Since the 1960s, the attrition rate of doctoral students has consistently been estimated at 50% nationwide. Explanations include: lax admissions standards, poor advising, student misunderstanding about the nature of graduate education, the process of graduate education itself, and lack of community. In 1999, to address the problem of lack of community, a Research Support Group was formed at Purdue University. Using a networking mentoring/learning communities model, the pilot program sought to

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... ovide support and guidance for doctoral students whose progress on their dissertations had stalled. In this paper, I present an overview of the program; some preliminary outcome data; a discussion of the program's effectiveness, foregrounding the voices of the participants; and some projections for the future.