Our graduate coordinators and faculty have worked hard in program development, teaching, and mentoring of students with the support and involvement of department chairs and deans. The university-wide discussion last semester on strengthening graduate education drew wide participation based on referrals from the deans and graduate admissions offices, nominations from an initial interest group, and interests known through direct contacts (to include anyone who might have good input). A lot of colleagues, including Drs. Philip Greiner, Daniel Baugher, Richard Schlesinger, Farrokh Hormozi, Rebecca Tekula, James Parker, and John Dory (to name a few) shared valuable insights. Our colleagues hoped for some strategic planning with improved communication and coordination to enhance graduate education and research at Pace as a doctoral/research university. I was grateful to Professors Joe Ryan, Maria Iacullo-Bird, and Melissa Marie Grigione for helping/volunteering to help with a proposed document to summarize the important points that came out of those meetings. Special thanks also go to Rey Racelis for creating a discussion site accessible to all members of the group. Graduate student Amol is assisting with the creation of a virtual resource center for graduate faculty; he’d love to receive your continued contribution of ideas and materials (at aa13910n@pace.edu) with the inventory-taking effort.
There were other colleagues who indicated willingness to serve as key contacts for brainstorming on specific topics, including Professor Barbara Mowder for a survey of graduate policies and procedures within and across the university (which is an important function of the university-wide coordination in order to ensure consistency with standards and practices). Professor Raymond Lopez suggested to also collect data on numbers of graduate students by department for the last ten years. Professor Lixin Tao contributed a number of good points, including creating a peer-reviewed journal on graduate education and research based on Pace Library’s Digital Commons to promote interdisciplinary research and program development. Our libraries have shown a keen interest in developing learning resources in support of graduate programs, and University Librarian Bill Murdock is the contact person. Other topics of high interest (and points of contact) included: graduate assistantship (Professor Melissa Grigione), graduate research (Professor Wade Pickren), and grants development (Assoc. Provost Victor Goldsmith). It is hoped that a continuing interest in addressing shared challenges and opportunities (e.g., international recruitment, 3+2 programs, graduate faculty development, inter-college/school coordination, resource sharing, graduate program rankings, representation on the Council of Graduate Schools, etc.) will lead to more ideas and recommendations regarding benchmarking, best practices, policy debates, and global engagement.