An Interview with Katina Rogers, Doctoral Futures Research Consultant

Katina Rogers, author of Putting the Humanities PhD to Work (2020, Duke University Press), is the research consultant on the Doctoral Futures project.

She has provided the three working groups with research scans of currently available research, and is conducting wide-ranging focus groups with faculty, graduate students, and recent PhDs. This research will provide the basis for the committees’ work. 

ACLS Program Officer Stacy Hartman recently posed a few questions to Katina about the research she’s conducted so far and what she’s learning about the landscape of doctoral education. 

SH: After doing a number of research scans related to graduate education, what are some areas that seem to need more research and attention?

KR: We need much more systematic focus on mentorship and advising. Some places are already doing this—the University of Michigan is a good example—but by and large, mentorship tends to be left up to individual faculty members despite being one of the most influential factors in student success. Every single person I’ve talked to—faculty members and students alike—have pointed to mentorship as a critical component of meaningful doctoral study. Why do we have so much documentation for dissertation structures and exams, but (generally) so little for mentorship and advising? It’s a major gap for most institutions and programs, and students pay the price.

SH: What are you learning from the focus groups so far? Has anything surprised you?

KR: A lot of what I’m hearing aligns with existing research and experience. Financial resources are crucial. Global and life events have a major impact on students’ work and wellbeing. Clear timelines and expectations help students to be able to finish well and on time. Many students continue to feel anxious to talk to their advisors about career paths outside the academy. All of this tracks with what we know. What has been more surprising has been to notice the areas where there don’t seem to be patterns. For instance, we’ve been asking students and recent grads about what kinds of jobs they had held prior to starting graduate school, since that isn’t something that’s easy to find in broader datasets. What we’re seeing is that students’ level and type of work experiences are all over the map. Some come into grad school having held roles that propelled them into further study or that had a close connection with their area of inquiry. Many others—myself included—worked in food service, retail, customer service, or similar jobs. It doesn’t seem to be a factor in students’ trajectories or likelihood of success.

SH: At this point, what are some promising areas of focus (or practices or methods of intervention) that are starting to emerge?

KR: There are a few broad areas that I’m hopeful about. Lab-based models show a lot of promise in the ways that they support collaboration, project-based work, and interdisciplinary inquiry. Creating possibilities for this type of work within an individual classroom is great, too, and requires few resources or administrative hurdles. I really like models of group mentorship that bring together multiple students and multiple faculty members instead of the typical one-on-one arrangement enables students to hear a wider range of perspectives, and creates built-in possibilities for peer support as well. And along the same lines, peer-to-peer connections that create a sense of belonging have a major impact on student wellbeing, which in turn supports stronger persistence and successful degree completion.

SH: What are your hopes for the outcomes of this work?

KR: I hope we can get to a place where some things are simply a given: That solid advising isn’t the luck of the draw; that broad post-degree pathways are a matter of course; that relationships and community are seen as an intrinsic component of rigorous scholarly work. More broadly (and perhaps optimistically), I hope this work moves the needle on advocating for the importance of humanistic inquiry to our society and enables us to collectively move toward reinvestment in humanities programs as a component of the public good.