GCC New England & Eastern Canada GCC Regional Meeting
Twenty-nine GCC members representing 20 institutions attended the New England & Eastern Canada GCC Regional Meeting on Friday, December 1, 2017. This was the first of multiple regional GCC meetings being held throughout the late winter/early spring, and it was an excellent day of professional development and resource-sharing for all who attended.
The meeting, held at the Boston University Career Center on BU’s Charles River Campus, was hosted by Boston University School of Medicine. The primary meeting organizers were Chelsea Barbercheck, Director of BU’s BEST Program, Linda Hyman, Associate Provost for the Division of Graduate Medical Sciences, and Barbara Schreiber, Director of Graduate Studies in the Biochemistry department and co-PI on the Boston University Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training (BU’s BEST) award.
Opportunities to converse with GCC colleagues are always eagerly anticipated, and a highlight of the meeting was networking and fellowship on the evening prior to the meeting at BU. Fifteen members gathered at a restaurant near BU’s campus for dinner and conversation (with pre-dinner drinks and appetizers hosted by the GCC ).
The official regional meeting on December 1 was opened with a talk from Sarah Hokkanson, Director, Professional Development & Postdoctoral Affairs at BU School of Medicine on running workshops using blended learning. This is a mixed-mode type of instruction where in-person teaching is supplemented by web-based information.
Following Sarah’s presentation, GCC members from across New England, Eastern Canada, and even a few who traveled from Texas and Japan shared best practices and ideas. Over lunch, we heard from Jessica Leibowitz, a visiting scholar at Brandeis University who studies doctoral education, on ‘What doctoral students – and the faculty who mentor them, and undergraduates who become them – should know.’ We also gave feedback on Imagine PhD, led by Amanda Cornwall from Northeastern, following Imagine PhD’s global launch in October, 2017, and participated in a book swap in which members shared books they have found to be helpful in working with our population of PhDs and postdocs.
Written by Natalie Lundsteen, Ph.D.
Assistant Dean for Career and Professional Development
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center