Sessions For: Rackham Graduate School

The coffee chat series will serve as a space for scholars and practitioners to share ideas, best practices, and other resources related to R1 and Minority Serving Institutions relationships and mechanisms of support for students that transition from MSIs into R1 for graduate and professional education. The series will highlight examples from U-M, exemplars from across the country, and scholars and practitioners that explore and implement practices that foster positive experiences and outcomes for students from MSIs.


This series is primarily intended for faculty and staff that have existing relationships with MSIs, or for those who do not but are interested in forming relationships, as well as graduate students who have interest in this topic.

Rackham Student Government is hosting a virtual lunch with the Rackham Graduate School deans. This will be a chance for graduate students to talk directly with the deans and to provide thoughts on planning for the 2021–22 academic year, among other topics. Students can submit questions ahead of time when they register.

Celebrate the newest members of the Bouchet Honor Society.

A Story Circle is a small group of individuals sitting in a circle, sharing stories—usually from their own experience or imagination—focusing on a common theme. As each person in turn shares a story, a richer and more complex story emerges. By the end, people see both real differences and things their stories have in common. Story Circles are often understood as deriving from indigenous traditions. There are many variations (https://usdac.us).

In this session participants will be invited to share a story around a determined theme. Staff from the Rackham Resolution Office will serve as facilitators for the process and will end the session by sharing campus resources and information related to the theme.
Topics:
February 18: Remote Learning
February 24: Isolation
March 8: Building Community and Relationships
March 25: Transitions

This final workshop will be brought to us by CRLT, which will present the powerful sketch, Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda: Moving Beyond Failure and Actively Cultivating a More Equitable Academy. In this session we will:


Reflect on failures to act for justice.
Consider how the lived relationship to social inequities within and outside of our educational environment shapes our willingness and ability to act.
Explore the tension between risk and responsibility when disrupting the status quo.
Practice identifying opportunities for proactive justice work in our spheres of influence in the academy.

Each month, an orientation session is offered for all new postdoctoral research fellows, and those with a new postdoctoral research fellow appointment in the U-M HR system within the past two months at the University of Michigan. The orientation session includes information about the role of postdocs, working with your P.I./supervisor, campus resources, benefits and vacation, and membership in the U-M Postdoc Association.

Please note: if you have attended an orientation in the past, there is no need to attend an additional one.