Doctoral Students' Liaison Committee

Note: The DSL is not currently active. The following information is included as reference material only.
The Doctoral Students' Liaison Committee (DSLC) is a network of students and faculty working to promote the professional development of doctoral students. You can read a report on its past accomplishments and future plans by clicking by scrolling down the page, or download a version of the report formatted for printing. In addition, the following resources may be of interest:

• 2006 DSLC PDW Summary
• 2005 DSLC PDW Summary
• 2004 DSLC PDW Summary
• 2003 DSLC PDW Summary (there was also a report on this PDW in an Academy Newsletter
• DSLC History (2001) - How the DSLC came to be
• The PhD FAQ - A list of common questions asked and answered by fellow students
• 2005 DSLC Flyer - Provided to all students who attend the New Doctoral Student Consortium ((NDSC)
• Prepared a “Divisions At A Glance” information sheet for the 2004 meetings, much of which is still relevant
• The book "Winning Reviews: A Guide for Evaluating Scholarly Writing" was a direct result from the DSLC PDWs.

If you would like to help us build the DSLC, please contact:: Haze Schepmyer

DSLC Leadership Directory

The following individuals have been involved in the leadership of the DSLC. Contact information for each is available via the AOM Membership Directory

Active Members:

• Justin Davis - Liaison to the Division Chairs
• Joy Godesiabois - Conference Program Coordinator
• Jerry Katz - Venerable Sage
• Lori Peterson - Social Events Coordinator & Liaison to the Local Arrangements Committee
• Larry Plummer - Liaison to the Board of Governors
• Hazlon (Haze) Schepmyer - DSLC Chair & Liaison to the Mentoring Committee
• Todd Weber - Webmaster

Founding Members:

• Melissa Cardon
• Nicola Dragonetti
• Jerry Katz
• Hazlon (Haze) Schepmyer
• Rhetta Standifer
• Todd Weber

A Report on Recent DSLC Activities

As a network development strategy, the Doctoral Students’ Liaison committee (DSLC) was established in September 2001 to assist in the professional development of doctoral students by:

• Promoting existing Academy of Management (AOM) activities and serving as a catalyst for new activities;
• Promoting students’ meaningful involvement in the Academy divisions, as well as assisting individual divisions in disseminating information about their activities;
• Encouraging doctoral students to come together, discuss common problems and concerns or simply establish links with peers from other schools;
• Serving as a collective voice for doctoral students.

Below is an overview of the DSLC’s activities in the past four years and a brief description of the ways in which each initiative provides opportunities for a subset of Academy members to mentor and for others to be mentored both inside and outside of the association. In other words, this submission is a summary of what we’re doing now, what we’ve done in the past and what we plan to do in the near future.

What Are We Doing Now?

In the Academy

At the 2005 conference, the DSLC will be hosting its third annual Professional Development Workshop (PDW) entitled “Learning the art and craft of reviewing: From the best reviewers of today to the best reviewers of tomorrow”. During this session, first- and second-year students will have the opportunity to meet with and learn from top-journal editors and from some of the best reviewers in the association. These carefully selected reviewers are the best in the sense that their division chairs recommended them as exemplary reviewers. While there have been other workshops oriented toward educating novices about the art and craft of reviewing, none of them has been organized by students for students nor has any one showcased the best reviewers from various divisions.

The workshop features a panel of two top-journal editors who will speak to the entire group (best reviewers and students) for the first hour. During the second hour, students will take part in small-group, round-table discussions led by the best reviewers from the sponsoring divisions. This format was adopted so that participants could hear from and put a face to some of the big names in the field and so that they could also meet some less-recognized but very approachable, accessible and skilled reviewers. Over the years, the ratio has been approximately five to seven students per best reviewer at each table. The PDW is always held from 10:00 a.m. -12:00 p.m. on the Sunday of the pre-conference program. Securing the last time slot in the pre-conference program allows time for mingling after the session and for following up on any connections that were made among students, among reviewers or between students and reviewers.

Based on feedback gathered over the past few years, panelists, presenters and participants all reap unique advantages from this workshop. Students are informally mentored by some of the Academy’s best reviewers, they get to meet peers who are also new to the association and they may get to meet someone who is in a previously unheard of division. Many best reviewers are mid-career faculty and they often report benefiting from the insights the editors provide and from the chance to teach others what they know. Some have also noted that presenting in the workshop also makes a great CV line. The editors, who usually stay after their talks to float from table to table, appreciate the chance to get caught up on recent ideas, references and tips about reviewing that they can share with their editorial boards. At another level, the benefit to the Academy and to the divisions is that participating students will learn how to be good reviewers from individuals who have demonstrated superior reviewing skills within their divisions and from top-journal editors. Moreover, sponsoring divisions are able to recruit student reviewers on-site.

