The Art and Science of Professional Relationships: The Art of Connection

What does it mean to “connect” with someone in a professional context? We will discuss the critical elements of effective developmental relationships, including mutual trust and the ability to navigate power dynamics. We will also consider both internal and external barriers to developing robust relational networks and strategies for mitigating those.  

This workshop is the second in a series, The Art and Science of Professional Relationships: Evidence-Based Practices for Graduate Student Success. 

Professional relationships are as important as ideas in graduate education, contributing to student learning, research development, personal wellbeing, and career success. This workshop series offers students a reflective, collegial space and evidence-based tools for building productive relationships with mentors, graduate faculty, research collaborators, and peers. The series fulfills Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training and also integrates frameworks from the relationship-based helping professions of therapy and professional coaching. 

Learning outcomes. Participants will: 

• Gain an appreciation for professional relationship-building as an essential learned practice;  
• Understand the attributes of healthy professional relationships, including reciprocity, mutual positive regard, and trust; 
• Develop effective practices to support relationship-building, including self-reflection, initiating connection, and active listening;
• Acquire a range of tested frameworks and tools to support-relationship building;
• Emerge feeling more confident and competent about building professional relationships  

Each in-person session will be two hours long, and lunch will be provided. Facilitators: Yan Li, Associate Dean for Graduate Programs; and Maria Wisdom, Assistant Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement.

Attending this workshop earns participants 2 hours of RCR credit. You must arrive on time and stay through the entire workshop. For questions regarding RCR credit, please contact the RCR team at grad-rcr@duke.edu.