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Professional Development On Call: Workshops by Request offer interactive, skill-focused workshops that departments, programs, and student groups can invite into their own settings. Led by Senior Assistant Dean Melissa Bostrom and Assistant Dean Hugh Crumley, these sessions support Duke master’s and Ph.D. students in developing practical teaching, research, communication, mentoring, and career readiness skills across academic and professional contexts.
Workshops are flexibly designed to meet the needs of each group and typically last 60–90 minutes. Whether you're orienting new students, preparing job seekers, or helping participants strengthen their teaching, this series brings professional development directly into your local context—with experienced facilitators who understand the graduate student experience at Duke.
Workshops offered by Hugh Crumley
These 60- to 120-minute modules are designed to be practical, interactive, and focused on skills for early-career scholars preparing for faculty or teaching roles.
Active & Collaborative Learning
Participants will be able to design student-centered lessons that incorporate active learning and collaborative strategies to enhance student engagement and participation.
Classroom Assessment Techniques
Participants will be able to develop formative and summative assessment tools, including rubrics and Classroom Assessment Techniques, to effectively evaluate and support student learning.
Facilitating Discussion & Classroom Management
Participants will be able to implement strategies for facilitating classroom discussions, managing group dynamics, and addressing challenging situations to create a productive learning environment.
The Teaching Portfolio: Documenting Your Training & Experience
Participants will be able to create a reflective teaching statement and compile a teaching portfolio that effectively documents their teaching practices and philosophy for academic job applications.
Advance HE Fellowships & Academic Job Search in the UK
Participants will receive an introductory overview of Advance HE Fellowships and the UK academic job market, with guidance on how U.S.-trained early-career scholars can begin to position their teaching experience for teaching-focused roles abroad.
Personality Types and College Teaching
In this interactive workshop, participants explore how personality preferences shape teaching, learning, and classroom interaction, with practical strategies for working effectively across differences in college classrooms.
Workshops offered by Melissa Bostrom
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These highly interactive workshops are generally offered in a 60-90 minute format, flexibly adapted to the time frame available (e.g., class meeting time).
Getting Engaged with Professional Development at Duke
Students explore professional development resources, identify key online portals, and learn how to use Duke OPTIONS (if the workshop is for Ph.D. students).
Mentoring and Graduate Student Success
This workshop is based on the Mentoring Toolkit and, if offered for at least 90 minutes, can offer RCR credit to students who attend.
Working Effectively with a New Mentor
Suitable for early-career Ph.D. or master’s students who will work closely with a new mentor in a research group or lab environment, this workshop helps students identify strategies for working effectively with a new PI.
Presenting Your Research for a Broad Audience
Strategies for accessible, appealing slide design, effective structure, and strong delivery principles.
What Can I Be with an Advanced Degree? Identifying My Transferable Skills
Participants learn strategies for identifying the transferable skills they have developed through research, coursework, and other experiences, along with strategies for considering how to translate those skills to potential employers.
Take Your Teaching Skills Anywhere: Identifying Transferable Skills for Potential Employers
Participants focus specifically on skills gained through their teaching experiences and the ways in which these skills may be valuable to employers outside the academy.
Research Tools for Exploring Your Career Options with a Ph.D.
Participants learn key online resources and strategies for researching the full range of professional opportunities open to Ph.D.s.
Exploring Careers in Academic Administration
Graduate students learn about the structures of colleges and universities, common job profiles where graduate education would be valued, and expectations in administrative roles compared with faculty positions.
Communicating Your Strengths: A CliftonStrengths Workshop
Participants gain experience in talking about their strengths in a series of exercises designed to prepare them for job interviews. This workshop requires participants to complete an online assessment beforehand.
Workshops Offered by Hugh Crumley and Melissa Bostrom
Communicating Effectively in Teams
This workshop, based on the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory, helps participants reflect on their preferences and how they might work effectively with others who have different preferences. This workshop requires participants to complete a free online assessment beforehand.
How Do You Lead People Who are not Like You?
This workshop, based on the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory, helps participants reflect on their preferences and how they might lead effectively to empower team members with different preferences. This workshop requires participants to complete a free online assessment beforehand.