By Graduate Student Co-Liaisons Bailey Dick, Ohio University, bd764808@ohio.edu, and Brandon Storlie, University of Wisconsin, bstorlie@wisc.edu
As the graduate student co-liaisons, the largest challenges we have are engaging student members in a meaningful way and division recruitment. Graduate students are extremely busy, juggling many different tasks. Some balance taking courses with conducting research while also teaching as instructors of record. As students progress in their coursework, they prepare for and take their comprehensive exams, start working on their dissertations and navigate the job market. Graduate students tend to spread themselves thin, trying to accumulate as many lines on the CV as possible. Sometimes a commitment beyond basic membership simply isn’t feasible. These last couple of months, the added stressor has been trying to balance everything during a pandemic.
The student membership group being a bit of a moving target is also a challenge. The turnover rate is essentially 100 percent every three or four years as students graduate and move into new positions as faculty members. It makes trying to create a cohesive feeling within the group tough, yet it is that cohesiveness that also adds so much value to how student members feel about an organization. That is why it is so important for us to work on that cohesiveness; if students feel positive about our division, they will most likely keep their membership when they become faculty.
Recruitment is difficult because it is not easy to know who the new students are; it takes networking to get to know people. It’s also easier to ignore an unfamiliar name in your e-mail inbox than a familiar one. However, once a connection has been made, it gets easier. We’ve had more success involving graduate students that are familiar to us than newbies on the membership list, probably mainly because the new members do not know us yet. That is why meeting at conferences and doing outreach where we can is so important.
Overall our student membership numbers seem to be steady from year to year. This year we have even gained a couple of new members. We believe that one of the draws is the terrific mentorship program – connecting students with more experienced members in the division – under Erika Pribanic-Smith’s guidance. This is the second year the program is being conducted and students that participated last year had highly positive experiences. It allows our student members to connect to our regular members on a much deeper level than they normally do during quick meetings at conferences.
This year, as graduate student co-liaisons, we’ve been more involved with helping with social media efforts for our division’s podcast. It has allowed us to connect with student members in a new way and has proven to be a good tool for Generation of Scholars recruitment. We’re also always looking for members to be part of the Journalism History podcast influencer team, and have help sharing our social media content to promote the show.
Our division also has a special Facebook page for our student members as a way to connect that portion of our membership. It is a bit of a work in progress, but it’s another tool the division has to try to involve graduate students and improve the communication flow.
If you are a new – or old – graduate student member and want to learn more about the history division and how to get involved, please don’t hesitate to connect with us. We are happy to answer questions and help in any way we can. As graduate student co-liaisons, we are here to help you connect with members of the history division.