Discussions around how programs and faculty mentor, support, and train both Masters and Doctoral students have been ongoing for decades, but with relatively little definitive progress other than a large expansion of programs and significant increases in the number of PhDs produced, especially in the biological sciences and adjacent disciplines. These discussions have taken on greater urgence recently due to changes in the political and economic landscape of higher education. With steep declines in funding expected from federal agencies over the next few years, coupled with rising costs of conducting research, the discussion must now be accelerated and plans set in motion to restructure graduate education writ large unless we wish it to be imposed upon us without input. This event will be the first of several opportunities to weigh in as a community on what graduate education should look like going forward. What would it look like to be a values-driven program? How do we separate and individually measure the dual outputs of graduate education – workforce development for those in training and discovery research resulting for the work of university laboratories? Funding models will likely be discussed, but we hope to start by centering the conversation on what a re-imagined menu of graduate education options would look like which we can then later ask how to transition quickly from where we are today to where we need to be to be sustainable economic engines for scientific discovery.

Panelists:         

• Gundula Bosch – Johns Hopkins University, Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology and Director, R3 Center for Innovation in Science Education
• Sharona Gordon – University of Washington, Department of Neurobiology and Biophysics, co-director of UW Allies 
• Sophie Hurwitz - Doctoral Student, University of Washington, Department of Biochemistry and representative of UAW4121
• Trushar Patel – University of Lethbridge, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Associate Dean, Faculty of Arts and Science

Moderator: Andrew Feig, Senior Program Director, Research Corporation for Science Advancement