Make 2023 Productive and Fulfilling with These Academic Resolutions

Ready or not, it’s time to turn the page on another year and the winter break is an ideal time to reflect and set goals for the future. Our scholars provide some inspiration and tips to meet academic goals, and the Graduate Center offers support to help you find funding, improve your writing, and slow down to enjoy the music. 

Get funding

From dissertation fellowships to Fulbrights, Rachel Sponzo in the Provost’s Office shares these grant and fellowship opportunities – which have been awarded to Graduate Center students in the past.

Become a better writer 

The Writing Center offers workshops, individual consultations, and accountability groups to help improve your writing, from note-taking to dissertation proposals. 

Apply for a fellowship that could help you find a tenure-track job 

The Teaching and Learning Center fellowships have helped past fellows develop their identities as scholars and the experience has often led to tenure-track appointments. Next year’s call for fellowships will go out in February.

Learn new teaching strategies to engage students 

Distinguished Professor Cathy N. Davidson (English, Digital Humanities, Data Analysis and Visualization) and alumna Christina Katopodis (Ph.D. ’21, English) share specific tips and strategies to encourage active learning in their book, The New College Classroom. 

Choose the right advisor and lab

Anjela Manandhar (Ph.D. ’19, Biochemistry) says “you need to have a comfortable lab environment and very good communication with your adviser.” She shares how to find a lab where you can grow and learn. 

Reinvent the wheel

Alumna Elvira Basevich (Ph.D. ’17, Philosophy), who landed a tenure-track job and a Princeton fellowship, advises, “Do whatever you think is the most intellectually courageous, difficult, and necessary work to do.” She encourages fellow scholars to breathe new life into their disciplines. 

Speak up and share your ideas in class

Alumna Angela Crumdy (Ph.D. ’23, Anthropology), now a postdoc at the University of Pennsylvania, explains how it’s important for new students to share their ideas in the classroom, even if they don’t have everything figured out – advice she wishes she had known when she was a new Ph.D. student. 

Find your academic path

Ph.D. candidate Madeline DeDe-Panken (History) explains how she came to study a turn-of-the-century mushroom fad when she didn’t expect to do science or food history. She explains how archives, encouragement, and keeping an open mind helped her find this unusual and fulfilling path. 

Get outdoors

Alumnus and Iraq War veteran Demond (Dom) Mullins (Ph.D. ’13, Sociology) turned to mountain climbing to recapture the positive aspects of his military service – and ended up making history. 

Take time to enjoy the music

A $1 million gift from the Baisley Powell Elebash Fund established an endowment to bring musicians and music scholars from around the world to the CUNY Graduate Center. Events this fall included concerts by Ife and Ranky Tanky, stay tuned for the spring events!

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