 And here we go. All right, welcome everyone to today's session on the Boucher Honor Society and applying to it, applications open on October 1st. My name is Paul Artelli and I am the program manager that works with the Boucher Honor Society. And today I have with me Dr. Ethan Brammer, our assistant dean for diversity, equity and inclusion. And he's gonna help us, help field some questions about the society. And Dr. Brammer, thanks for being here. Appreciate it. Yeah, of course, happy to be here. And it's wonderful to see so many of our graduate students being interested in possibly joining the Boucher Honor Society. We like to think that we have one of the best and most robust and engaging Boucher chapters in the country. So thank you all for your interest in your. So let's just jump right into it. I know those that are here have some knowledge of Boucher or they got email saying, hey, there's this really cool opportunity you should consider applying. But tell us what is the Boucher Honor Society both globally and then what does that mean here at the University of Boucher? Sure, so Edward Alexander Boucher, for those of you who don't know was the first African-American who received a doctoral degree in the United States from the US University. It happened in Yale in the 1800s and Dr. Boucher finished his doctoral degree in physics. He was awarded his, I'm always reminded by my colleague, assistant Dean John Godfrey, that he was awarded his PhD in physics just a few years before Elmer Eims received his from the University of Michigan. So University of Michigan has a long, proud tradition of diversity inclusion as well. But in this case, Boucher and Yale beat us by a couple of years. We celebrate, you know, that milestone. Yale and Howard are the original founding members of the Boucher Honor Society. And since then it's grown, I believe about 14 or 15 chapters across the country. The University of Michigan chapter is one of their earliest and we have one of the largest, you know, groups of members. So we really like to think of our Boucher chapter less as it's honorific and more of as learning. And so we have programming throughout the year in addition to celebrating those two. Great, now let's talk about Boucher in terms of the application. Let's start with the minimum qualifications. What are the minimum qualifications to be able to apply to the Boucher Honor Society? The most important minimal qualification is that you have to reach candidacy by the time that you're in done. And so this is a relatively late stage in, you know, doctoral education. And this is why we're so interested in, you know, having applicants who really want to be engaged in the Boucher chapter, not only for the, maybe the handful of years remaining post-candidacy while they're on campus, but also staying engaged as alumni. One of the main objectives of the Boucher Society nationally is to diversify the professional spirit. And, you know, we have great alumni engagements both to help mentor our current doctoral students as well as, you know, a network of colleagues of diverse faculty across the country, all of whom, you know, were inducted through the U of M chapter of Boucher. And so, you know, it's a very small cohort that's inducted each year. We hope that our programming impacts more students than are inducted and we hope that our inductees, you know, really take their community membership to heart and continue to be part of that network beyond graduation. Great, so we know applications go out on October 1st or they will open up on October 1st, they close November 1st, so you have a month to fill out your application. What are some of the key components to the application? And then after that question, I'll ask you specifically about some of those components. Sure, of course, you know, as you can imagine, we're interested in your statement, personal statement, you know, giving your reasons for why you'd be like, would like to be part of this learning community. We're also interested in your transcripts and your CV so we can evaluate, you know, your academic record. And then of course, we're interested in, you know, the perspectives of maybe your mentors, those help you on your way. So because, you know, there are certain core values around Boucher Honorary Society to go beyond simply academic performance or academic productivity, sometimes it's helpful to have one, you know, faculty advisor, maybe your committee chair who can really speak to your research and your academic achievement accomplishments and then maybe, you know, someone else, if your advisor can do it in one letter, that's great. But sometimes it's helpful to have someone else speak to these other issues, the community engagement and, you know, kind of your public scholarship or, you know, what you've done to advance social justice in your career. Great, now one extra component or one small addition to the application this year that I want to tease out is a smaller statement that speaks to actual contributions or intended contributions to Boucher. Could you speak a little bit to what that is and what was some of the thinking behind that? Sure, yeah, I feel like I've been a little bit redundant. But again, you know, our objective is not simply to, although it's important to celebrate your achievement at the end of your doctoral career on campus, I don't want to minimize the importance of that. But our, you know, vision for Boucher goes well beyond that. So we want to celebrate your success. We do so, you know, for the inductees by taking you to Yale where you're inducted as part of the National Society, you get an opportunity to present research for your Yale as well. When you come back to the Ann Arbor campus, you celebrate your success with reception where, you know, your family