In the Field

As a result of an on-going collaboration, which started at the 2003 PDW, a book on the art and craft of reviewing is now in press at Palgrave Macmillan (UK). “Winning Reviews: A Guide for Evaluating Scholarly Writing” (Baruch, Sullivan and Schepmyer, 2006) will be an academic and scholarly work on research development, knowledge creation, knowledge dissemination and the role of the academic community in shaping the boundaries of future research. As well, it will be a guide for scholars who will be conducting qualitative, quantitative and developmental reviews in the behavioural sciences. The chapters are organized around: (i) the art and science of reviewing, (ii) the practice of reviewing, (iii) reviewing different types of works and (iv) answering reviews to get published.

In addition to being a co-editor of the book, DSLC member, Haze Schepmyer, is the lead author of the chapter on advice for the novice reviewer. Building on the well-established literature, which extols the virtues of having multiple mentors, she framed the chapter as a collection of insights from a student reviewer with fewer than five years of experience (peer mentor), an assistant professor with over five years of experience (step-ahead mentor) and a former journal editor with almost 20 years of experience (traditional mentor).

What Have We Done In The Past?

In the first few months after the committee’s inception, members of the DSLC prepared documents for the student website such as:

• Pages of frequently asked questions (FAQ) about the Academy, doctoral studies and the academic profession;
• A list of events and sessions at the annual AOM conference which are geared toward students, based on a thorough survey of the conference program guide;
• A divisions-at-a-glance information table based on correspondence with each division chair;
• A listserv, bulletin board and weblog for discussion among students

The student website is comprehensive and it is available to anyone with Internet access. The FAQ pages provide a chance for students to find out how many others have had those seemingly silly questions they were afraid to ask and then to get them answered anonymously. The divisions-at-a-glance document is a great resource for students who are too overwhelmed at the prospect of navigating all the divisional webpages to see which ones are appealing and they might like to join. The table also lists whether or not the division allows students to review.

In addition to serving student members, the DSLC served the association in 2001 by conducting an informal survey of student members on the state of education for an accreditation body whose chair is affiliated with the Academy.

What Do We Have Planned For The Future?

Through the aforementioned activities, the DSLC is meeting its first, third and fourth objectives. The future agenda targets the second objective: promoting students’ meaningful involvement in the Academy divisions, as well as assisting individual divisions in disseminating information about their activities.

In the process of collecting data for the divisions-at-a-glace table, it became immediately apparent that few divisions have a student representative on their executive or in their administrative echelons. Also, many will not use students to review for the conference. Over the next few years, our energies will be directed at getting peer mentors (student representatives) in each division. These individuals would likely appear more accessible and approachable than division chairs to a newcomer, making them a great entry point or starting point. We will also continue to strengthen our ties with the New Doctoral Students’ Consortium (NDSC). Currently, a DSLC representative always makes a five-minute presentation at the full-day consortium, our flyer is included in students’ information packages and attendees are encouraged to get involved or at least to share idea about how the Academy can better serve students, who make up almost 25% of members.

Conclusion

In 2002, based on feedback from the membership survey, AOM’s the Board of Governors offered the following as one of the association’s strategic directions:

“The Academy will focus its efforts and resources primarily on serving the needs of its members as related to research, teaching and practice. Academy members are diverse, and their needs for professional development, training and expression change over time and differ by professional interests and career stage. Current and future needs of members for the Academy as a whole and for each division and interest group should be ascertained frequently and used as the primary criterion for deciding what initiatives to undertake.”

And in the 2001 presidential address, Andrew Van de Ven noted “because the Academy has traditionally offered few mechanisms encouraging interpersonal interaction among student newcomers, it is understandable that new members have the impression that the Academy is a large, institutionalized system”. The DSLC members have worked hard to remedy these perceptions.

Overall, the DSLC’s most notable and timely contribution has been to continuously facilitate the Academy’s progress to achieve the aforementioned strategic direction by identifying the need for and then creating some professional development opportunities for students. Of course, the added value is that the initiatives often provide opportunities to mentor for members at different career stages. Structurally, the DSLC is a subset of the Mentoring Committee and is, in many ways, a fluid or virtual entity. While membership is always changing, the six individuals at DSLC’s core are: Melissa Cardon, Nicola Dragonetti, Jerome (Jerry) Katz, Hazlon (Haze) Schepmyer, Rhetta Standifer and Todd Weber. Haze currently serves as the liaison between the Mentoring Committee and the DSLC, and she sits on the Mentoring Committee’s executive. For more information about us or for a copy of the “Winning Reviews: A Guide for Evaluating Scholarly Writing” prospectus, please contact Haze.

Quick Access

• Student-L
• NDSC Web
• PhD FAQ