Cohort conversations: Finding community in podcasting

• In Event: The power of a female doctoral cohort: Process, podcast, and overcoming procrastination

Proposal

Doctoral student attrition is an ongoing challenge (Brill et al., 2014). Steeped in “grind culture” (Hersey, 2022) doctoral students are frequently given explicit and implicit messages to function at a pace that can lead to physical breakdown (Cornwall et al., 2019; Hersey, 2022), disruption and dysfunction in the individual’s social support system (Breitenbach et al., 2019), and episodic or chronic mental illness (Mackie & Bates, 2019). Additionally, the process of socializing students to become experts, nor the effects of that socialization is not well understood (Gardner, 2010). While earning a doctoral degree was likely never considered an easy task, a neoliberal focus on production permeating the academy has increased demands on publishing, grant-writing, and the generation of measurable outputs that are incongruent with the knowledge-creation process (Acker & Wagner, 2019). As the least-empowered stakeholders in the higher education system, doctoral students can suffer damaging outcomes of this misalignment. The high rate of students who do not complete the doctoral dissertation remains unabated (Breitenbach et al., 2019), and while “grind” culture might consider this a natural and appropriate screening process, many theorize it is also evidence of the continued gatekeeping of white supremacy and patriarchy (Gardner, 2008; Gildersleeve et al., 2011).

Recognizing the tremendous challenge presented during the candidacy phase, we self-assigned a student cohort to create the support and community needed to complete the dissertation stage. Research indicates that student cohorts provide personal and professional support that increase the chances of success with graduation (Bista & Cox, 2014; Gardner, 2010; Leland et al., 2020; Pemberton & Akkary, 2010). Additionally, given the personal ties we developed with one another during doctoral coursework, we felt a sense of trust and openess about our challenges and hold a genuine desire to see one another succeed. We claim that anti-patriarchal principles of relationality and collectivity during this phase will be foundational to our graduation success.

Cohort models can have drawbacks. Personality conflicts and a lack of diversity among members can lead to entrenched or imbalanced perspectives (Bista & Cox, 2014). We recognize that as four, cis-female white women all studying international education, we lack a level of diversity that could benefit our thinking. Our goal is to remain vigilant to the ways our similarities can limit our view, while also embracing how our shared knowledge of the field can support our work. Additionally, cohort peers can offer different types of support including individual tasks and greater understanding of the broader environment (Leland et al., 2020). As we discussed the ways we benefited from these forms of support we questioned how this support could be extended to students outside of our circle and transmitted in a way that could encourage doctoral students and candidates to form their own cohorts. Podcasts are accessible and economic means to share knowledge and questions regarding almost any topic (Moten, 2021) and enable listeners to submit questions and comments. Podcasting aligns well with a cohort structure and represents our commitment to knowledge generation that is relational, accessible, and inclusive.

Author

• Elisabeth H Scotto-Lavino, George Mason University