and supporters can attend. And then we also award you $1,000 honorarium. And so all those things are important. But again, the real emphasis is on the power of community. And we really think of this as a learning community, hopefully a lifelong learning community, where you want to stay engaged and continue to espouse the core values of Boucher society. And so, you know, your ability to mentor young early doctoral students from diverse backgrounds, I imagine many of you can see the value in that, right? If you had mentors that looked like you, that traveled similar paths, as similar backgrounds and experiences, how invaluable that is to seeing yourself in doctoral studies, to seeing yourself go beyond perhaps some of the books or into other industries, but really just to help guide your way. And so we're really interested in hearing about how you can treat in those ways, how you teach people about the values of Boucher society, you can treat directly to this learning community. Thank you, thank you for that extrapolation. Let's talk about, probably the two of the most common questions we get are about the per, what are we looking for in a personal statement? And what are the reviewers looking for in a personal statement? And what makes a good personal statement? So let's start with that. What are some elements that make a personal statement really stand out? Sure, so if I were applicant, I would definitely take a look at our Boucher webpage and in the RACM series of webpages. I'd also take a look at Yale's Boucher Graduate Honor Society webpage and take a second to be reflective around the values of Boucher and how your work resonates with and demonstrates the core values of Boucher. And so we're certainly interested in applicants, really being able to talk about their achievements or accomplishments in academia, of course, but also, again, Boucher is more about just your research as important as your research and scholarship is. It really is about how you've used your opportunities to advance social justice, to engage in the community, to maybe use your scholarship to advocate for greater social justice equity. Thank you. And just as you're saying that, you mentioned the Boucher website and the Yale website and I'm gonna drop those links into the chat right now so people can have them as supplemental resources and actually I'm gonna share my screen really quick and just show folks quickly our website here and sort of the components to it just because it's important I think to have some familiarity with it. So the links again are in the chat room but here, because I wanna highlight that familiarizing yourself with Boucher philosophically in terms of what it does is really important both on campus, on this campus and then nationally. But here's the Boucher website and so the section that's on the biography of Dr. Boucher, mission and charter of the society. So some really good information there when you're doing your personal statements or your contribution statement, how you would contribute to Boucher to really understand the mission and linking that to your scholarship and what you're doing. You can look at past members, which if selected then you will be on the website and then of course, there is the application itself which is, well, again, we'll go live October 1st but to think about that's everything you need to apply to the society is here on this website. So we talked about the personal statement. Let's talk about letters of recommendation. How many can you have and what's important for applicants to know about submitting a letter? Sure, traditionally, we accepted one letter of recommendation, but I think there is a realization that because Boucher really is looking at you and your entirety and not just you in terms of your scholarship and research, it's helpful potentially to have a second voice that can speak to these other aspects of your civic and public engagement, your advocacy around civil rights, justice and diversity, equity, inclusion. And so I think you may have an advisor or you may have a faculty member who can speak to all of those aspects and if you feel comfortable with that, then I think one letter of recommendation might be enough but if your primary relationship with maybe your advisor or dissertation chair really is around your research scholarship and you don't necessarily feel confident that they know about all the other great things that you're doing in the community or all the great things that you've done in the past advanced diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, anti-racism research to fill out that perspective so that you have two letters that speak to all of the core values of Boucher then it might be helpful to have a second letter and have a second voice. Cool, thank you for that. And again, to reiterate, it's up to two letters of recommendation so you can submit two, but if you have one, that's fine. It's really about, to Dr. Brammer's point, if let's say hypothetically, your advisor can speak to your academic and maybe community interests really well and that's okay in that one letter. If you feel like one individual really represents this part of what I'm doing and this another individual represents this other part, let's say the community service and your advisor can speak to the academic, that's fine too. Don't feel like you have to have to. We just built in the extra letter for those who wanted to give a more well-rounded sort of testament to what their work is. We might have covered this at the beginning, but typically how many bouches do we allow in every year? Sure, so if you do, take our advice and study our website as well as Yale's website. On our website, you'll see all the past and that dates. So they're all current members because you're a member for