“I learned so much, from issues related to disproportionality of students with disabilities in a particular school district, to what motivates students of color to pursue a Ph.D. in school psychology,” said José Luis Alvarado, Ph.D, dean of the Graduate School of Education, in his congratulatory address to the students. “We look forward to seeing your presentations at AERA, AEA, NASP, and all the professional organizations you belong to.”

The annual event started last year, thanks to an idea from a doctoral student. The retreat portion of the event featured speakers and workshops, where students learned how to prioritize their mental health and pursue a career with their doctoral degree. Later in the day, keynote speaker Shaun Woodly, Ph.D., an award-winning educator, professor, and consultant, spoke about the importance of relationships in their work, as well as self-care. He also talked about something deeply personal to him. 

“He shared his experience and mistakes he made as a new teacher—using fear in the classroom as a behavior management strategy and how his own upbringing impacted how he viewed student behavior. This led to speaking about … how culture impacts behaviors and our response to behaviors, which in turn impacts how we view and engage in research,” said Annie George-Puskar, Ph.D., assistant professor and chair of GSE’s doctoral planning committee. 

Improving Childhood Disability Services for People with Autism

At the end of the evening, students displayed their research posters and shared their findings with guests. 

Four doctoral students in the school psychology program interviewed young adults with autism about receiving childhood disability services. They found that the study participants felt like they were stigmatized and that services often felt more like a study hall, rather than individualized support in academic and social skills.

When services are created and research is done on interventions for the community, the autistic voice is often not included, said the team. 

“This is another way to get the autistic voice out there and into academic spaces where researchers and service providers can see this information,” said doctoral student Sam Mogilski, adding that all four group members have loved ones who are on the spectrum, and that their team will share their research at the annual American Psychological Association conference this August. 

Identifying What Students Want to Learn in Civics Education 

Robert Niewiadomski, a doctoral student in the innovation in curriculum and instruction program, presented his team’s research on civics education for middle school students. One of their major findings is that students want to see more critical reflections on current events, including the killing of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement. 

“Based on our research, we recommend that classrooms include students’ experiences, their interests and voices, current events, and things that students’ see on social media or mainstream media, and make connections to whatever content is being taught to them in history or social studies classes,” said Niewiadomski, adding that their research was accepted in the International Journal of Educational Reform and will soon be published. “We are going to live in a country shaped by this generation. We want to change our society for the better—not erode it.”

“As a doctoral student who came into the program online during the pandemic, I thought it would be wonderful to bring our doctoral programs together,” said Tricia Clarke, a member of GSE’s doctoral planning committee who proposed the event. “Having an outlet where we could share our research and talk about our work out loud has moved us from the classroom to a wider space where we could see the impact of our work and learn from each other.” 

The all-day event featured presentations and panels co-designed by students and faculty. In one panel, GSE alumni spoke with students about how they can use their degrees outside of academia. In another panel, faculty outlined best practices for students who want to publish their scholarly research. The event, which was sponsored by the GSE Dean’s Office, also featured presentations from Amy Sarika Persaud, Ph.D., a psychologist in Fordham’s Counseling and Psychological Services who spoke about how students can prioritize their mental health during school, and keynote speaker Alfredo Artiles, Ph.D., a professor at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education who reflected on his own journey and offered advice for the next generation of educators. 

In years past, GSE has hosted research celebrations, but this spring marked the first time that it also hosted a retreat for students within the school’s five doctoral programs, said Annie George-Puskar, Ph.D., assistant professor and chair of GSE’s doctoral planning committee.

“Academia can be isolating, so it was great to see our students get excited about research, celebrate their work, and feel inspired by one another,” said George-Puskar. “Our committee hopes that this event continues to grow so that we can celebrate the important research that our students contribute to the field of education.” 

Perceptions of Miscommunication in Multilingual Families

At the end of the day, students at different stages presented their scholarly work, including first-year doctoral students at the early stages of their research and students scheduled to defend their dissertations by the end of the year. 

