GGSE students have launched a new blog called Grad Tavern as a way for graduate students to showcase their important work to a broader audience. Graduate students perform research that has powerful policy and practice implications. However, graduate students are often isolated from each other, and have very little idea what work fellow classmates are undertaking. Additionally, it can be hard to know how many people are actually reading or even accessing their work, and if it’s reaching the audience for which it’s intended.
The blog Grad Tavern is a way for GGSE students to share their work with their classmates, policymakers, and practitioners. On the blog, students condense the most important implications into an op-ed style piece that readers do not need a journal subscription to access. Every week beginning this spring, Grad Tavern will highlight one piece from a GGSE graduate student. The work will be presented in a 500-750 word op-ed style piece focusing specifically on POLICY and PRACTICE implications.
“I came up with the idea to create a blog for GGSE students to highlight their work because a lot of the time we don’t really have an idea what other students in the department are doing, and it’s a great way for us to showcase the great work we are doing—to prospective students and hopefully to the broader education research community as well,” says Department of Education doctoral student Jay Plasman, explaining the inspiration behind Grad Tavern. “A blog/op-ed style site allows us to potentially reach a wider audience—people who don’t have access to our studies that have been published in journals or those who really just don't have the time to read our full published manuscripts.”