Jointly offered as a partnership between the Graduate School and the Writing Center, UW-Madison’s Dissertation Boot Camp is based on dissertation camps offered at such institutions as Columbia University, Stanford University, the University of Illinois, the University of Minnesota, and Florida International University. (A special thanks to colleagues at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and at the University of Michigan for helping us plan our first camp!) UW-Madison’s Dissertation Boot Camp seeks to help participants accomplish their writing goals, accelerate their time to degree completion, and enable them to learn strategies that will help them with future writing projects.

Admission to this year’s inaugural Boot Camp was extremely competitive, with 84 dissertators applying for just 18 spots. A Graduate School committee selected applicants based on their anticipated time to degree completion, the importance of Boot Camp at this stage of their project, and broad disciplinary representation. Those selected included dissertators from all divisions of the university—arts and humanities, natural sciences, social sciences, and engineering—and from each of these departments:

• Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis
• Pharmaceutical Sciences
• Curriculum and Instruction
• Environment and Resources
• Surgery
• Sociology
• Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Anthropology
• History
• Classics
• Political Science
• Zoology
• Comparative Literature
• Industrial and Systems Engineering
• English
• Economics
• Psychology
• Botany

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to lead Dissertation Boot Camp, along with my wonderful colleague Brian Williams, a recent graduate of the Ph.D. program in English and a former TA Assistant Director of the Writing Center. As we developed the Camp curriculum and activities, Brian and I emphasized three key elements: substantial, structured writing time for at least six hours a day; writing support in the form of one-to-one conferences; and daily writing exercises (including goal setting and reflections on writing process) as well as optional lunchtime workshops.  And all of this was geared to take place within a core community of fellowship and support.

So from June 13th to June 17th, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., participants camped out in various spaces in and around the Writing Center—spaces that came to be affectionately known by such monikers as “The Lake Room,” “The Mural Room,” “The Computer Room,” and “The Refrigerator” (a room that always seemed to be at least 10 degrees cooler than the others!).

All participants were required to focus on specific chapters or sections of their dissertations, with some working on literature reviews, others on methods or data chapters, and still others on introductions or conclusions. They set daily and weekly writing goals, with each participant writing for several hours each morning and afternoon. In between these mega-writing sessions, campers participated in writing exercises, attended lunchtime workshops on topics ranging from time management and project management to voice and style, discussed their research and writing processes, met in one-to-one sessions with Writing Center tutors, and gathered for spontaneous chats over coffee and candy in “The Recharge Room.”  They eliminated potential distractions, with email, Facebook, and Angry Birds among the first to go. They faced down the blank page or screen. They talked through problems with content and form.  And working alongside one another through a broad base of mutual support, they wrote.

And did they ever write! All participants made significant progress on their dissertations, with the group collectively producing well over 300 pages of new, quality written material over the course of the week—and deleting scores of additional pages, which they’d previously written and subsequently found to be unuseable. (As one participant noted, “Wow! If we work together, we can crank out a dissertation every week!”) As they continued to draft and revise, participants tackled thorny problems with scope, argument, organization, voice, and coherence. They shared and experimented with new strategies for improving their writing, strengthening their motivation, and increasing their productivity. Some worked their way through paralyzing writing blocks. All reported a renewed motivation for writing and a renewed enthusiasm for their research, as well as a deeper understanding of the expectations for high-powered research writing. And everyone established new connections to help sustain their work over the short and long term.

On the final day of Boot Camp, we celebrated with pizza, a graduation cake, and an opportunity to share our reflections on the week. One participant even composed a song about her experience and dedicated it to her fellow campers! Many participants expressed that with Camp drawing to a close, they felt it was crucial to preserve the momentum they’d worked so hard to build. Some initiated their own spin-off writing groups, with one group planning to meet and work alongside one another every Tuesday for the remainder of the summer. Other participants scheduled a series of ongoing appointments to discuss their work with a Writing Center tutor. Still others shared the writing they’d produced over the week with their departmental advisors—something they said “would in no way have happened” for at least several more weeks or months, had they not had the benefit of Camp. One participant summed up Dissertation Boot Camp as “a fantastic, rigorous week!”

Our deep thanks go to the UW-Madison Graduate School for funding Dissertation Boot Camp and especially to Eileen Callahan, Director of Graduate Student Professional Development in the Graduate School; Jan Greenberg, Associate Dean for Social Studies in the Graduate School and Professor of Social Work; and Brad Hughes, Director of the Writing Center and Director of Writing Across the Curriculum.  Dissertation Boot Camp was made possible because of their efforts and support. And of course, we’re especially grateful to the 18 participants who brought such amazing enthusiasm, commitment, and good humor throughout our time together, day in and day out during that week in June.  Thanks to all of you, we hope to offer additional camps in the future!

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With the beginning of a new academic year, the Writing Center has many more exciting, upcoming offerings in the works . . . so definitely stay tuned for more details! In the meantime, we in the Writing Center wish you a fabulous start to the semester!!!