life. And you'll see in the earlier years when we first became a member of the National Society, there are quite a few inductees each year, sometimes more than 10. And you'll see in the more recent years, maybe the last two or three cohorts of inductees, that number has decreased. It has not decreased as a result of anything that we're doing on our campus because the number of chapters across the country has grown. There was a decision that was made that each campus will only be able to induct five members, five new members each. So we had the benefit of being one of the early charter members and were able to induct more members at an earlier phase in time. But unfortunately, we've had to decrease that as a result of kind of the National Society and the direction that they're going. So we're one of the largest graduate schools in the country. We're fortunate to be also among the most diverse. We recognize we have many, many more diverse scholars who really exemplify the core values of Boucher and really deserve to be part of this honor society than we could ever induct. And so five is the number that we're allowed to induct right now. We, again, as one of the largest graduate schools in the country continue to advocate for more, but five is the number. The way that that breaks down for RACOM at a pragmatic level is we're interested in diversity across many dimensions, right? So of course, diversity in terms of intersectional identities of the inductees, but also diversity in terms of the discipline and field. And so when you think of RACOM's four disciplinary divisions, the biomedical sciences, engineering and the physical sciences, the social sciences and the arts and humanities, when you kind of break it down that way, what we tend to have is one inductee representing each of those four divisions more or less. And please have in mind also that postdocs are also eligible. And so this tends to be one of the most competitive awards that at least me in my role here at RACOM have the privilege to be a part of, but it is extremely competitive because we have so many amazingly talented and committed diverse scholars. All right, we got some great code. Thank you for that. And we've got some questions pouring into the chat. So if you have questions, one of them you just answered is can postdocs apply? Yes, postdocs can apply. And we're very cognizant of our postdoc applicants. Great question here. Is it mandatory to have a letter from your current advisor? No, you get to select your letters. I would select letters based on the ability for your recommenders to speak to the core values of Boucher. That's really how you're being assessed. That's how you're being evaluated. And so you would imagine that most of your doctoral advisors should be able to speak to your academic achievements in your scholarship. However, like we've been emphasizing, that doesn't necessarily mean they tell all the great things that you've been doing in the community. They don't know necessarily all the great things that you've done to advocate and advance DNI and justice. And so really study the core values of Boucher, take some time to be reflective about who can give you the best recommendation along those dimensions of your advocacy and your work. Great question here. Should the personal statement be single or double spaced or is either fine? I will say either is fine, but from a reviewer's perspective, double space is usually easier on the eyes, but there's no font size regulations, things like that. But thank you, good question. Question here, three questions. Let me start with, can you provide examples of what past alumni have done to give back to the Boucher Society as we prepare our statement? So that's a good question. Yeah, it's a great question. It's a great opportunity to plug our next Boucher event. So we've got a panel of former Boucher inductees, current Boucher scholars who are coming back in October for a panel discussion. I don't know, Paul, if you have all the details in front of you, if not, I can bring them up myself. I can discuss them and then later on I can put a link. So it's October 12th from four to five PM, we're having a panel comprised entirely of Boucher members here from the University of Michigan chapter. The topic is success in qualifying slash comprehensive exams. It's geared at what we call pre-Boucher, right? Those that are getting ready to sort of enter candidacy. And so four folks, four of our Boucher members are gonna be doing that, I think that's an example. I know in the past we've had, I can drop Dr. Brian Burt who's an alumni member who is gonna do some workshops for us here in spring. And Boucher members have been involved at other points in just some of the other things that go on at Rackham in terms of some of the events. I know a few of them have spoken in King Talks which is like a Ted Talks style event that we do here at the University of Michigan at Rackham, it's probably MLK Supposing. So there's opportunities and I will say what's unique about this contributions piece that we're teasing out for this year because in past years we haven't really teased it out. We just looked for it in the statement or actually asking for an extra statement this year. But I think this is a shift for us as well in terms of like really wanting Boucher members to be able to contribute. But we know we have Boucher member from last year's film that does workshops on Boucher for different groups here on campus as well. So I mean, there are a lot of different options for you. Yeah, my apologies for not having those documents open right in front of me, but just another plug. The workshop is called Success in Qualifying Exams. It's October 12th. So for those of you who haven't reached candidacy yet, again, we're trying to be diverse