This past year has been one of change, reflection, and renewed excitement about the future of the graduate school and graduate education on our campus. The transition from a university-wide, multicampus graduate school to a campus-based school structure affords us the opportunity to refocus on the unique composition and needs of IUB graduate programs, while maintaining our robust and collegial collaborations with colleagues on other campuses. As I begin my term as dean this week, I would like to take this opportunity to outline some of our immediate plans for the school.
The recently completed IUB 2030 strategic plan, driven by recommendations from the Future of Graduate Education Task Force, has created a renewed agenda for the Graduate School. We all owe a debt of gratitude to the staff, students, and faculty who served on the Task Force and whose recommendations have already made significant gains for graduate education on our campus. I look forward to the new and exciting opportunities ahead as we continue to implement the plan.
Moving Forward: PhD and Master’s Education, Health and Wellness, Career Development, and More
We will prioritize a range of initiatives that build on and extend this year’s accomplishments. - We must continue to improve PhD education and accelerate innovation in master’s education on our campus. This includes reducing time to degree, improving completion rates, providing a transparent degree progress tracking program, and leveraging programs offered by the Graduate Mentoring Center to improve mentorship and mentor training.
- New bachelors-to-masters accelerated degree programs will provide opportunities for students to design customized academic pathways to prepare for unique career skills.
- New online, hybrid, and low-residency master’s programs will provide opportunities to connect to new learners, as well as those advanced in their careers, and those seeking to tap into the rich and unique expertise of this campus, especially in the social sciences and the arts and humanities.
- In collaboration with the newly restored SAA Affairs Committee of the Bloomington Faculty Council and the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs, we will make important grievance pathways more transparent, work to clarify workloads, and regularly benchmark stipends to our Big Ten peers by discipline to ensure that stipend gains resulting from the work of the Task Force remain competitive.
- Financial literacy programs, such as MoneySmarts, will be updated to be more relevant and helpful to all graduate students.
- We will strengthen diversity recruiting fellowship programs to be more competitive nationally, re-engage in key national recruiting initiatives, and continue to seek additional funding to support these programs.
- We will strive to become a leader in the health and wellness of our graduate students, through collaborations with the work of the Chief Health Officer, the activities of our Graduate Mentoring Center, and providing appropriate training for students, faculty, and staff to ensure all have access to our mental health services.
- The task force made a clear call for the creation of a resource for students with employment, financial, or academic concerns. Graduate students need an impartial advocate to help navigate university bureaucracy, support them through difficult and stressful situations, and remediate grievances. We will make the establishment of this advocacy office a top priority.
Building on Strengths: Continuation of Key Programs and Initiatives
Throughout, we will continue to build on our existing successful programs and initiatives.
This includes supporting our award-winning diversity recruiting programs, such as Getting You into IU, and our rich collaboration with more than a dozen minority serving institutions through our IU-MSI-STEM Initiative.
We will continue to expand enrollments and degrees in our Office of Multidisciplinary Graduate Programs, which provides an administrative home for interdisciplinary master’s degree programs that bridge three or more schools.
To build on our recent focus on career pathways and complement our long-running programs to train future faculty, such as the Future Faculty Teaching Fellowship and supporting the spring Preparing Future Faculty conference, we will offer our Diverse Career Pathways Symposium each fall, expand internship programs in collaboration with IU Ventures and the College of Arts and Sciences, and build on our productive collaborations with the Walter Center for Career Achievement.
Our Shared Work Together
We plan to use this newsletter to post updates, not only to hold ourselves accountable for these plans, but also to promote transparency for all who are involved. Stay tuned for future updates on progress.
In all, I look forward to the opportunities and challenges of setting a course for our new graduate school. We have much work to do, but together, I am certain we can foster the highest standards of care and support for students, extend excellence across academic programs, and ensure a campus environment conducive to the best possible graduate experience at IUB.
David Daleke
Dean, IUB Graduate School
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Indiana University Graduate School Bloomington May Newsletter