Summary of the Graduate and Postdoctoral Education Workshop

Mission

To nurture graduate students and postdoctoral researchers as they become independent, versatile, creative, and critically thinking scientists by providing excellent training, education, mentoring, and professional development.

Goals

1. Improve our program of graduate training to produce graduates of excellent quality
   • Promote independence and initiative for enhanced competitiveness
     • Revise graduate curriculum
     • Emphasize self-learning
     • Provide early training in research "design"
     • Provide training in communication and writing

   • Provide exposure to the broader scientific community to increase work quality, breadth of education, and employability
     • Explore industrial partnerships
     • Increase participation in national/international conferences
     • Establish industrial internships
     • Establish visiting scholarships for students to come to Rice and for our students to visit elsewhere

   • Promote timely completion of a quality degree
     • Provide context for rapid completion of course work (1-2 years)
     • Promote early advancement to candidacy, including both oral and written defense of thesis prospectus
     • Establish rigorous annual reviews of progress
     • Require re-enrollment after 5 years in residence

   • Enhance interdisciplinary program to provide greater breadth to our graduates
     • Establish interdepartmental seminars
     • Promote classes spanning departments
     • Develop joint research and training programs

   • Establish a biannual (?) review of the graduate progress that includes monitoring success of our graduates, polling graduate students to determine their perception of the training program, and other mechanisms to determine the quality of the graduate training effort

2. Enhance support for graduate studies
   • Balance size of graduate program with funding and job opportunities to improve employment prospects, allow better selectivity, provide a more conducive and stable learning environment
     • Establish mechanisms for realistic projections of grant support and job market
     • Assess TA needs within departments

   • Provide increased opportunities for Rice-funded teaching assistants to smooth out fluctuations in grant funding, force recognition of existing practices, and provide effective teaching experiences for graduate students
     • Evaluate the TA system at Rice (e.g., TA/RA system)
     • Utilize TAs in outreach to K-12

   • Improve connections with industry for potential fund raising, placement of students, "real world" training for our students, and visibility within the community
     • Aggressively establish connections with industry
     • Track our alumni
     • Establish mutual visits between Rice and industry
     • Establish effective modes of technology transfer

   • Improve Career Services for graduate students for job placement and student awareness of opportunities
     • Establish courses on how to find funding
     • Establish workshops on speaking and writing
     • Establish mechanisms to network with our alumni
     • Target a portion of Career Services toward graduate students

   • Improve stability of graduate student funding to improve morale, benefit recruiting efforts, and smooth out fluctuations
     • Use intellectual property to establish funding
     • Provide rebates from tuition recovery for emergency funding
     • Increase applications for training grants
     • Coordinate student admissions with support available
     • Encourage graduate students to apply for multi-year fellowships/traineeships
     • Have a bake sale!

3. Enhance recruitment of graduate students
   • Increase the visibility of Rice graduate programs
     • Establish a recruitment-oriented Web site
     • Support recruitment visits to other institutions by Rice faculty
     • Establish an undergraduate conference on campus to facilitate recruiting
     • Provide more opportunities for summer research experience (e.g., NSF positions)
     • Target a strong recruitment effort at other conferences that undergraduates attend

   • Utilize recruitment visits for prospective students
     • Bring as many students as possible to the campus
     • Organize the visit effectively and inform the faculty and graduate students about the program, opportunities, and other aspects
     • Optimize the positive effects of a visit, including highlighting diversity of faculty and students, graduate housing, etc. and targeting areas of deficit for improvement (diversity of faculty, graduate housing!)

   • Provide monetary incentives for choosing Rice
     • Abolish application fee
     • Continue tuition waivers
     • Ensure competitive stipends
     • Provide a moving allowance/signing bonus
     • Provide supplemental fellowships for top students

4. Enhance placement of our graduate and postdoctoral students
   • Enhanced communication with the extramural community for increased visibility and increase relevance of our educational programs
     • Establish/utilize outside advisory panels at the departmental level that include representatives from the academy, industry, and government
     • Create better ties with alumni, especially former graduate students and postdoctoral students
     • Create new vehicles to enhance extramural communication, including a speaker bureau for scientists from industry/government people, departmental/divisional newsletter (for industry as well as academy), and opportunities for exposure to the broader outside community

   • Enhanced communication within the University to share information and resources and better identify opportunities
     • Establish a interdisciplinary divisional seminar series
     • ??Explore the establishment of distribution classes for graduate students??
     • Provide more effective dissemination of information regarding career opportunities among departments

   • Establish opportunities for ancillary training to generate a broad base of skills
     • Establish workshops for writing, speaking, computing skills, general skills
     • Involve Continuing Education in the ancillary training effort
     • Provide "vocational" training in grant writing, how to manage labs, how to apply for jobs (all kinds), how to apply for grants

   • Improve and modernize departmental programs to better prepare students for the available job market
     • Establish/use outside advisory panels that include industrial and governmental as well as academic members
     • Reevaluate graduate programs regularly to ensure appropriate fit with the current job market
     • Broaden views of students and advisors to be more accepting of ALL career choices
     • Establish mechanisms for interdisciplinary training

   • Improve advising for graduate students and postdoctorals
     • Increase student awareness of existing support services (e.g., Career Services)
     • Improve communication between students and existing support services (e.g., departmental liaisons with career services)
     • Actively develop relationships with potential employers (internships, mentoring, job fairs, etc.)

5. Enhance the environment for graduate and postdoctoral studies
   • Establish attractive housing and center for graduate and postdoctoral students
     • Option for married students, apartment-style living and a center for graduate and postdoctoral students
     • Regularly scheduled activities across departmental boundaries

   • Provide a social setting (NOT Valhalla!) for graduate/postdoctoral activities and interaction - perhaps a coffee house or similar arrangement to promote conversation within and across disciplines

   • Provide access to information and literature (hard copies) within the departments and/or the division

   • Establish broader teaching opportunities with greater flexibility and exposure as well as opportunities for pedagogic training for graduate and postdoctoral students (perhaps a "teaching fellow") and training in use of AV systems **Note: Teaching by graduate students and postdocs should not minimize contact between undergraduates and faculty.

   • Establish the Graduate Student Association as a formal college to increase its influence, garner respect, facilitate recruitment, and bolster morale

   • Establish mechanisms for postdoctoral associates to communicate, have input into departments, etc.
     • Establish a Postdoctoral Research Associates' association?

Other Ideas and Concerns

• Provide health insurance for graduate students that is not paid out of their stipend

• Provide better benefits/health insurance for postdoctoral research associates

• Provide better health services for graduate (vs undergraduate) students (e.g., Keep Health Services open in summer and during breaks.)

• Generate mechanism for graduate student input into departments

Graduate and Postdoctoral Education Subcommittee Home Page

Strategic Planning Home Page

Strategic Plan

Updated by Rachel Miller (rmiller@rice.edu)
10-Jun-97