The Graduate Center for Research and Retention

The Graduate Center for Research and Retention is an innovative one-of-a-kind center that provides sustained one-on-one mentoring, guidance, and advising support to graduate students in all fields. The Center represents an integrated approach to retention, conducts research on time to degree, participates in national research initiatives in graduate education that ensure best practices, and implements programmatic interventions to enhance opportunities for graduate degree completion for all students, and especially for students from underrepresented groups. The Center director is a conflict resolution strategist, serving the needs of graduate students and graduate advising faculty at WMU.

Publication Highlight

Dr. Marianne Di Pierro

Dr. Marianne Di Pierro has been a member of the Graduate College for eight years, serving as Director of the Graduate Center for Research and Retention. The Center is an innovative one-of-a-kind retention entity. It provides sustained one-on-one mentoring, guidance, and advising support to graduate students in all fields, and it employs an integrated approach to retention.

Di Pierro conducts research on time to degree, participates in national research initiatives in graduate education that ensure best practices are deployed across the University, and implements programmatic interventions to enhance opportunities for graduate degree completion for all students, and especially those from underrepresented groups. She is also the Graduate College conflict resolution strategist, serving the needs of graduate students and graduate advising faculty at WMU.

Di Pierro holds the Ph.D. in English from the University of South Florida and is the recipient of the William G. Bentley Memorial Award for Outstanding Graduate in her undergraduate class at the University of Maryland. She was elected by the national membership of the Modern Language Association to the Delegate Assembly for a three-year term as a special-interest delegate, representing independent scholars and professionals with alternative careers. She currently serves as advising editor to the American Society for Quality (ASQ) Higher Education Brief. Her research focus is concentrated in graduate education.

Recent Publications and Presentations

• Di Pierro, M. (2006, May). Strategies for doctoral student retention: Taking the roads less traveled. Paper presented at the Educational Policy Institute Retention 2006 International Conference on Student Retention, Las Vegas, NV.

• Di Pierro, M. (2007). Excellence in doctoral education: Defining best practices. College Student Journal, 2, 368–375.

• Di Pierro, M. (2007). Debriefing: An essential final step in doctoral education. Journal for Quality and Participation, American Society for Quality, 2, 14–16. Read the entire article in its original format in this .pdf file

• Di Pierro, M. (2010, January). Preparing for the oral defense of the dissertation. American Society for Quality, Higher Education Brief, 3(1).
  Read the article here: http://www.asq.org/edu/2010/01/career-development/preparing-for-the-oral-defense-of-a-dissertation.pdf

• Di Pierro, M. (2010, April). Health care education: Making a difference in the lives of graduate students. Journal for Quality and Participation, 33(1), 15–17.

• Di Pierro, M. (2010, May). Disambiguation: Through the looking glass—From debriefing to process improvement. Paper presented at the Eastern Michigan University Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) Academy Conference, May 17–18.
  

• Di Pierro, M. (2010, June). Doctoral process flowcharts: Charting for success. American Society for Quality (ASQ) Higher Education Brief. 3(4). [Read the article here]
  

• Di Pierro, M. (2010, November). Assessing doctoral student progression. Selected for presentation at the 18th National Quality Education Conference (NQEA) in Chicago, IL, November 7–9. 

• Di Pierro, M. (2010, Fall). The observation tower: Perspectives on the dissertation. QED News, American Society for Quality Education Division.
  Retrieved from http://asq.org/edu/2010/09/leadership/the-observation-tower-perspectives-on-the-dissertation-advising-model.pdf
  
  
• Di Pierro, M. (2011, January). Disambiguation: Through the looking glass—From debriefing to process improvement. Journal for Quality and Participation 33 (4) Read the entire article in its original format in this .pdf file
  
  
• Di Pierro, M. (2011, January).  Higher education: Caveat emptor.  American Society For Quality (ASQ) Education Division, Workforce Development Brief
  
  
• Di Pierro, M. (2011, January). Innovations for Navigating the Doctoral Dissertation. Journal of Faculty Development 25(1)
  
  
• Di Pierro, M. (2011, September). Personalizing academic misconduct: An approach for the graduate classroom. Journal of Faculty Development 25(3)

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Graduate Center for Research and Retention Staff

Doctoral Associate 260 W-WAL 387-8267 home page	A full time Ph.D. student in the Evaluation, Measurement, and Research Program at Western Michigan University. Julien obtained a BA in Interpersonal/Organizational communication from Manchester College, Indiana, USA. He has also earned a BA in Marketing and advertising from the EST-Loko, Ivory Coast. Julien is a public health professional with a M.P.H. obtained from Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. He worked at Grady Health system as health communication specialist, at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as research assistant and with the Atlanta Public School as a French Teacher. Julien's evaluation projects include the Evaluation of Health Worker Performance in the Treatment of Pneumonia Among Children Seen at Outpatient Facilities in Ouémé, Southeastern Benin: a Longitudinal Study of Patient Register and Evaluation of HIV/AIDS Vaccination Trial Information Cards and Their Effectiveness in Increasing Participation Among Members of the African American Community.” Julien's expertise in personal and organizational communication, multi-cultural, public health and teaching are his strongest professional contribution.
Haolai (Lincoln) Jiang Doctoral Associate 260 W-WAL 387-8253	Haolai (Lincoln) Jiang is a doctoral student with the Department of Statistics at Western Michigan University (WMU). He holds the Bachelor of Economics degree in statistics, conferred by Renmin University, China. He was also awarded a Master’s Degree in statistics from WMU.  Lincoln served as a teaching assistant with the Department of Statistics and later joined the Graduate Center for Research and Retention in 2009 as a consultant, providing one-on-one statistical consultation to WMU graduate students completing dissertation/thesis research. In addition to his consultation work, Lincoln teaches a variety of statistics seminars to graduate students: Overview of Statistical Concepts; Overview of SPSS; Overview of SAS.  His research interests are statistical computing and data visualization. He is a soccer fan of the Arsenal Soccer Club. Watching a live Arsenal’s match at Emirates Stadium in London, England, is one of his greatest desires. Lincoln is a doctoral associate to Dr. Marianne Di Pierro, Director, Graduate Center for Research and Retention.

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