Our Story
At GradTLC, we help graduate students learn and thrive.
This venture began out of our experience working together at The McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning at Princeton University. In 2018, Laura founded Thriving in the Academy, the university's first-ever program to support graduate students as learners and emerging scholars beyond their individual programs and at each stage of their development. In 2019, Kate joined the Center as a Fellow while completing her PhD in English and worked directly with Laura to further build out the new program. She fell in love with educational development and shifted her career aspirations from a tenure track faculty member to a teaching and learning specialist.
Through our work together at Princeton and beyond, we have coached, supported, listened to, encouraged, and learned with and from hundreds of graduate students across all disciplines. We have also collaborated with faculty and administrative partners committed to graduate education on and beyond our campus, and shared aspects of our work at national conferences with leaders from across the country. In all of these interactions, it has become increasingly clear that graduate students face particular challenges beyond the disciplinary content of their programs - challenges that are rarely adequately addressed by their home departments or institutions. Students are often confused by the vast "hidden curriculum" - the many tacit expectations and assumptions about how to "do" graduate school successfully; some students experience "impostor stress" while others have difficulty balancing personal responsibilities with novel academic demands. Others, still, are burdened with the high cost of graduate education or are distressed to learn about the limitations of the current academic job market. And most report feeling ill-prepared to navigate a wholly new and unfamiliar terrain.
Such challenges can become magnified for students who are international and new to the U.S. academic context; identify as neurodivergent and/or have a disability; or experience a major life event such as becoming a parent or a spouse or managing an illness while in school.
Graduate school does not need to be this hard, or hard in these ways. Unfortunately, most universities do not offer cohesive, theoretically sound, and evidence-informed resources to support grad student learning and thriving....Fortunately, there is hope!
We launched GradTLC to provide the types of supports that graduate students desperately need and deserve to flourish as emerging scholars and professionals.
It's that simple, and that profound.
Come join us!
Get to Know Us
Co-Founder
Laura Murray, PhD
A life-long learner, educator and psychologist, Laura has worked at the intersections of emerging adult development, well-being, and teaching and learning in higher ed. for over 15 years. Prior to launching GradTLC, she founded and led an award-winning program to support all 3,300 graduate students at Princeton to learn and thrive. As Asst. Director of The McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning at Princeton, she partnered with diverse campus leaders, faculty, and students to develop co-curricular programs to support students through coaching, consultation, and learning cohorts. Her research and applied work explores the potential of colleges and universities to promote well-being; evidence-based and inclusive mentoring as a tool to transform higher education; and transitions to and through higher education for students with dis/abilities and/or who are neurodivergent.
Laura holds a B.A. from Vassar College, an M.A. in Communication from Stanford University, and an M.S Ed. and Ph.D. in Human Development and Education from the University of Pennsylvania. She has taught undergraduate and graduate students at Stanford University, Mount Saint Mary's College in Los Angeles, the University of Pennsylvania, and Princeton University.
Co-Founder
Kate Thorpe, PhD
A passionate and seasoned teacher, writer, and literary scholar, Kate has over a decade of experience teaching and working in higher ed. Most recently, she was an Instructional Designer at the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning at Princeton and - later - an educational developer and consultant for Princeton’s Office of the Dean of the College. She has partnered with institutional leaders, faculty, and students on myriad aspects of teaching and learning, and spear-headed learning cohorts on both course design and inclusive and equitable teaching for faculty and graduate student instructors. In addition, she has worked closely with Laura over five years to create and administer graduate student virtual writing accountability groups based on her own desire for such a group during graduate school.
Kate holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of Iowa and a Ph.D. in English from Princeton University. She is a former Fulbright scholar and published poet, and has taught at the University of Iowa, Wesleyan University, the Technical University of Dortmund (Germany), Mercer County Community College, and Princeton.