This study investigated the role of social support in the successful completion of a doctoral degree. Thirty-one participants with earned doctoral degrees completed an open-ended qualitative survey. The researchers asked the participants to describe the behaviors from their social support network that both helped and hindered their degree completion. The findings lend support for the stress-buffer hypothesis and show that all three sources of social support (i.e., academic friends, family, and faculty) provide positive and negative support. The findings suggested the following recommendations for future doctoral students: a) aligning themselves with a small group of academic friends and preparing for the inevitable peer competition, b) seeking assistance from family members on certain tasks and educating family members on the doctoral student experience, and c) establishing good rapport with a doctoral adviser who is professionally active. Results also suggest recommendations for doctoral advisers, including awareness of how negative communication among faculty impacts doctoral students and the need to stay professionally active and maintain professional connections. Finally, limitations to this study and directions for future research are discussed.

Previous studies suggest that college campuses foster a rape culture in which date rape (most commonly, rape of women) is an accepted part of campus activity (Buchwald, Fletcher, & Roth, 1993;Sanday, 2007). In focus groups at a Midwestern university, researchers asked students about rape as they experienced it or knew about it on campus. The study revealed attitudes and perspectives about rape communicated from cultural, social, and individual levels. Co-researchers' comments indicated such attitudes exist in relation to and are expressed through behaviors preceding potential incidences of rape, during rape itself, and in response after rape occurs. Throughout this process, college students, especially females, were muted, potentially contributing to the creation and perpetuation of a campus rape culture.

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