This year, a green paper lantern arch adorned the doorway of Anonymous Hall, home to the Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies. It stayed there all week as a subtle but deliberate sign that something was being celebrated.
That celebration, organized in tandem with the Dartmouth Postdoc Association (DPA), was in honor of Dartmouth’s postdoctoral scholars (the “advanced studies” side of Guarini’s name, alongside its graduate students). From Sept. 21-26, the Guarini School marked the 17th annual National Postdoc Appreciation Week, a national observance dedicated to recognizing the year-round, research-critical work postdocs do at Dartmouth.
“A postdoc is a relatively short appointment at a pivotal point in a career,” said Dean Carrie Colla. “In those few years, postdocs publish, teach, mentor graduate students, and push research groups in new directions. We want them to leave Dartmouth with stronger work, a robust network, and a clear sense that this community valued what they brought.”
The week opened online with a national panel on 150 years of postdocs in the United States, then moved to campus with a community breakfast in the Guarini Commons and an evening reception hosted at the Dartmouth Outing Club house by the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning (DCAL) and the Guarini School. A walk around Occom Pond, a paddling outing at Ledyard Canoe Club, and a belly dance class at the Straus Dance Studio rounded out the week, alongside a week-long Postdoc Bingo challenge that sent scholars across departments to meet each other.
“As postdocs, we can sometimes feel like a bit of a gray area on campus,” said Isobel Bowles, a postdoctoral scholar in the Orellana Lab and member of the DPA executive board. “We are faculty in the sense that many of us teach, write grants, mentor trainees, and conduct our own research, but we are also still trainees ourselves, honing our own research interests.”
Postdoc Appreciation Week, Bowles said, is a chance to step outside those overlapping roles and be recognized specifically for the work postdocs do. Her own department hosted a lunch that let her meet postdocs new to the department, and she found the DOC house reception a valuable place to swap ideas on strengthening postdoc connections across campus. “These positive interactions would not happen without Postdoc Appreciation Week and the programming put on by Guarini and the DPA,” Bowles said. “I’m thankful for both groups and feeling appreciated as we start a new academic year.”
“This week is a great time for postdocs to connect with each other and with those who appreciate them — the Guarini team, grad students, faculty, and others who may be part of their research group,” said Cindy Rosalbo, director of postdoc affairs. “It’s a nice way to welcome new postdocs to campus and get to know them a bit when they participate in more than one appreciation event or come to the GuariniGRAD professional development events also occurring this time of year.”
Dartmouth’s postdocs aren’t passing through Guarini — they’re part of building it, one research project and mentoring relationship at a time. That’s what a week like this one is for: not just recognition, but a reminder that they belong here.
