From the Director’s Deck: Anniversaries, Honeymoons, and a Look Back at the Past Year
Today is June 1. It is a meaningful day for me in several ways. It is the wedding anniversary of my parents, who were married in 1963. It was 3 years ago this week that my family and I arrived in New Jersey as we moved here from Texas. And, as of today, I’ve now been in the job of program director for exactly 11 months. I don’t know if there is much of a honeymoon period that goes with being a graduate program director (more of a trial by campfire at times), but I am ready to settle into a few routines at this point. Whatever the past year has been, it has been productive. So, I thought I’d use this anniversary date to review ten things we (executive committee, program administrators, and the program faculty/members) did this past year that are worth remembering.
1. Greater Online Presence. We have nearly doubled the amount of content available to those viewing the website, and added thematic and graphic elements to several pages. We’re also in the process of getting the program listed in gradschools.com and several other online resources for graduate education. I even see this weekly blog as something that adds to our online presence.
2. Enhanced Orientation. We expanded orientation a bit this year and did some sizeable updating to the student/faculty handbook as well. We’ll be doing more of the same this coming year as we work closely with current students/faculty to socialize the incoming class into our program.
3. get IN! We launched the “getIN” logo and promotional items as a way to emphasize the INterdisciplinary, INnovative, and INtellectual qualities of our program. We’ve used the graphic element on a number of internal documents and on the promotional posters we created and mailed out to over 300 masters programs across the U.S. We hope it is encouraging applicants to “get IN” to Rutgers.
4. Recruitment Event. One of our biggest events this past year was the Ph.D. recruitment event we held in March. 22 admitted applicants joined us on campus for what turned out to be a great day of tours, sessions with students and faculty, and research demonstrations—followed by a reception, dinner, and night on the town. Many of the students who attended that event are headed our way as part of our 2009 incoming class.
5. Honors Day. The program played an active role in initiating and planning SCILS Honors Day. As part of this event, we gave out five special awards to students, faculty, and administrators. We’ll be looking at ways to build on and improve our efforts to honor program members during the coming year.
6. New Admissions Procedures. In addition to moving up the admission date to Jan. 15, we actively made admissions files available online so that more faculty members could easily provide input on applicants. I think these procedures helped us do a better job of selecting and recruiting students. We’ve been less successful about getting new assistantships, but were able to land a Presidential Fellow, a Diversity Fellow, and a couple Fulbright Scholars.
7. Annual Review. Program areas were encouraged to do the primary review of students, and we then followed up with a program-wide meeting to discuss any problematic cases. We based the annual review partly on a new self-report form of progress. The process is still underway now as we attempt to get all feedback letters out to students in the program.
8. Celebrating Research. We compiled a list of student papers and publications/submissions over the past year, and it is really rather impressive. We also made the practicum presentations into more Interactive Displays and have funded all applications of students presenting a paper or doing a poster session at a professional conference. We nominated and received both a pre-dissertation and Bevier research award this year, as well.
9. Doctoral Student Association (DSA). One of the best things to emerge this past year only took a little encouragement and a little funding from the program. The DSA has become quite active in a very short period of time and will continue to be an important part of the graduate experience here in our school.
10. Sweating the Little Things. I’ve listed a number of more visible events and accomplishments of the past year; but, a good year also means getting the little details covered. From catalog listings to updated bylaws, and from revised forms to signing/processing more forms than most would imagine, there are many little details that get covered to keep the program running—and we’re regularly trying to make sure we don’t drop any of those balls (and if we do, we don’t let it roll away far).
So, it has been a productive year. I’m taking a summer break from the weekly blog, but I’ll be back in August as we get ready to make the 2009-2010 year an even better one. Thanks to all who have helped make this past year such a positive experience. I hope you all have a wonderful June and July!
The Director has left (just for a couple months) the Deck.