Tricia Clarke, a student in the innovation in curriculum and instruction program, is examining the perception of miscommunication between staff in early child education programs and multilingual students and their families in collaboration with her classmates and faculty mentor Diane Rodríguez, Ph.D.

Clarke and fellow doctoral students Lovell Quiroz and Robert Niewiadomski are currently surveying teachers, administrators, and parents in a study called “Channels of Communication in Multilingual Communities: Insights From an Early Childhood Education Program.”

“Our main question is, how do parents, teachers, and administrators perceive the communication process among multiple stakeholders of an early childhood program in a rural multilingual community?” said Clarke, who is also an adjunct faculty member at Fordham and Lehman College. 

What Do Educators Think About Bilingual Learning? 

Natalie Madison Dronne, a student in the contemporary learning and interdisciplinary research program, presented her dissertation, “From Monolingual to Bilingual: Teacher Languages and A New Dual Language Program.” Madison Dronne’s project focuses on the Brooklyn school where she works as a full-time teacher, which serves many non-native English learners who have never participated in a bilingual program. In 2017, her school was mandated to establish a bilingual program. For her dissertation, Madison Dronne decided to interview teachers and administrators at her school about their beliefs on language learning for children.

“My study captures this moment in time where for the first time, instruction is switching from monolingual to bilingual in some classrooms. I’m examining how educators understand this new program, whether or not they support it, and how that’s connected to program sustainability,” Madison Dronne said. 

One of her top research takeaways was that educators’ stated beliefs can be different from their actions—not because they are being disingenuous, but because of the rules, regulations, and money issues that prevent them from accomplishing their original goals. 

“All these bilingual programs were mandated in New York State because English language learners were not making progress. And so at a time when all these bilingual programs were mandated to be opened and are now being hopefully sustained, it’s important to understand the ideological landscapes at these schools for the success of these programs,” Madison Dronne said.

Building Crisis Ready School Leaders

Daren Khairule, a student in the educational leadership, administration, and policy program, is researching how schools can be better prepared for large-scale crises like Hurricane Katrina, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

“While working with school districts, we realized that we didn’t have a succinct crisis management plan and team that could have guided us through challenges during the pandemic,” said Khairule, who also serves as a coordinator of instructional technology at BOCES of New York State, a program that provides educational programs, services, and professional development to school districts within the state. “I felt that our organization needed to develop a more succinct and robust methodology for building a crisis management team going forward.”

In his project, “Building Crisis Ready Leaders through Learning Circles, Simulated Based Training, and After Action Reviews,” Khairule researched crisis management plans from not only educational institutions, but also the business, sports, and military sectors. There isn’t a silver bullet for crisis management in any industry, he said, but there are best practices that can be lifted from those industries and incorporated into schools. Among them are learning circles (group discussions led by an expert where educators share their knowledge and discuss best practices), simulated based trainings (role-playing workshops where educators study a specific crisis and figure out how they could’ve handled it better), and after action reviews (workshops where teams unpack what worked and what didn’t to help refine an organization’s response to future crises).

“Looking at those different industries helped me realize that, as an educational institution, we’re not leveraging proven strategies that are helping other industries manage crises,” Khairule said. “If we can use some of the strengths that these other industries offer, then we can be better change agents and crisis management leaders during difficult times.”

Eric Daryl Meyer, GSAS ’14, has been offered a position as an assistant professor of theology at Carroll College in Helena, Montana. Since fall 2015, he’s been working as a post-doctoral fellow at Loyola Marymount University.

Emily Cain, GSAS ’16, has been offered a position as an assistant professor of theology at Loyola University Chicago. For the past year, she has been working as a visiting professor there.

Paul Schutz, who will graduate in August, has been offered a position as an assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Santa Clara University.

Department of Theology Chair J. Patrick Hornbeck, D.Phil., said the appointments demonstrate that Fordham is instilling in students the skills that other institutions of higher learning are looking for in their own professors. Cain’s appointment is especially notable, as she is the first theology doctoral student in at least a decade to be invited to join another Ph.D.-granting department.