in terms of our field and discipline as well. And so Brooke Mason from civil engineering, Chiamaka Ukechukwu from pharmacology, Tia Clinton from sociology, and Nisha Rosita Hollingsworth who completed a degree in micro-merlecular science and engineering will all be panelists. They're all recent inductees within the last maybe a year or two. And so it speaks directly to the idea that Boucher, even after graduation, can come and mentor our pre-candidate students and connect with them in that way. And we learn a lot from our Boucher members even after they graduate and move to different places. So we've had a number of workshops designed in this play. I know one of our Boucher who ended up with a faculty position at Stanford inspired us to sponsor a workshop on how to negotiate your first tenure track faculty offer which was very powerful. And so again, I think in terms of the goal of diversifying the faculty in addition to making sure that diverse doctoral students are successful, we engage in very intentional ways with our alumni who are members of our Boucher society. And those are just an example that they can help our current students. So another question about letters of reference, can they be from someone outside of U of M, i.e. a professor from another institution you work with or a local community partner? Yeah, absolutely. Again, if I was developing a strategy about how to select the best letters, I would really, I know I sound redundant, but I'd really study the core values of Boucher and select people who can best address those core values and speak to what you've done there. Of course, if you're a doctoral candidate on campus, hopefully you've had some really good relationships with faculty on campus and would be able to identify at least one that could speak to some portion of that, but completely understand as an undergrad or maybe a master's student in a different institution or even sometimes on your committee you have an outside scholar, but they're just, they're better positioned to speak about what you've done in the realm of advocacy or public engagement or public scholarship then I think that those are voices of who I am. Are applicants typically accepted close to when they graduate or is it from a range of years after candidacy? It really is from a range of years. Paul mentioned a little bit that we're very aware of postdocs and when we get postdoctoral applicants. So you have to be a candidate by the time you're inducted. So I think hypothetically you could apply now in pre-candidacy knowing that you're gonna move into candidacy sometime in January or February, but you can imagine in terms of such a competitive award that if you're just moving from pre-candidacy to candidacy and you're competing with postdocs that might be in their second year as a postdoc there are certain advantages to just having more time, right? And so just wanna be really transparent about that, but we are very aware again of all these different kinds of diversity. And so I wouldn't be discouraged from applying if you are earlier in the phase of your doctoral studies and you apply this year and you're not selected I would continue to apply in future years. I think there, especially in your scholarship there's just an advantage of time and the ability to accumulate publications the ability to accumulate presentations at conferences. I would make a note though that COVID certainly has impacted research productivity in those traditional ways as well. And so I would in no way discourage anyone from applying as long as you're eligible when you meet the eligibility requirements. So I think that's a good segue to sort of a question for me is it is a competitive process we see every year we see more and more application last year we crossed the 50 threshold to put that into context with three or four years ago we had maybe 20 some odd applications. So we increase it every year. Words of advice for those who might not get might not be selected in the first time around what advice would you have for them? Do we have examples of those who did not receive the first time but then stuck with it then? Yeah, absolutely. Last year the induction class included at least one of those examples, right? Of, and I think the year before as well, right? So if at first you don't succeed, right? If you have time continue to apply throughout your career as a doctoral student here and if you transition from completing your doctor and get your postdoc here, I'd encourage you even as a postdoc to continue. On that note, if you end up at another campus as a postdoc where they have a Boucher chapter, I would apply there as well. It's a great community to be a part of. And so like I said, I wouldn't discourage anyone from applying and if you don't make it this year, I would encourage you to try again as long as you're eligible, right? So candidates in our doctoral programs, postdocs, you're all eligible, but Paul is right. The competition is becoming increasingly more competitive. We see increases in the number of applicants every single year and while those numbers are really encouraging for us, we can understand how that can be a little bit daunting for applicants, right? But we want to encourage you to apply. And I just want to re-emphasize just one quick point is that by being affiliated with Boucher, you are joining an international network of scholars that goes beyond your type here at the University of Michigan and the Boucher Honor Society internationally is doing more and more. Last year we did a cross Boucher collaboration with Cornell and Northwestern, specifically as partners, but then the rest of the Boucher members across the world that people from all different parts of the world come to a workshop we did last spring. And there are opportunities to