As part of UNC Charlotte’s plan for the phased reopening of campus operations, the Research Restart and Restoration Task Force was convened in April by Research and Economic Development. The report was distributed by Academic Affairs.
For more details on research plans, please review the Research and Restoration Task Force Report. More information on campus reopening plans is available from Academic Affairs.
The Graduate School will host another webinar in the series Office Hours with the Graduate School, Thursday, May 14 at 10 a.m. The session, entitled “Preparing for the Fall; How to Support and Retain Current Graduate Students,” will include time for open discussion.
Graduate Program Directors and other graduate leaders should have received an invitation to participate. If you did not receive an invitation, you may join the webinar at the scheduled time via WebEx.
Due to COVID-19, the Duolingo English Test is being accepted in addition to the TOEFL and IELTS tests. The initial minimum score of 105 has been increased to 115 based on the experience of admission offices across the country and on bench-marking data.
Visit Graduate Admissions for more information on meeting English language requirements.
The Office Hours with the Graduate School webinar held May 7 was recorded and is available now for review.
Office Hours with the Graduate School – Revised!-20200507 1350-1
Thursday, May 7, 2020
8:34 am | (UTC-04:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)
Play recording (1 hr 15 mins)
Recording password: (This recording does not require a password.)
Ventureprise® is seeking research topics, such as a response to COVID-19, that can earn researchers up to $5,000.
Ventureprise® is UNC Charlotte’s innovation and entrepreneurship center serving the campus and Charlotte region as a center of excellence for evidence based entrepreneurship.
The Summer 2020 Ventureprise Launch National Science Foundation I-Corps virtual cohort is being formed now. The program provides UNC Charlotte faculty, staff and students with commercialization training and up to an initial $5,000 in NSF funding. The goal of the program is to identify potential commercial uses and prepare for more substantial commercialization funding opportunities.
The next stage is a six month $50,000 NSF I-Corps Teams grant. The cohort will begin May 13 (rolling applications, last day to submit is May 10). For more information and to apply, please visit Ventureprise®. For questions, please contact Laura Smailes, lsmailes@uncc.edu.
Graduate School Dean Tom Reynolds and staff will host another Office Hours with the Graduate School virtual forum on May 7 to discuss academics, enrollment and applications issues stemming from COVID-19.
The live session will begin May 7, 2020 at 10:00 am. The link below will be Live at that time. Remember, you must be logged into your NinerNet account to join a UNC Charlotte WebEx meeting.
If you’d like to receive a WebEx Calendar invite so you can add this Meeting to your Calendar, please email Karla Stanchina in the Graduate School and she’ll send you the invitation.
Graduate School senior leadership hosted a virtual forum with GPDs Apr. 29 to discuss a number of COVID-19-driven policy adjustments and to respond to questions.
The forum was recorded and is available on WebEx.
The International Student and Scholar Office (ISSO) will host a WebEx Town Hall Apr. 27 to respond to questions about COVID-19 and visa and immigration regulations.
The session, scheduled from 3-4:40 p.m., will address travel, enrollment, employment (incl. OPT & CPT), and more. The content is intended for UNC Charlotte students and alumni on OPT & STEM OPT
Follow this link to WebEx to participate.
For more information and updates on COVID-19, please visit the ISSO website.
Note: the full interview is available from WFAE.
A stay-at-home order is in place. Medical equipment is hard to find. There’s an illness causing flu-like symptoms, and it spreads easily. The year is 1918.
Today’s coronavirus is not the first time North Carolina has experienced a pandemic. Just over 100 years ago the so-called Spanish flu ravaged the globe, killing roughly 13,000 in North Carolina, 675,000 in the United States and 50 million worldwide.
Today we consider the surprising parallels of the two pandemics, 100 years apart.
Charlotte’s population was 1/20th of what it is today, and technology has since evolved in unimaginable ways. But the similarities are striking: Movie theaters are closed but grocery stores remain open, children are home from school and boredom is creeping in. Some are anxious to reopen the economy, while health officials are cautious. In perhaps a harbinger of things to come, in 1919 some businesses sued the local board of health for keeping them from making a profit.
What do we have to learn from the 1918 influenza? How might it inform our response to COVID-19?
In 2018, Dr. Lauren Austin cautioned at the end of her dissertation: “We are at once both wholly unprepared and ideally situated for another influenza outbreak.”
GUEST
Dr. Lauren Austin, author of “Afraid to Breathe: Understanding North Carolina’s Experience of the 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic at the State, Local, and Individual Levels”
The Provost’s memo of March 25, 2020, stated that, due to the disruption caused by the coronavirus Covid-19 virus, all students will have the option to modify their grade type at the end of the term. Specifically, for graduate students this means that after grades post, students may select a pass/unsatisfactory grade for any course.
The Graduate School has published guidance to assist graduate faculty in appropriately assigning grades during this period.
There are particular ramifications related to graduate courses. Please consider the following:
Questions should be directed to Dr. Katherine Hall-Hertel, Associate Dean of the Graduate School.
More information is available from the Graduate School’s Faculty and Staff Resources, Academics page.
Acceptance of an offer of financial support, such as a graduate scholarship, fellowship, traineeship, or assistantship, for the coming academic year by a prospective or enrolled student completes an agreement that both the student and graduate school expect to honor.
Prospective students are under no obligation to respond to offers of financial support prior to April 15th; earlier deadlines for acceptance of such offers violate the intent of the April 15th resolution.
For additional information, please contact Dr. Julie Goodliffe in the Graduate School or see https://cgsnet.org/april-15-
Research Town Hall and Open Forum: Research and Economic Development will be hosting a Virtual Town Hall from 11 am – 12 Noon on Tuesday, April 7, 2020.
The session will include a brief update on the status of the university’s research enterprise under the current “stay at home” order and a discussion of several new initiatives we are launching to help faculty respond to recent funding requests targeting the coronavirus. The session will also include an overview of the impact of recent supplemental spending bills, including the CARE Act, on federal support for basic and applied research. R&ED staff will be on hand to answer questions about research operations under COVID-19, including recent guidance from federal agencies on the management of existing awards.
Advanced registration is required: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/upAscOmorj0tufeo6McZsY1zDcMPzwpzvQ
Attendees are encouraged to submit questions in advance using the online form at https://forms.gle/ziMM34LbWqgVJre79
ETS has expanded home testing for the TOEFL and GRE to all locations where computer-delivered are normally available, with the exceptions of Mainland China and Iran.
Updates on testing by region are available on the ETS website.
ETS provides additional information on the following websites:
The US Department of Education has announced that student loan payments, and interest on those payments, has been suspended for at least 60 days. For more information, please read the US Dept. of Education’s news release.
Because of the disruption to schedules caused by the nationwide response to COVID-19, the deadlines for dissertations and theses have been extended.
Dissertation and thesis defense deadlines are now May 1, 2020. Submission deadline for both dissertations and theses is May 14, 2020.
