Lakeside writing retreat helps build community among social work doctoral students
Third- and fourth-year social work doctoral students have a unique site for a now-annual writing retreat where they can focus on their qualifying papers and dissertations: a vacation home on Lake Anna that alum Keita Franklin (Ph.D.’10) has loaned to the Ph.D. Program for a fall weekend since 2022.
Franklin, a specialist executive at Deloitte Consulting LLP, remembers talk of an overseas writing opportunity while she was a doctoral student, but she never participated. Now she is paying back the opportunity she never took by creating a welcoming space for collaboration and productivity, with a healthy dose of relaxation.
“Sometimes when you’re writing your dissertation, it can be a very lonely time,” she says. “It’s a very quiet time where you’re doing a lot of introspective thinking and analysis on your own, so to bring people together during that time might serve as a way to increase peer support and give you some time with like-minded folks who are also in the same boat as you.”
And the boat metaphor was literal in this case.
“Keita even catered dinner for us one night and took us on a ride on her boat,” says Muna Saleh, a fourth-year social work Ph.D. student. “The experience was phenomenal. It was a wonderful way to de-stress and build community while also writing – an otherwise isolating exercise.”
That sense of community proved true for alum Camie Tomlinson (Ph.D.’23), now an assistant professor of social work at the University of Louisville.
“I can point to whole sections of my dissertation that were written during that week,” she says. “It was also really encouraging and motivating to know that we had support not only from our cohort but also from alums of the Ph.D. program and from faculty and staff.”
» See the full story at VCU News.