I am a dissertation coach and I love this work. I've been supporting doctoral students for 30 years and have a 98% graduation rate. In comparison, the national average for doctoral student success is 50%. My research focuses on understanding why people go after a doctorate and what kinds of hurdles they encounter on the journey.
There are effective conflict transformation, programs available for students at the middle level.... more There are effective conflict transformation, programs available for students at the middle level. What is miss- ing is a program designed to have an enduring message, that is, a message that is both positive and vivid. Project WIN provided a positive message by teaching students how to create a justice-based community,in their classrooms and the program made the message
Page 1. The Journal of Early Adolescence http://jea.sagepub.com/ Gender Differences in the Relati... more Page 1. The Journal of Early Adolescence http://jea.sagepub.com/ Gender Differences in the Relationship between Achievement and Self-image During Early Adolescence Laura R. Roberts, Pamela A. Sarigiani, Anne С Petersen ...
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 2008
This study sought to identify the attitudes that principals held regarding the inclusion of stude... more This study sought to identify the attitudes that principals held regarding the inclusion of students with disabilities, and the relationship between their attitudes and their placement recommendations for children with autism and to identify the relationship between specific demographic factors and attitudes toward inclusion and placement. A stratified random sample was drawn from the active list of 3,070 principals in the Pennsylvania public schools. From 1,500 surveys, 571 principal responses were received. The most significant factor in predicting both a positive attitude toward inclusion of children with disabilities and higher recommendations of placements for children with autism was the principal's belief that children with autism could be included in a regular education classroom.
A Tale from the Dark Side of Mentoring: Meet an Anti-Mentor
Recently, I posed a question, “What... more A Tale from the Dark Side of Mentoring: Meet an Anti-Mentor
Recently, I posed a question, “What or who inspired you to go after your doctorate?” One scholar, aka Chris, replied as follows:
After spending some considerable time on my 9th grade English paper, I received a "C" grade. I took the teacher, (aka Prof. Hardnoks) up on an offer to stop by after school to discuss the grade. After speaking with him for some time about the paper and getting nowhere in either the grade changing, or understanding what would have been required to earn a higher grade (i.e., how it could have been improved), he shared the following thought with me: "Don't worry about it too much; you'll probably never go to college anyway." That was in Grade 9. I finished my BA in 3.5 years, an MA following, and then my PhD. The interaction was burned into my memory in high school and I decided to put my mind and efforts toward proving him wrong.
Prof. Hardnoks was an anti-mentor. The anti-mentor is not an official mentor, but he achieved what every real mentor dreams of doing with very little time or effort spent…his simple, snarky one-off comment helped launch Chris’s career as a scholar. Chris deserves credit, too. He showed a great deal of grit, determination, and persistence. Those burning words spurred a competitive backlash to prove the teacher wrong. It is surprising what can happen when nasty comments land in the fertile psyche of a gritty and determined student.
We would do well to take seriously aggressive remarks by anti-mentors. We must not simply discard them as frivolous nastiness, because they can hold a great deal of power. So, am I suggesting that mentors add “snarky remarks” to their repertoire of mentoring tools to spur their proteges to dissertation completion? I am not! Perhaps those nasty bones and impulses are part of the human genome, but we also like to be liked and we love to be loved. We typically censor our frivolous nastiness with proteges. In part, this is self-serving…we enjoy the relationship and don’t want to lose it. But, perhaps more important, we want to preserve the relationship for the good of the protege. We don’t want to risk the relationship with put-downs and snarky comments. We would do best to nurture the long-term health of the relationship by using kindness and empathy.
However, I am suggesting to mentors that you encourage your proteges to talk about the impact of the various anti-mentors in their lives. Those, sometimes, shrill voices from the past can have profound positive and negative effects on students’ psyches. By talking about, analyzing, and reflecting on the nasty comments from anti-mentors, our proteges may become energize d to fight back. So, mentors, help your proteges plumb the black, gritty muck from the dark side of mentoring, they may well find shiny pearls and glittery gold hiding there.
