Welcome to the latest edition of Graduate Posts.
The 2013-14 academic year was a banner one for the UNMC Office of Graduate Studies. In addition to the inaugural Graduate Studies matriculation and honors convocation, the year also saw the creation of the Graduate Studies chapter in the university’s alumni association.
Despite these accomplishments, 2014-15 looks even more exciting. The Graduate Studies Office is undertaking a number of new initiatives designed to improve the experiences of our students and strengthen our engagement with our alumni.
Career Counseling.
The office is instituting new career counseling services for students who want to learn about alternative careers. For our graduate students who may feel the traditional post-doctoral path to academia is not right for them, we have added a new page to the Graduate Studies website that deals with current career counseling and transferable skills educational opportunities at UNMC. Starting Aug. 1, students also will be able to make appointments to get counseling about career opportunities. Our graduates leave us with a plethora of skills that will be valuable in any traditional academic position, but also are transferable to many professional situations, and these new services will allow us to help each graduate carve a professional path that best suits his or her passions, talents and interests.
Seminars, certificate program.
In concert with the career counseling efforts, the office will be launching a series of regular seminars and workshops on transferable skills for graduate students. Transferable skills — skills that will be of value in any job, and skills we feel ALL of our graduates should possess — include, but are not limited to, qualities such as leadership, working effectively in teams, superlative communication skills (including writing, speaking and interpersonal skills), problem-solving/analytical skills and professional flexibility.
A new certificate program, “Leadership, Transferable Skills and Outreach,” is under development and will likely be offered in 2015. This program will be offered to all UNMC students and faculty, not only graduate students.
Grievance Resolution.
The Office of Graduate Studies has been working closely with the Student Senate and Faculty Senate to develop a new Graduate Student Grievance Resolution Procedure. Although a process was already in place for academic appeals, there was no way for students to resolve other issues. The GSA leaders worked hand-in-hand with faculty and staff on this process to create a clear, step-by-step procedure. The final step in the process is the creation of a web page (which will go live shortly) detailing the procedure and providing a means for submitting grievances.
Seguidor.
After literally thousands of hours from UNMC’s dedicated and talented IT department, Seguidor — an online graduate student database — is being rolled out in stages. The database and a secure website will allow students to forego certain paperwork, chart their progress toward their degree and even set action alerts for academic-related deadlines. The system will be a huge convenience for students, mentors and advisors.
Umbrella Admission Program.
The Graduate Studies Office has been working with Karen A. Gould, Ph.D., and Daniel T. Monaghan, Ph.D., as well as the basic science chairs, institute directors and College of Medicine Dean Bradley E. Britigan, M.D., to retool the current department-based training programs in the College of Medicine. The goal is to create an umbrella admission program with common minimum standards through which all Ph.D. graduate students can enter, while adjusting the department-based programs to become more inter-disciplinary in nature. We hope to have this new structure in place by fall of 2015 following completion input gathering from key stakeholders. This structure will be more consistent with the majority of biomedical training programs in the U.S. and is one that has consistently been favored on surveys of students. It also is a structure that should position UNMC more favorably for NIH T32 training grant awards.
Because of initiatives such as the ones listed above, we are optimistic that the upcoming academic year will be a memorable one for our graduate students, alumni, faculty and staff. Looking ahead, I am excited about the coming year — I hope you are, as well.