All-But-Dissertation Candidates Find Help
at Camp Run by UCD's Foss

       During the summer, college campuses often become places for band or cheerleading camps and visits from prospective students. But last month, a dozen scholars were cloistered in a dormitory at the University of Denver, participating in a camp that will move many from graduate student to tenure-track faculty.
       While it's formally known as the "Scholar's Retreat," it's better known to graduate students and others who just can't quite finish their dissertations as the ABD (All But Dissertation) Boot Camp.
       The camp is for students who have completed the coursework for a doctoral degree but have had trouble finishing their dissertations. Under the direction of Sonja Foss of communication at CU-Denver, students who attend the retreat break through the emotional barriers, writer's blocks or other impediments that keep them from completing a crucial step in their doctoral programs. The camp boasts a remarkable success rate after its fourth year: all 36 students who had attended before this June completed their dissertations, and only one person chose not to defend hers later.
       Foss operates the program independently of CU-Denver and charges a fee for the service. Students are housed this year at a dorm at the University of Denver, and can stay for one or two weeks. The cost is $1,400 for two weeks or $950 for one week, and many universities pay for their working ABDs. Scholarships also are available.
       Foss got the idea for the camp after a former student at the University of Oregon asked Foss for help with her dissertation. The student came to Denver, stayed for a week, and left with a completed first draft. Foss said she figured out a technique for helping the student, and has applied it in succeeding years.
        She said many ABDs who have trouble finishing their dissertations often have the physical work done, such as organizing books and coding data, but lack a conceptual roadmap for proceeding. Foss helps them come up with that roadmap and a plan for completing chapters. "We make it manageable and concrete," she said. She is a proponent of "fast-writing," which compels the students to write down their ideas without worrying about whether every word or sentence is perfect. Sometimes she even hangs something over the computer screen so the student can't see what he or she is writing.
        "Most students are used to writing only when the inspiration hits," Foss said. But at the camp, students are on rigorous schedules where they are expected to write from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., breaking only for meals. In this way, Foss said, they learn to be productive without waiting for inspiration.
        Many of the students at the camp had stuffed their dissertations into boxes, some for years. Julie Friedline is a working ABD in communication at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. She attained ABD status in 1996 at the University of Iowa, but now finds herself at a deadline--without the dissertation, she won't be considered for a tenure-track job. She attended the boot camp for two weeks, arriving with an outline of her dissertation and all the materials she needed. She left with a completed rough draft. "I never expected that," she said. "I'm very pleased." Friedline said Foss is a tough taskmaster, but one who has created a completely supportive academic environment where students can focus strictly on writing.
        Foss first advertised the program in communication journals, but not all the students who come to boot camp are in the communication field. This year, the first students in geography and English attended the camp. Andrea Penner, a graduate student at the University of New Mexico, worked on her dissertation in Native American literature. She brought a prospectus to camp but hadn't started writing. She left with her second chapter close to completion and a schedule for defending her dissertation in six months. "I floundered around for a year and a half," Penner said, adding that she lacked confidence that her ideas had merit. Foss and assistant director William Waters, a graduate of the camp now at the University of New Mexico, helped Penner get from reading and analyzing to saying something meaningful and assisted her in presenting her ideas and in finding ways to highlight her points rather than highlighting the text she had analyzed.
        Another "camper," Hilary Anne Frost-Kumpf is director of the community arts management program at the University of Illinois-Springfield. She is in the second year of a tenure-track position but must complete her dissertation in geography to keep that appointment. Frost-Kumpt said she had pieces of the paper finished but no good roadmap of where to go from there. She left the camp with two-and-a-half chapters done and a clear plan for finishing the entire document. While Foss comes from a different discipline, Frost-Kumpf pointed out that the value of the camp was "the expertise in the structure of the dissertation, how to put it together, plus the discipline of the schedule and the community that arises in camp." Foss added that the camp applies best to students who are in qualitative fields in arts and humanities or social sciences because of the methodology she employs at the camp.
        Foss reported that she turned away students for this year's camp, something she hasn't done before. However, she isn't alone in her efforts to help students with their dissertations. The CU-Boulder Center for Humanities and the Arts offers a dissertation fellowship to assist students with completion of the doctoral program. Established last year, the Thomas Edwin Devaney Dissertation Fellowships provide a 50 percent stipend and tuition waiver for five credit hours for working on a dissertation. Students must be enrolled full time in the humanities or arts.

Goodland, Marianne. "All-But-Dissertation Candidates Find Help at Camp Run by UCD's Foss." Silver & Gold Record [University of Colorado at Denver], July 6, 2000, p. 4.