conference offer institutions.
Office Hours with John Gardner, Episode 200 · October 2026
First-Generation Students · Journal Article · From the community
Who Are First-Generation Graduate Students and Why Should LIS Care?
Research on first-generation students focuses mostly on undergraduates, and this article makes the case for more research and support for first-generation graduate students.
Rebecca Stallworth and Danielle E. Maurici-Pollock, Simmons University · Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 2023 · Summary via FirstGen Forward
Career & Professional Development · Blog Post · From the Gardner Institute
Balancing Acts: Mastering Time Management in Higher Education.
Practical strategies for balancing a full-time job, doctoral study, and personal life, from digital task tools to building in buffer deadlines.
Ethan Williams, Gardner Institute Intern · Interns Insider series, April 2026
Institutional Practice · Book · From the community
A Practitioner’s Guide to Supporting Graduate and Professional Students
Research-based frameworks, case studies, and practical strategies for faculty and student affairs professionals supporting the success, belonging, and development of graduate and professional students.
Edited by Valerie A. Shepard and April L. Perry · Routledge, 2022
Transitions & Belonging · Journal Article · From the community
Bridging the Transition: Orientation as a Catalyst for Graduate and Professional Student Well-Being and Success (PDF, p. 54)
Why graduate and professional students need orientation designed for their challenges, not a pared-down version of undergraduate programming.
Ethan Williams, MBA, Sr. Student Services Coordinator, Center for Student Life, UNT Health Fort Wort First-Year Doctoral Student, Higher Education University of North Texas· NASPA Knowledge Community Publication, 20
First-Generation Students · Report · From the community
Decoding the Academy: A Roadmap for First-Generation College Students Through Graduate Education
Drawing on first-person accounts from 29 first-generation graduate students, this report explores the hidden expectations, financial barriers, relationships and identity development that shape their experience, and offers recommendations for anyone working to improve support.
Rashné Jehangir, Terra Molengraff, Kelly Collins and Tai Do, University of Minnesota–Twin Cities and University of Michigan · FirstGen Forward, 2024
Transitions & Belonging · Book · From the community
A Field Guide to Grad School: Uncovering the Hidden Curriculum
A readable, practical guide for graduate and professional students that covers the core skills of succeeding in a graduate program and the unwritten rules and expectations of the hidden curriculum.
Jessica McCrory Calarco · Princeton University Press, 2020
International Students · Radio Segment · From the community
Education: The Decline of American Higher Education on the World Stage
A conversation about falling international student enrollment in the United States and what it means for American higher education’s global standing, with much of the discussion focused on international graduate students.
1A, from WAMU and NPR · September 23, 2026 · 33 minutes
Institutional Practice · Training Modules · From the community
Training Modules & Curriculum Project
Ready-to-use training modules for practitioners and faculty who work with graduate and professional students. Topics include orientation and onboarding, mentoring versus advising, mental health and wellness, funding, career development, first-generation graduate students and international graduate students. The modules work as professional development, on-the-job training or content for higher education graduate courses, and practitioners can contribute new modules using the project’s template.
Administrators in Graduate and Professional Student Services Knowledge Community, NASPA – Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education
Institutional Practice · Annotated Bibliography · From the community
Appendix: Selected Resources and Associations (PDF, free download)
A curated guide to the literature on graduate education and graduate student affairs published through 2021, from foundational works to recent research, along with key reports, conference proceedings, and professional and disciplinary associations with graduate and professional student groups.
Lisa C. O. Brandes, Yale University (retired) · Appendix to A Practitioner’s Guide to Supporting Graduate and Professional Students, edited by Valerie A. Shepard and April L. Perry · Routledge, 2022
Institutional Practice · Book · From the community
A Handbook for Supporting Today’s Graduate Students
Evidence-based strategies for administrators, student affairs professionals and faculty, organized around the context of graduate education, skill development and support beyond the classroom. Topics include mentoring, professional development, mental health, financial planning, work-life balance and cultural responsiveness.
Edited by David J. Nguyen and Christina W. Yao, foreword by Ann E. Austin · Stylus/Routledge, 2022.
Institutional Practice · Book · From the community
Fostering Equity and Inclusion in Graduate Education: Key Strategies and Perspectives
Theoretical perspectives and practical guidance for creating equitable and inclusive learning environments in graduate and professional education. Its 16 chapters cover recruitment and hiring, mentoring and advising, reducing graduate student labor burdens, and curricular and co-curricular strategies, each with concrete strategies and reflection questions.
Edited by Stephanie Bondi, Uyen Tran-Parsons and Vijay Kanagala · Routledge, 2025