Although sought-after areas of theology wax and wane over time (scholars of Islam were in demand after 9/11, and recently there was a high demand for scholars of Buddhism), Hornbeck said, the department has deliberately focused its resources on five distinct areas: The Bible, Christianity in antiquity, the history of Christianity, systematic theology, and theological and social ethics.

He said that doctoral students also receive guidance from Sarit Kattan Gribetz, Ph.D., an assistant professor of theology who has served as a jobs placement officer since 2015.

“As someone who is relatively close to the academic job market herself, she brings recent real-world experience and a tremendous amount of infectious enthusiasm for the good of each of our students,” Hornbeck said. “She mentors them individually, from the beginning of the academic year to when they begin applying to academic institutions outside of Fordham, and all the way through the end of the process.”

Finally, Hornbeck noted that national data shows that equal numbers of Ph.D. graduates in theology and religious studies now go from a doctoral program into a post-doctoral fellowship, visiting position, or some other full-time opportunity as move directly into a tenure track position. With that in mind the department has doubled its efforts to track and advertise such openings.

On average, the department confers doctoral degrees on seven students each academic year. In recent years, graduates have received full-time appointments at at Purdue University, Bucknell University, and several small Catholic colleges and seminaries.

Fordham is one of 28 colleges and universities to win a Next Generation PhD matching grant, which aims to overhaul doctoral programs in the humanities to better prepare students for 21st-century job prospects within and outside of academia.

“The future of doctoral training in the humanities depends on innovative models that will deliver the competencies and skills that doctorate holders need to succeed in a variety of career pathways, in addition to traditional faculty lines,” said Eva Badowska, PhD, dean of GSAS and grant director, alongside co-director, Matthew McGowan, PhD, associate professor of classics.

“As a graduate school within a Jesuit university recognized for its strengths in the humanities, GSAS is uniquely situated to ask what it means truly to prepare our doctoral candidates for the fast-changing world of higher education and for the new knowledge economy,” Badowska said.

Historically, doctoral programs have prepared graduates solely for work in academia. However, with a 30 percent decline in academic job postings in the humanities since 2008, this singular focus is no longer realistic for students graduating from these programs.

“Thousands of professors are currently in the business of preparing thousands of graduate students for jobs that don’t exist,” Leonard Cassuto, PhD, professor of English and a collaborator on the project, said in his recent book, The Graduate School Mess: What Caused It and How We Can Fix It (Harvard University Press, 2013).

The $25,000 planning grant, to be matched by an additional $25,000 from GSAS, will not only propose rethinking Fordham’s five doctoral programs in the humanities (classics, English, history, philosophy, and theology), but will also examine what a 21st-century PhD program at any institution should encompass. For instance, what advanced transferrable skills should be taught at the doctoral level? Should skills such as collaborative teamwork and advanced digital proficiency be treated on a par with traditional emphases, such as mastery of field-specific knowledge and independent research skills?

In addition to Badowska and McGowan, the project includes a Core Planning Group and Constituent Advisory Group comprising GSAS faculty, current doctoral candidates, alumni, and community leaders who would benefit from hiring graduates with doctoral-level expertise.

At the end of the academic year, the group will produce a white paper detailing the proposed model.

“We want to rethink how we deliver the PhD at our University, but also make it scalable to other institutions and humanities programs,” said Melissa Labonte, PhD, associate dean of GSAS and associate professor of political science. “To do right by the students in these programs, we need to rethink the entire model. This planning grant will allow us to begin this process.”

A key part of the grant will address making doctoral programs in the humanities more inclusive of underrepresented, underserved, and marginalized communities, Labonte said. Within these groups, the percentage of students who enroll in a doctoral-level program has dropped precipitously in recent decades.

“We’re trying to find ways to counter this trend,” Labonte said. “This part of the grant falls very much in line with Fordham’s mission. If we’re going to embrace progressivism and social justice models, then we have to think about how PhD programs in the humanities will address the needs of people from underserved communities.”

The NEH announced the Next Generation PhD grants winners on Aug. 9 as part of $79 million in grants for 290 humanities projects and programs across the country, an initiative the group undertook to mark its 50th anniversary year.