A key element in good organizing is, well, being organized. Fellow graduate students and early career psychologists share the strategies that helped them accomplish their goals.
#1: Establish a foundation
Structures — such as regular meeting times, protocols, bylaws, operating procedures and established leadership positions — help groups organize ideas and plans and stay on course, says APAGS Assistant Director Eddy Ameen, PhD. If your group is just made up of students who are passionate about the issue you're working on, and then they leave campus or lose interest in the cause, "the whole thing has the potential to die," Ameen says. "You want to put enough structure in place that the group can continue without falling on any one person's shoulders."
#2: Make clear plans
Have some ideas about what you want to accomplish, and create plans and timelines for getting those things done, advises Jessy Warner-Cohen, PhD, a Long Island-based health psychologist who helped develop new policies for graduate students while at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
"All of the stakeholders involved sat down, looked at the budget, and worked through a whole bunch of issues together," she says. These included hammering out categories of grad student employment; setting guidelines for working hours, duties and mentoring; requiring the university to send letters of appointment or reappointment for working grad students; and defining special conditions for international students, among others.
If you want to unionize, that requires another level of organizing tactics, adds APAGS Chair-elect Ian Gutierrez, a doctoral candidate at the University of Connecticut involved in the grad student union there. That's because most university administrators don't want unions on their campus, in part because their requests are likely to cost universities more money, and because most administrators fundamentally believe that graduate assistants are primarily students rather than employees and so do not deserve a seat at the executive table, he says.
"You have to be calculated in what you do, when you do it, and why you do it, and you have to get everyone on board with that strategy," Gutierrez says. A good place to learn the basics is the Coalition of Graduate Employee Unionsopens in new window, a group of grad student unions across the United States and Canada that's affiliated with various international unions.
#3: Stand your ground
Psychologists like to get along with people; by training, they also look at things through an individual rather than a collective lens. What's more, grad students are on the low rung of the professional university ladder and as such, depend on the support of those higher up.
Stay aware of these factors and keep your assertiveness switch in the "on" position, Ameen recommends.
"Sometimes it makes sense to start with the most diplomatic approach," he says, "but at other times, it's important to take a stronger and possibly oppositional approach." Use your psychological skills and your group's collective wisdom to determine what to do when, he advises.
#4: Be professional
When her graduate student group worked with faculty and administrators to write their grad student handbook, "We looked at ourselves as the future peers of the people we were approaching," Warner-Cohen says. "It wasn't just an administration-faculty-student relationship; it was, ‘We are the next wave of PhDs.' That stance set a very positive tone."
Part of being a professional — and for that matter, a psychologist — is acknowledging there are valid points of view besides your own, adds Samantha Taylor*, a second-year doctoral student in a program on the East Coast. Faculty have their own set of concerns that are sometimes similar to those of grad students, and it is administrators' job to make sure the university's budget is on track.
"Students are not always reasonable — they can be entitled and burned out and tired and confused," Taylor says. "There are a lot of things that aren't perfect in any system, including with the way students do things, and sometimes we end up a little myopic."
#5: Engage allies
Find and use whatever comrades make sense to help your group meet its mission. For members of the group Grad Students Talk (see "Banding together"), that included encouraging senior APA members and fellow students to buy T-shirts reflecting grad student views of the Hoffman report at APA's 2015 Annual Convention in Toronto. For Warner-Cohen and other grad students at her University of Maryland campus, it meant locating faculty and administrators who could work together on a common agenda. Other logical allies include graduate students in other departments, faculty who are passionate about social justice topics, leaders of other unions at your university, and grad student organizations at other universities, Gutierrez says. In addition, the APAGS Advocacy Coordinating Team helps students connect with peers across North America who self-identify as emerging advocates.
Given the contentious nature of unionizing, it's especially important to find allies in this kind of work, Gutierrez adds. That may include the above, and in particular international labor unions with clout such as the United Auto Workers and the Service Employees International Union. Again, visit the Coalition of Graduate Employee Unions to get a handle on the process, he advises.
#6: Trust your team
If you fear the consequences of fighting academic, professional or ideological battles, remember there really is strength in numbers, say graduate students and early career psychologists who have challenged the system.
When Erin Ayala, PhD, was experiencing difficulties with professors and protocols in her grad school program, it was tempting to lie low.
"Because of the nonstop evaluation and the dual relationships you have with advisers and professors, students are really good at putting their heads down and just working through it," she says. "We often don't realize that we may not be getting our needs met or that things may be happening that are really unethical or inappropriate."
But talking with other students and eventually forming a group to confront some of the problems gave her courage, says Ayala, now a clinical faculty fellow in the Albany Medical Center's department of psychiatry.
"You don't want to be the only one stirring the pot," she says. "So it was really nice to realize that other people were interested in getting together, sharing their experiences, and doing something about it."
*not her real name