We sat down with Dr. Bill Hockaday this week to talk about his role in the Graduate School. Dr. William Hockaday is the Associate Dean for Research. His work supports graduate student research, teaching, and scholarship through courses, tools and resources for grant, fellowship, and award applications. He chairs the graduate curriculum committee for new courses and programs in STEM fields, and facilitates the independent review of doctoral programs. Hockaday is an associate professor in the Department of Geosciences, and has served as director of the doctoral program in Ecological, Earth and Environmental Sciences for six years. Dr. Hockaday graduated from the Ohio State University with a PhD in Analytical Chemistry, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in Earth Science at Rice University. He joined Baylor University in 2010. Hockaday’s research group uses molecular spectroscopy to study mechanisms and processes in the global carbon cycle.
BearTracks
Tell me a little bit about you as a person and and then about your role in the graduate school.
Dr. Bill Hockaday
Yeah, I came to Baylor and moved to Waco in 2010. I grew up in Ohio, and went to grad school at Ohio State University and got a PhD in Chemistry. And then we moved to Texas for the first time – my wife and I moved to Texas right after we got married. I was 25 years old and moved to Rice University in Houston for me to do a PostDoc. And that was supposed to last for two years, but ended up lasting for four because there was a big economic depression in 2008, and there were no jobs. So I just stayed a postdoc for four years before coming to Baylor. Here, I’m in the Geosciences department, so I moved from Chemistry to Geosciences. And we’ve been here since 2010, so obviously, we like it!
BT
Yeah, 13 years feels like a commitment!
BH
Yes! We have kids, two kids. A boy who will be eight in April and a girl who’s 10 years old. So they’re in second grade and fourth grade. And my wife is a fourth grade science and math teacher. She has my daughter in her class this year, which is an interesting experiment.
BT
Yeah, I had my mom as my teacher in eighth grade for History. It’s a weird dynamic to have family in the classroom.
BH
Oh yeah, she’s always calling her “mom,” for example. At that age it’s fine. But any way, our kids are really involved in sports. They play soccer and basketball, and my son just started playing flag football. When I’m not at Baylor, I’m literally a chauffeur from one practice and game to another. As a family, we enjoy anything outdoors. We do a lot of camping and a lot of sports and our vacations are outdoors skiing, hiking, camping, mountain biking, backpacking, swimming, fishing, hunting, all the outdoor sports.
BT
That sounds like a ton of fun. How about your position in the Grad School? Go ahead and tell me what your official title is and how you ended up in that position?
BH
Well, I worked with Steve Driese, who was the Department Chair of Geosciences for a long time, and I started teaching a grant writing course with him, because he was a senior investigator and he wanted to include a junior investigator’s perspective for grad students, which turned out to be great. So, I co-taught the grant writing course with Steve for five or six years and during that time, Steve became Associate Dean for Research in the Graduate School. He stepped down as Department Chair and moved over to the grad school. As I talked with Steve about what he was working on as an Associate Dean, I got a sense of the job. Once he announced his retirement, he told me I should apply. So I did, but Sara Dolan actually got the job. Then a year later, Beth Barr stepped down from her position and Sara stepped into that role, so Dean Lyon called me and said, “You still interested?”
BT
You were ready for Round Two! That’s fantastic.
BH
So that’s how I ended up here, but I guess even before that, Laine Scales put together a group of faculty to think about grad student professional development. And she contacted me because, at the time, I had two graduate students who had received fellowships from the National Science Foundation. The NSF is all about mentoring graduate students and graduate student professional development and helping grad students do really good research. So I said, Yes, I’ll sit on this panel to think about professional development. And that way I got to know some of the folks in Grad School early on.
BT
What would you say is your favorite part of this role you’re in the Graduate School?
BH
That it’s entirely in service to graduate students. To me, that’s why I’m a professor, right? Because I want to work with really bright grad students. And I love the research. And so my love for research rubs off on them. Mentoring grad students is more than just teaching them how to work in the lab and write papers. The softer side of being a mentor is really hard to learn, and you can never have too much experience or training. A lot of what I was already doing, in this role I could have more time to do it; the ability to learn how to do it better, and how to make what I’ve learned available to other young faculty members.
