Reforming Graduate Student Policies and Resources Starts with Promoting the Ones you Already Have

Abstract

The overall mental and physical well-being of STEM graduate students has been declining in recent years, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the situation. The institutional policies and resources meant to protect and support graduate students need to be updated to reflect the changing times and match the current needs of the students they are intended to serve. Through an exploratory study, we surveyed graduate students from U.S. higher education institutions on their perceptions of available resources and policies with the goal of identifying areas for improvement. The main findings from this study highlighted the critical need to increase the awareness and accessibility of policies and resources already provided to graduate students to promote perceived availability and, therefore, graduate student policy and resource use. We put forward two key recommendations to accomplish this task: first, it is crucial to begin centralizing, codifying, and annotating graduate student policies and resources to increase their accessibility amongst student populations. Second, we suggest active and passive marketing approaches to increase awareness of policies and resources throughout institutions. Accessibility and awareness of graduate student resources and policies need to be addressed to promote the success and safety of graduate students and, in doing so, ameliorate graduate student retention and cultivate diverse career futures in STEM.