conferences a year for you to network and sort of increase your scholarly network as well. Yeah, Paul, if I could, before you transition next question, if I could come in on that point as well, because it was an excellent thing to point out. It really is a national and international society. And again, we hope that you would be a lifelong member of this learning community. One thing that we've learned as a result of COVID is how easy it is for us to network across the globe and across the country. And so just like we've been reaching out to some of our partners like Cornell and Northwestern, there are similar collaborations among other clusters of Boucher and they invite us and our members to participate in their events virtually now. And so it's becoming increasingly easy that what we've learned about remote attendance at conferences, panels, talks for us to connect in this way. And we've got Boucher members from our chapter that now hold faculty roles all across the country. And so just being a part of our network, you might be able to connect with other Boucher members on other campuses that maybe you're applying to, but multiply that by the number of chapters that exist across the country. And you're almost certain to find Boucher at some of these campuses that you're interested in teaching and doing research in the future. Thank you. There was a question earlier on about feedback. If can people get feedback on, you know, if they did not get selected to the Boucher, do we offer feedback to applicants after the fact? Yeah, I think we're always open to having conversations. You know, obviously we can't guarantee anything, but we're always open to having a conversation about how you might be able to improve your application and things that maybe you could highlight a little bit more in the future. Yeah, I will add two things. Number one, if during the process you have a question about the application or the statement, not to say that we will proofread a statement for you, but hey, can you, I don't know, is this going in the right direction? Questions are really making sure you're on the right track. You know, if you emailed the Boucher email, we'd definitely give feedback on that just in terms of are you on the right track. And then after the fact, they'll say that if not selected, know that it really, it is so close. Our decisions are so close every year that it's, they're just really close. And so sometimes not being selected more often than not is just that at some point, we only have so many slots for so many super qualified applicants. And sometimes just keep, sometimes it's just keep doing the great things you're doing and try again next year. I don't know if you want to add. Yeah, I know that's an excellent point. So again, we've been capped. You know, unfortunately to only five inductees a year now. And I mean, it's simple math, right? With 50 applicants last year, is a 10% success rate, right? For the inductees. So the math is becoming increasingly difficult for applicants. And if you're not accepted, it really isn't a reflection on your fantastic work. It is more of a reflection on just, you know, the limited numbers that were allowed to induct. I think it speaks to a couple of things. One, just how amazing our students are and how incredibly talented you are, but also the increases in the diversity of our doctoral students as well. And so hopefully, you know, both of those trends persist, but in terms of Boucher and the induction process, it means it's just going to continue to get more work. We've got our questions. Do any last questions, please put them in the box or you could open up your mic if you would like to. As we're maybe waiting for that final question. Number one reminder, the application opens up on October 1st. You will receive an email just by registering for this event. And of course they closed on November 1st, which I think the important piece there is, as you're thinking about your letters of reference, the sooner you can get letters of reference, like sooner you can ask the letters of recommendation, the better, because that is sometimes what holds up applications from the reviewers hand. And so if you haven't already asked, you know, if you already have not asked, you know, who you're planning to ask, then now is a good time to do that. I don't know if we have any questions in the box. So Dr. Brammer, any last remarks, words of encouragement and any sort of final thought on the potential processes? Yeah, absolutely. I think Paul, again, is correct. And the most difficult part of the application tends to be getting your letters of reference. And so if you're considering applying, I would start reaching out to your potential recommenders as soon as possible. I can't emphasize enough, you know, really studying our website, Yale's website, particularly zeroing in on the Boucher core values and how your body of work aligns with those core values and your ability to speak to that. And then of course, you know, new to the application this year is how you intend to contribute to the chapter, right? As a student and also as an alum of the University of Michigan. So those are kinds of things that we're looking for. I would encourage everyone to apply. I don't want anybody to walk away from our conversation this afternoon feeling discouraged. We want all of you to apply. If we could, we'd induct all of you. Unfortunately, that's not the way the competition works. But again, we knowing being very cognizant of this or also being trying to be very intentional about spreading the benefit of the Boucher as a learning community to the whole campus, right? Whether somebody is an inductive member of the society or not. We know that there's a great need for the kind of support, the kind of networking, the kind