BT
It sounds like a natural extension of something that was already there. What’s something you wish more graduate students knew about the Graduate School?
BH
I think as a grad student, at least from my experience at a huge state school, I didn’t know that they were people who had my best interests in mind. I didn’t know who they were, other than my advisor who I saw every week. I didn’t know there was this little office of people that made it possible for me to be a graduate student. But at Baylor, I hope the grad students here just appreciate how much goes into making the graduate student experience possible. And that we will listen if there are concerns, because we really are concerned about grad student well-being in all areas. So much has changed so fast, and we realize there are things that could be better. If students have a need or see a problem, the Grad School wants to know about it.
BT
I’ve been so grateful for the listening and the advocacy that goes on every day, like you said, at the Grad School with the “powers that be.”
Okay, I’ve got some fun questions sprinkled in here. What is your favorite Baylor event?
BH
Well, I definitely I love sports. We go to as many football games as we can. But I think as a family, the one that we really like is the Homecoming Parade and the whole Homecoming Day. That’s by far my favorite.
BT
That’s great. Events like football are kind of the same every year, aside from the ups and downs of how the team is doing, but Homecoming is a spectacle; it’s always fresh.
What is a resource you wish grad students took better advantage of?
BH
That’s a great question. All of the travel support; the travel awards are super important. They’re very easy to get and the process is so simple, but the benefit that grad students get from going to professional conferences, it’s unrivaled in terms of if you were to rank all the things that matter to a career. I think choosing the right professional meetings to attend, and then using Grad School resources to attend them can be life-changing, career-changing.
Another thing that is getting better and better every time I look at it, and Sarah Madsen is working on it now, is the development of these grant writing resources for grad students. To define and apply for fellowships, scholarships, and things like that. That is an under-utilized resource.
BT
I used it for the first time this spring! I had I never applied for outside funding before, but I had fellowships I was applying for and Sarah was so helpful. I emailed her and said, “I need you to help me. I don’t understand the grant-writing genre, I’ve never written like this before. I don’t know what this is supposed to look like. So here’s a bunch of raw materials. Just mold me; I am clay. Tell me what to do.” I was so grateful to her. I know that a lot of that’s due to the training she gets from you and the other resources in the Grad School. Personally, I am so grateful for that resource. I absolutely wish more people used it.
BH
That coupled with the Graduate Writing Center is just tremendous resource.
BT
For sure.
Tell me a fun fact about yourself.
BH
I guess a hobby that I enjoy is antique restoration, specifically antique cars. I grew up on a farm so I worked on a bunch of antique farm tractors growing up, but I’ve had multiple antique cars that I’ve restored over the years. It’s something I don’t have enough time to do anymore, but occasionally I get out there in the garage and tinker.
BT
Do your kids like to help with that when you do it? Or are they still too little?
BH
They love it, but they’re too little to be really helpful.
BT
Someday, hopefully they’ll be able to help you!
What advice would you give to grad students?
BH
There’s so many things. I guess if it’s an early-career grad student, my advice would be, Don’t even start if it’s not something you really, really love. Grad school is like running a marathon, it’s not a sprint. You have to really love it, or you’re just going to be miserable.
If I’m talking to a grad student near the end of their career, my advice is to apply early and often. Don’t be discouraged by rejections, they’re just guaranteed.
BT
Yes! This is a topic that Associate Dean Sara Dolan is wanting to do a lot more with grad students, just having much more open conversations about failure as normal and expected and as something we don’t need to feel shame about.
BH
Yes, I have a senior grad student right now who asked me if I would teach a course on failure called “Failure Seminar.” I don’t have time at the moment, but it’s something for the future.
BT
I love that – “Failure Seminar.” Ha!
Okay, final question. Who is your favorite grad school staff member?
BH
Oh my gosh, I have to pick?
BT
Everyone sweats when I ask this question. A lot of people have said Dean Lyon because they feel like they should vote for the guy in charge.
BH
That’s a cop out! The person that I think is absolutely hilarious and cracks me up is Sheila Dooley. That’s my favorite personality.
BT
I’m sure it will warm her heart to know that when she sees this. Thank you so much for your time!