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CAREER FEATURE

More than just content: building community in the graduate classroom

Nature Biotechnology volume 39, pages 1161–1165 (2021)Cite this article

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Community building should be integrated into the graduate classroom to foster the development of a professional identity and build connections between students and faculty.

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Fig. 1: Classroom interventions improve student community.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the other members of the course’s teaching faculty—Karen Adelman, Alan Brown, Stirling Churchman, Frank Slack and Johannes Walter—and teaching fellows—Chaim Chernoff and Timothy Kunz—for contributing to the community building efforts during the fall 2020 semester. The authors are also grateful to Marie Bao and Johanna L. Gutlerner for comments and feedback. A.R.E. and D.D.L. were supported by the Genetics and Genomics Training Grant, Harvard University, National Institutes of Health (NIH 5T32GM096911-10). F.F. and B.O.S. were supported by the Molecular, Cellular, & Developmental Dynamics Training Grant, Harvard University, National Institutes of Health (NIH T32 GM007726). P.L. was supported by the Training in the Molecular Biology of Neurodegeneration and Alzheimer’s Disease Grant, Harvard University, National Institutes of Health (NIH 5T32AG000222-28). A.R. received funding from “la Caixa” foundation (ID 100010434) under agreement LCF/BQ/AA18/11680032. Y.S. was supported by a Fujifilm Fellowship.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Madhvi J. Venkatesh

    Present address: Department of Biochemistry, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Blavatnik Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Madhvi J. Venkatesh & Joseph J. Loparo

  2. Harvard Graduate Program in Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Alexandra R. Elchert, Bolutife Fakoya, Francisco Fernandez, Andrew C. Kwong, Yue J. Liu, Peter Lotfy, David D. Lowe, Christopher A. Petty, Alejandra Rodríguez-delaRosa, Bryan O. Seguinot & Yingxiao Shi

  3. Department of Genetics, Blavatnik Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Alexandra R. Elchert, David D. Lowe, Christopher A. Petty & Alejandra Rodríguez-delaRosa

  4. Department of Microbiology, Blavatnik Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Bolutife Fakoya

  5. Center for Genomic Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Francisco Fernandez

  6. Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Andrew C. Kwong, Peter Lotfy & Yingxiao Shi

  7. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Andrew C. Kwong & Peter Lotfy

  8. Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Yue J. Liu

  9. Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Christopher A. Petty

  10. Department of Pathology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Alejandra Rodríguez-delaRosa

  11. Department of Cell Biology, Blavatnik Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Bryan O. Seguinot

  12. Department of Medical Oncology, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA

    Yingxiao Shi

Authors
  1. Madhvi J. Venkatesh
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Madhvi J. Venkatesh or Joseph J. Loparo.

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Venkatesh, M.J., Elchert, A.R., Fakoya, B. et al. More than just content: building community in the graduate classroom. Nat Biotechnol 39, 1161–1165 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-021-01046-8

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