of mentorship that Boucher can provide. And so, you know, we wish you the very best in this year's competition. And if you're not selected, we hope that you apply again in the future. But also whether you're selected or not, that we hope that you continue to engage with the Boucher society activities of the campus that are offered through that one. All right. Thank you. I'm just putting some resources here in the box. Can we have one last question? Come in while I was talking. I got it. What do successful applicants have in terms of research, D&I work, and anything else? You want me to take a stab at that? You can. Let me take the first shot. You're voting toward the chance to rest here. So I think, I think those are great things to have on C1 research and DEI. I think the other pieces just don't, don't underestimate any leadership activities. Other contributions you've made to the community that in your mind might not fit in the, you know, the DEI framework or the research framework. You know, but it's all a form of giving back with skills or engagement. So I would don't discount other experiences. And I would just say, on a technical point, sometimes how you lay out your CV, your resume, there's, you know, million ways to do it, but just thinking about formatting the way that maybe certain pieces are highlighted. You know, just think about the sections you put it in. Having a section on DEI work might be easier for the reviewer to acknowledge the work you've done versus to say, you know, a large chronological listing of all the great things. Yeah. You know, I think it's important to acknowledge the differences in disciplinarity and has certain disciplines have almost a natural advantage. I'll get to how this, this, you know, we deal with this disparity. I think it's important to acknowledge the differences in disciplinarity. You know, we deal with this disparity in a second, but certain fields. Like you can imagine kind of an integrative comprehensive wholeness or holistic. Like nature, if you're a social scientist who engages as part of their scholarship, precisely in anti-racism research, right? Or in the public health. So if your research project is looking at anti-indigenous racism and, you know, native health disparities during COVID and you designed a project that, you know, looked at large datasets, but also integrated a public health initiative that increased the number of, you know, people living on a reservation, you know, to get, to get their vaccines. Like it just naturally kind of lends itself to what Boucher is looking for, right? It kind of has all the pieces together in one comprehensive poll. I wouldn't say that that's what you have to have to be successful as an applicant. Right. So in the biomedical sciences and engineering, for example, where, you know, anti-racism research is increasing. You don't necessarily have to be as explicitly anti-racist engineer research. Right. So if, if your primary dissertation project isn't framed necessarily as anti-racism research, speaking one about your research, you know, in robotics or in chemical engineering, just all the amazing things that you're doing in that area, your publications, your presentations, the groundbreaking scholarship, maybe grant awards, your research may not be, again, framed as anti-racist or DNI research, but you're doing diversity work within your department. Right. So you're sitting on, you know, some of the affinity groups, leadership and the affinity groups in engineering, or you're doing something like girls who code or, you know, you're working with NSB and you're part of the leadership or, you know, SLEE and you're part of the leadership there, or you're engaging in the case of research, reach pack programs that encourage young women in Detroit or Flint, you know, or it's fancy to think about careers in STEM and engineering in particular, right. Highlighting all of those kinds of things. I think that it's the same objective, right. So there are disciplines where, you know, this, like anti-racism research, exploring like humanities and humanist by training. I see my work in translation is very much an anti-racist intervention because I translate authors who live in the United States, consider themselves American writers as in U.S. American writers, but they don't get incorporated in the candidate of American, U.S. American literature because they write in Spanish. Right. And so there's systematically silence and excluded from consideration in textbooks in case of call, et cetera. And that contributes to the visibility, right, in the erasure of certain communities in the candidate of American literature. So from the humanities perspective, I definitely frame all of my work as anti-racist, you know, D&I promoting kind of scholarship. But we understand that in the biomedical sciences and engineering, you know, there are different challenges in those fields. So really, let us know, like all the great work that you're doing in your field, even if your field is working with, you know, material sciences and, you know, supplement that with all the great work that you're doing to promote diversity in your field, right. And doing public scholarship work to promote awareness and appreciation and even a pipeline for diversity. I hope that helps. Great. Well, those are the questions we have. We're almost getting close to the hour. So again, October 1st, the application is open. And November 1st, they close between now and then. So feel free to reach out to the Blue Shea Honor Society. The email is in the chat. And we will answer any questions you have. Thanks everyone for being here. We hope to see your applications and we hope to see you as members of the Blue Shea Honor Society. Thank you so much and enjoy your day. Bye now. Thank you, everyone.