Achievement

In January, before spring semester began, we once again held a two-day retreat organized by trainees. The trainees the previous year had asked for an annual retreat because they felt a need to spend some time together that would allow us to cover some topics that were difficult to include in the seminar and in a format that allowed for more in-depth discussion. The trainees, in collaboration with the program manager, developed a program that was productive for both trainees and faculty. The retreat included team-building activities, an exercise where trainees reviewed interdisciplinary proposals written by IGERT participants the previous year, interdisciplinary project brainstorming, two sessions on ethics, and an activity where each student spent time discussing their research one-on-one with every other student.