Goals:
• Introduce to faculty and students the practice of the interest-based approach to set expectations and resolve conflicts
• Raise awareness of issues of potential conflict in doctoral education
• Improve graduate handbooks
• Improve retention/completion rates for doctoral students (now nationally at 50%)

Some Caveats:
• All issues in graduate education are not negotiable
• Faculty set standards for quality and progress
• All conflict is not necessarily to be avoided; conflict over ideas advances knowledge
• The power differential between graduate students and faculty will not become more equal, nor should it
• We should not aim for 100% retention and completion; there are appropriate reasons for students to leave their graduate programs.

Key Program Components:

This program will involve graduate students and faculty in three program activities that will range over a period of hours and/or several sessions:
• learning interest-based approaches and skills for negotiation and conflict resolution
• participating in facilitated discussions, using video vignettes as conversation triggers, about the specific areas of possible conflict and differing expectation within their discipline, or more broadly in graduate education generally
• using interest-based negotiation approaches and skills to establish collectively agreed-upon departmental understandings of mutual expectations and responsibilities
Interest-based negotiation and conflict resolution relies on five main strategies:
• the negotiation is focused on the problem and not on the people involved
• The focus is on the needs, desires, interests and fears underlying the positions
• a variety of options are generated that advance shared interests and creatively reconcile differing interests before making a final decision
• criteria reflecting a fair standard are used in reaching agreement. By discussing criteria, instead of firm positions, all parties can defer to a fair solution (which may include more than one option among those explored)
• successful negotiation that leads to a process whereby the parties respect flexibility and are willing to reenter the process again as the context change

Outcomes:

More than 500 graduate students have participated in this program at MSU in the past 5 years (including, but not limited, to STEM graduate students), as well as graduate students and faculty on other campuses.

Since the program development was funded by FIPSE (1997-2000), extensive formative and summative evaluation data were collected.

From the surveys administered to 561 faculty, 737 graduate students and 30 postdocs – for a total of 1328 individuals--at the conclusion of each of 57 workshop evaluated as part of our FIPSE grant: 65% of participants could correctly state an expectation as a well-defined interest, 62% of respondents could articulate an expectation that would meet the needs of both parties, 89% of the participants were ready to use interest based negotiation skills presented in the, and 83% would use these skills if they had an opportunity to practice them more. In addition, 94% found the workshop to be somewhat or very helpful in recognizing their own expectations of graduate education, 88% found the workshop to be somewhat or very helpful in their understanding of what their major professor/graduate students might expect of, and 92% said the workshop was very or somewhat helpful in their thinking about the long term impacts of relationship with a major professor or graduate students.

Example quotes from student participants:
“I was exposed to this workshop during my first semester on campus and I think it’s one of the best things I did in terms of shaping my expectations for my doctoral plan of study. It helped me to realize that conflict is inevitable and that even though I’m a student that I can negotiate with faculty. I learned to look for the [reasons] underlying … positions. …I’ve used these skills in setting expectations for my assistantships and, thus far, conflicts have been handled before they escalate.”

“I was very hesitant to confront my advisor about my needs in terms of comps and/or thesis. As it turned out we negotiated a compromise that was much more helpful to me in both my professional and academic goals, and the end result means I have negotiated several new opportunities. I think these workshops were very helpful.”

Implementation:

Graduate students readily attend the workshops. We offer six per year and routinely have 30 participants. The challenge is encouraging faculty to spend 2 hours participating with their students or as a faculty group to learn the techniques.

Michigan State University is preparing a guidebook that will include the video vignettes and overheads/power points, as well as program pointers for offering this program on your own campus.