VCU news

By Patrick Kane

Second-year students from across Virginia packed Virginia Commonwealth University’s University Student Commons last week to learn about opportunities beyond the bachelor’s degree during Commonwealth Graduate Education Day.

“We take the lid off of anything that anyone thought you were going to be. You have power of autobiography,” said Anne H. Charity Hudley, Ph.D., assistant professor in the College of William & Mary’s Department of English. During the opening keynote, she told students that “you have power that your story and your experience matters.”

After studying linguistics at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania, Hudley accepted the calling to return home to the South and serve as an educator.

“This is what W.E.B. Du Bois specifically asked me to do in his essay, ‘On the Wings of Atalanta.’ I took him literally,” she joked, since the essay mentions William & Mary. Du Bois called on scholars to “plant deeply, and for all times, centres of learning and living."

F. Douglas Boudinot, Ph.D., dean of the VCU Graduate School, sees this diverse crowd of students as the future of higher education in Virginia.

“We look at our faculty and we’re not as diverse as the population. We’re certainly not as diverse as our students. We want to create the next pipeline of faculty that do represent the people in the commonwealth of Virginia,” he said.

A grant supported the planning of the conference, which was funded by the Virginia Council of Graduate Schools. Boudinot serves as the group’s chair. Organizers plan to stay in touch with the students to support their educational journeys.

We want to create the next pipeline of faculty that do represent the people in the commonwealth of Virginia.

Following Hudley’s presentation, graduate students and faculty members from across Virginia shared research via poster presentations, and also hosted panels. During one student panel, four Virginia graduate students discussed their varied paths to advanced degrees with a group of about 30 undergraduates. Most of the panelists credited a professor with opening their eyes to opportunities beyond the bachelor’s degree.

For Kevin Libuit, the idea came when one of his James Madison University professors reached out and said, “This is something you can do.” Libuit is pursuing a master’s degree in biology at JMU.

Amanda Huynh graduated with a biology degree and a minor in creative writing, and worked in the medical field for several years. But the itch for writing led her to earn a second bachelors in English, and then she decided to pursue an M.F.A. in creative writing (poetry) at Old Dominion University. She said her initial career choice simply had not been the right fit.

“I asked myself if this is what I want to do. My answer was, ‘No.’ I write poetry about science now. I’m a science nerd at heart,” she said.

Johnathan Maza said his obsessive planning on a path to medical school - “I would make Excel sheets for fun about what I was going to do into my future,” he said – shifted during a public health research trip to Nicaragua. He saw firsthand the broader impact that researchers can have on human health, and he decided to follow that path and pursue a graduate degree in chemistry at William & Mary. He is now investigating doctoral programs.

In terms of finding the right program and the right fit, Nicole Johnson, a doctoral candidate in higher education at Virginia Tech, reminded prospective students to talk to real students in the program.

“You must find out if you have the community to finish. As a person of color, it gets really lonely if you’re the only one,” she said. “You need the social, the psychological support to be successful.”

Maza said he started by looking up rankings and trying to figure out where “chemistry is a big deal.” After diving into faculty bios and research interests, he fired up Excel to help rate his options.

Libuit and Maza stressed the importance of undergraduate research when pursuing advanced science degrees. This helps research-driven professors see if prospective students can thrive in the laboratory setting. Libuit, for instance, participated in a summer research program as an undergraduate.

“You get more exposure to what your field is like, what it means to be a researcher,” he said.

Funding, grants, teaching assistantships, preparing for the GREs and other topics were discussed during the panel.

Eric Newsome, who is working on an associate’s degree in computer science at Thomas Nelson Community College, was among the students gathered for graduate education day.

“This past summer, I attended Bridges to the Baccalaureate at VCU. Now, after the program, I know what I want to do. I want to be a chemical life sciences engineer,” he said.

It’s important to introduce these bright and talented students early on to the benefits of graduate education.

Newsome attended the event at VCU to learn the steps he needed to take to chase that goal. Newsome plans to pursue his studies to the doctoral level – just as organizers hope.

“They’ve got a good ways to go before they are going to be professors, but it’s important to introduce these bright and talented students early on to the benefits of graduate education,” Boudinot said.

Commonwealth Graduate Education Day drew more than 100 student participants and dozens of faculty from VCGS member schools.

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