There are effective conflict transformation, programs available for students at the middle level.... more There are effective conflict transformation, programs available for students at the middle level. What is miss- ing is a program designed to have an enduring message, that is, a message that is both positive and vivid. Project WIN provided a positive message by teaching students how to create a justice-based community,in their classrooms and the program made the message
Page 1. The Journal of Early Adolescence http://jea.sagepub.com/ Gender Differences in the Relati... more Page 1. The Journal of Early Adolescence http://jea.sagepub.com/ Gender Differences in the Relationship between Achievement and Self-image During Early Adolescence Laura R. Roberts, Pamela A. Sarigiani, Anne С Petersen ...
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 2008
This study sought to identify the attitudes that principals held regarding the inclusion of stude... more This study sought to identify the attitudes that principals held regarding the inclusion of students with disabilities, and the relationship between their attitudes and their placement recommendations for children with autism and to identify the relationship between specific demographic factors and attitudes toward inclusion and placement. A stratified random sample was drawn from the active list of 3,070 principals in the Pennsylvania public schools. From 1,500 surveys, 571 principal responses were received. The most significant factor in predicting both a positive attitude toward inclusion of children with disabilities and higher recommendations of placements for children with autism was the principal's belief that children with autism could be included in a regular education classroom.
A Tale from the Dark Side of Mentoring: Meet an Anti-Mentor
Recently, I posed a question, “What... more A Tale from the Dark Side of Mentoring: Meet an Anti-Mentor
Recently, I posed a question, “What or who inspired you to go after your doctorate?” One scholar, aka Chris, replied as follows:
After spending some considerable time on my 9th grade English paper, I received a "C" grade. I took the teacher, (aka Prof. Hardnoks) up on an offer to stop by after school to discuss the grade. After speaking with him for some time about the paper and getting nowhere in either the grade changing, or understanding what would have been required to earn a higher grade (i.e., how it could have been improved), he shared the following thought with me: "Don't worry about it too much; you'll probably never go to college anyway." That was in Grade 9. I finished my BA in 3.5 years, an MA following, and then my PhD. The interaction was burned into my memory in high school and I decided to put my mind and efforts toward proving him wrong.
Prof. Hardnoks was an anti-mentor. The anti-mentor is not an official mentor, but he achieved what every real mentor dreams of doing with very little time or effort spent…his simple, snarky one-off comment helped launch Chris’s career as a scholar. Chris deserves credit, too. He showed a great deal of grit, determination, and persistence. Those burning words spurred a competitive backlash to prove the teacher wrong. It is surprising what can happen when nasty comments land in the fertile psyche of a gritty and determined student.
We would do well to take seriously aggressive remarks by anti-mentors. We must not simply discard them as frivolous nastiness, because they can hold a great deal of power. So, am I suggesting that mentors add “snarky remarks” to their repertoire of mentoring tools to spur their proteges to dissertation completion? I am not! Perhaps those nasty bones and impulses are part of the human genome, but we also like to be liked and we love to be loved. We typically censor our frivolous nastiness with proteges. In part, this is self-serving…we enjoy the relationship and don’t want to lose it. But, perhaps more important, we want to preserve the relationship for the good of the protege. We don’t want to risk the relationship with put-downs and snarky comments. We would do best to nurture the long-term health of the relationship by using kindness and empathy.
However, I am suggesting to mentors that you encourage your proteges to talk about the impact of the various anti-mentors in their lives. Those, sometimes, shrill voices from the past can have profound positive and negative effects on students’ psyches. By talking about, analyzing, and reflecting on the nasty comments from anti-mentors, our proteges may become energize d to fight back. So, mentors, help your proteges plumb the black, gritty muck from the dark side of mentoring, they may well find shiny pearls and glittery gold hiding there.
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Recently, I posed a question, “What or who inspired you to go after your doctorate?” One scholar, aka Chris, replied as follows:
After spending some considerable time on my 9th grade English paper, I received a "C" grade. I took the teacher, (aka Prof. Hardnoks) up on an offer to stop by after school to discuss the grade. After speaking with him for some time about the paper and getting nowhere in either the grade changing, or understanding what would have been required to earn a higher grade (i.e., how it could have been improved), he shared the following thought with me: "Don't worry about it too much; you'll probably never go to college anyway." That was in Grade 9. I finished my BA in 3.5 years, an MA following, and then my PhD. The interaction was burned into my memory in high school and I decided to put my mind and efforts toward proving him wrong.
