Graduate
Goal 1: Recruiting
Recruiting: Improve efficacy and equity of PhD recruiting
Vision of where we want to be in 5 years:
- Action 1: Provide opportunities for current grad student involvement in planning recruiting events
- Action 2: Discuss updates to stipend structure
- Action 3: Review application and matriculation numbers yearly
- Action 4: Create a recruitment slide for faculty to include in colloquia
- Action 5: Survey students after matriculation decisions about program selection.
Goal 2: Wellness
Wellness: Improve graduate student mental health.
Vision of where we want to be in 5 years: The department identifies and removes unnecessary sources of stress; graduate students know how to access and are empowered to use resources.
- Action 1: Administer yearly surveys to assess graduate student well-being
- Action 2: Identify and share mental health resources with graduate students.
- Action 3: Provide workshops on mental health issues for graduate students & faculty.
Goal 3: Pre-Candidacy
Pre-Candidacy: 3. Clearly define success and support structure for the pre-candidacy period
Vision of where we want to be in 5 years: Offer a consistent set of core and elective courses that are assessed and revised on a regular schedule, and provide more content that focuses on professional development.
- Action 1: Convene subcommittees of regular instructors for each core course to determine learning goals
- Action 2: Use subcommittees to translate learning goals into standard syllabi
- Action 3: Review of core courses, inputs include: student feedback, subcommittee review of material, exit interviews from graduating students, alumni feedback
- Action 4: Identify "evergreen" electives; evaluate historical trends for electives and determine future need (eg, QIS) to determine a schedule
- Action 5: Mirror process for core courses for Grad Seminar
Goal 4: Candidacy
Candidacy: Define what a successful candidacy exam looks like.
Vision of where we want to be in 5 years: Provide a guide as to expectations for workload during candidacy, what a successful candidacy exam looks like, and make sure this information is fully absorbed by faculty.
- Action 1: Collect candidacy letters; Survey faculty about: support provided preparing candidacy paper and presentation; scope of Qs asked during presentation.
- Action 2: Survey students who recently completed candidacy about time spent and skills developed/ strengthened
- Action 3: Articulate learning objectives for candidacy paper/presentation
- Action 4: Create rubrics for candidacy & presentations paper
Goal 5: Post-Candidacy
Post-Candidacy: Prepare post-candidacy students for their desired career paths.
Vision of where we want to be in 5 years: Students gain knowledge and skills to identify career goals and be strong candidate for desired positions across a variety of sectors (e.g., academic, industry, government).
- Action 1: Create and/or advertise resources for determining career interests.
- Action 2: Require creation and at-least yearly updating of IDPs and mentoring contracts (agreements between student and advisor).
- Action 3: Review 2018 National Academies Report on 21st Century STEM Graduate Education and identify strengths and weaknesses in the PhD Program related to Core Educational
- Action 4: Components (pg 106); Career Exploration & Preparation (pg. 114); and the dissertation (pg. 117)
- Action 5: Create and update program data in line with the 2018 NASEM Report: completion rates, time to determine career outcomes and paths.
Goal 6: Community
Community: Support the student community
Vision of where we want to be in 5 years: Student groups report receiving sufficient support from Department/faculty mentors
- Action 1: Survey current and past student group members to find out where support has been sufficient and where it has been lacking
- Action 2: Reassess funding/ resource allocation for groups using student feedback