There is, of course, another pedagogical mindset in graduate education: Give students the freedom to find what they care about, a true passion that will sustain them as their careers unfold. In this mindset, itâs reasonable to rid programs of as much structure as possible to allow studentsâ own talents, ingenuity, and interests to guide their development. This approach has produced generations of distinguished scientists and scholars. But it may not work as well for a diverse student body. The ambiguities it allows into the training experience may impose a special burden on students whose identities put their belongingness under suspicion. The open-ended freedom assumed to foster development could leave them in near-constant churn.
Itâs important to stress that the UC Berkley College of Chemistry, like GSU, used multiple practices to reduce ambiguity and give support in the setting. Multiple red buttons. Any one practice alone might not be enough. Take procedural justiceâ the degree to which a community adheres to nondiscriminatory, transparent practices in matter of hiring, promotion, and adjudicating disputes.