Prof. Hardnoks was an anti-mentor. The anti-mentor is not an official mentor, but he achieved what every real mentor dreams of doing with very little time or effort spent…his simple, snarky one-off comment helped launch Chris’s career as a scholar. Chris deserves credit, too. He showed a great deal of grit, determination, and persistence. Those burning words spurred a competitive backlash to prove the teacher wrong. It is surprising what can happen when nasty comments land in the fertile psyche of a gritty and determined student.
We would do well to take seriously aggressive remarks by anti-mentors. We must not simply discard them as frivolous nastiness, because they can hold a great deal of power. So, am I suggesting that mentors add “snarky remarks” to their repertoire of mentoring tools to spur their proteges to dissertation completion? I am not! Perhaps those nasty bones and impulses are part of the human genome, but we also like to be liked and we love to be loved. We typically censor our frivolous nastiness with proteges. In part, this is self-serving…we enjoy the relationship and don’t want to lose it. But, perhaps more important, we want to preserve the relationship for the good of the protege. We don’t want to risk the relationship with put-downs and snarky comments. We would do best to nurture the long-term health of the relationship by using kindness and empathy.
However, I am suggesting to mentors that you encourage your proteges to talk about the impact of the various anti-mentors in their lives. Those, sometimes, shrill voices from the past can have profound positive and negative effects on students’ psyches. By talking about, analyzing, and reflecting on the nasty comments from anti-mentors, our proteges may become energize d to fight back. So, mentors, help your proteges plumb the black, gritty muck from the dark side of mentoring, they may well find shiny pearls and glittery gold hiding there.
Recently, I posed a question, “What or who inspired you to go after your doctorate?” One scholar, aka Chris, replied as follows:
After spending some considerable time on my 9th grade English paper, I received a "C" grade. I took the teacher, (aka Prof. Hardnoks) up on an offer to stop by after school to discuss the grade. After speaking with him for some time about the paper and getting nowhere in either the grade changing, or understanding what would have been required to earn a higher grade (i.e., how it could have been improved), he shared the following thought with me: "Don't worry about it too much; you'll probably never go to college anyway." That was in Grade 9. I finished my BA in 3.5 years, an MA following, and then my PhD. The interaction was burned into my memory in high school and I decided to put my mind and efforts toward proving him wrong.
Prof. Hardnoks was an anti-mentor. The anti-mentor is not an official mentor, but he achieved what every real mentor dreams of doing with very little time or effort spent…his simple, snarky one-off comment helped launch Chris’s career as a scholar. Chris deserves credit, too. He showed a great deal of grit, determination, and persistence. Those burning words spurred a competitive backlash to prove the teacher wrong. It is surprising what can happen when nasty comments land in the fertile psyche of a gritty and determined student.
We would do well to take seriously aggressive remarks by anti-mentors. We must not simply discard them as frivolous nastiness, because they can hold a great deal of power. So, am I suggesting that mentors add “snarky remarks” to their repertoire of mentoring tools to spur their proteges to dissertation completion? I am not! Perhaps those nasty bones and impulses are part of the human genome, but we also like to be liked and we love to be loved. We typically censor our frivolous nastiness with proteges. In part, this is self-serving…we enjoy the relationship and don’t want to lose it. But, perhaps more important, we want to preserve the relationship for the good of the protege. We don’t want to risk the relationship with put-downs and snarky comments. We would do best to nurture the long-term health of the relationship by using kindness and empathy.
However, I am suggesting to mentors that you encourage your proteges to talk about the impact of the various anti-mentors in their lives. Those, sometimes, shrill voices from the past can have profound positive and negative effects on students’ psyches. By talking about, analyzing, and reflecting on the nasty comments from anti-mentors, our proteges may become energize d to fight back. So, mentors, help your proteges plumb the black, gritty muck from the dark side of mentoring, they may well find shiny pearls and glittery gold hiding there.