Student Affairs

The Center for Graduate Life and Learning (CGLL) is pleased to announce a new mentor/mentee program for doctoral students called Niner Doctoral Collective.

Funded through HERFF funds from the Division of Student Affairs, the Niner Doctoral Collective is intended to connect doctoral students who began their program during the pandemic with more advanced doctoral students in an effort to provide connections and community.  We know that many graduate students felt isolated and lonely during the lockdowns due to Covid19.  We hope that by facilitating these mentor/mentee relationships, doctoral students will find new support systems and may come to understand the “hidden” curriculum of doctoral education. 

If you get questions about this initiative, please feel free to reach out to Dr. Jill Huerta, Executive Director of the CGLL.  More information is available from the CGLL website.

The annual Graduate Research Symposium (GRS), set for March, is an interdisciplinary graduate student-run conference that showcases astounding research of graduate and professional students.

The GRS planning committee is accepting abstracts for its 2022 event through Jan. 21.  For more information and to submit, please visit the Graduate and Professional Student Government website.

Financial Literacy: Personal FinanceGRAD 6000/8000 |CRN 27835| 2.0 credits | 5:00-6:40 pm | Thur | Instructor: Dr. Brad Yeckley

Offered through the Center for Graduate Life and Learning (CGLL), this course provides students with a guided tour through financial concepts to build knowledge and skill to make the right financial decisions. Key focus areas include earning, saving, spending, borrowing and protecting.

For questions and more information, please contact Jill Huerta.

GRAD 6000/8000 CRN 27683/27684 offers grad students a 2-credit opportunity to master oral communication — one of the most important skills in the workplace.  The course, held face-to face Tuesdays and Thursdays, 4-5:45 the second half of spring semester, provides a step-by-step approach to improve presentation skills and confidence in speaking roles. 

For more information, visit the Center for Graduate Life and Learning or contact Dr. Jill Huerta,  jhuerta2@uncc.edu.

Finalists selected for the 2021 Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) final competition Nov. came from a wide range of programs.

• Roshanak Ashrafi, Infrastructure & Environmental Systems
• David Brown, Bioinformatics
• Varsha Godakhini, Nanoscale Science
• Shanique Lee, Curriculum and Instruction
• Jeanne-Marie Linker, Bioinformatics
• Rittika Mallik, Bioinformatics
• Keith Murphy, Health Services Research
• Amanda Sargent, Organizational Science
• Kelsey Sikon, Civil Engineering
• Samantha Taylor, Bioinformatics
• Farida Yasmin, Biology

The 3-Minute Thesis (3MT), hosted by the Center for Graduate Life and Learning (CGLL), is an international academic competition that challenges graduate students to describe their research in three minutes or less, using only one static slide. 3MT allows our graduate students to practice communicating the importance of their work to policy makers, potential funders, and the media.

For more information, please visit the Center for Graduate Life and Learning.

Students can learn how to develop and improve effective communication in the workplace from a JELD-WEN subject matter expert Oct. 1. The session, part of the Accelerate to Industry (A2I) series, runs from 11-12:30 via Zoom.

As part of the session, participants can practice skills in breakout rooms with a JELD-WEN representative.

The Center for Graduate Life and Learning will provide JELD-WEN with a resume book of those in attendance.

More information and a link to apply is available from the Center for Graduate Life and Learning.

The Center for Graduate Life and Learning (CGLL) offers dissertation support to UNC Charlotte students at all stages of the dissertation process.

Through the CGLL, writers can learn tailored strategies for managing the dissertation process, as well as how to:

• Plan, draft, revise, and edit their dissertation writing
• Work more effectively with dissertation chairs and committee members
• Create strong writing habits and set reasonable writing goals
• Manage their time and be more productive
• Deal with barriers to writing, such as writer’s block and procrastination

Students may email Dr. Lisa Russell-Pinson, lpinson@uncc.edu, Assistant Teaching Professor of Writing in the Graduate School, to schedule an appointment.

Dissertation Writing Group
Wednesdays 10:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

The Dissertation Writing Group (DWG) meets Wednesdays, 10-12:30 p.m. and provides a supportive, virtual forum to help dissertation writers:

• Form or refine productive writing and work habits
• Break isolation and build community
• Take advantage of structured writing time

The first DWG session begins Wednesday, Sept. 29.  The group is facilitated by Dr. Lisa Russell-Pinson, Assistant Teaching Professor of Writing in the Graduate School.

To be eligible to participate in this group, writers must be doctoral students who are actively working on their dissertation and able to commit to attending each 2.5-hour session for eight weeks.

Please visit the DWG registration site to join this group.

To register, please visit the CGLL’s Registration site. More details are available from the CGLL.