The MRP holds a two-day summer dissertation retreat open to advanced graduate student members and five to six faculty. Each student pre-circulates a dissertation prospectus or chapter prior to the event. One lead and one secondary faculty commentator are assigned to each student. A format similar to the colloquium workshops is used, which allows each student, over the course of the two days, to have his or her project critiqued by a scholarly from his or her discipline as well as one from outside. An additional evening session on challenges in the field helps us identify and address discipline-specific as well as more general concerns within the group.The goals of the dissertation retreat are

• To mentor graduate students to produce strong dissertations from multiple disciplinary and career-stage perspectives that lead to positions within research universities.
• To help students to produce one well-polished chapter each year that is ready for public critique, thereby speeding up their time to degree.
• To build intellectual common ground for faculty participants.
• To create a sense of cohort among graduate students

The 2009-2010 dissertation retreat will take place on November 21-22nd at Westerbeke Ranch in Sonoma, California.