The Center for Graduate Life has introduced a New Graduate Student Onboarding Portal to help prepare incoming graduate students for their move to Charlotte and a successful transition to graduate school.
The site includes the basics they’ll need to get started, with information on everything from finding an apartment to parking passes to course selection. Additional information on academic tools and campus offices that support graduate student success will be added to the portal by mid-August.
In the 2019-2020 report from the Graduate Ombuds, the challenges students face are changing and growing more complex.
Bruce Taylor, Ph.D., serves as the Graduate Student Ombuds. In his report to the Graduate School, Taylor noted that the per student time spent in consultation increased slightly over the previous year owing to increased complexity of consultations. He said the more complex situations involve interpersonal challenges among students or between a student and a faculty member. This type of situation represents 44 percent of the cases in the past year.
“The COVID-19 pandemic brought some new concerns—access to campus services and labs, changing expectations for graduate assistantships and changes to the content and format of dissertations,” Taylor said. “However, many of the concerns continued to center around relationships with faculty mentors and programs.”
A summary of the Ombuds Report is available for download.
Offered through the Graduate School, the Certificate in Workplace Competencies helps develop professional skills in written and verbal communication, presentation-building, managing new initiatives, and working on diverse teams.
This program would be of interest to doctoral and Master’s students in all disciplines as well as working professionals with a bachelor’s degree who want to build key workplace skills to promote professional success.
For more information or to apply, visit the Center for Graduate Life.
Each year the Graduate School’s Center for Graduate Life (CGL) appoints a group of graduate student leaders to serve as Graduate Life Fellows (GLFs) to help create, promote and run events and initiatives for the graduate student body. For their service, GLFs are awarded $5,000 for the academic year.
This year’s GLFs represent five of UNCC’s colleges and hail from Burkina Faso, Iran, India, and the US. The 2020-21 Graduate Life Fellows include:
Roshanak Ashrafi, Ph.D., Infrastructure and Environmental Systems
Shreya Goyal, Ph.D., Biology
Shannon McGevna, Master’s, Communication Studies
The Center for Graduate Life will host a virtual orientation session for new graduate students from 10-11 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 3.
Through the orientation session, new students can get tips from current graduate students in a live Q&A session, plus have an opportunity to hear from Graduate School Dean Tom Reynolds and Associate Dean
For details and to register, please visit the Center for Graduate Life’s Orientation website.
May 29 is the submission deadline for the 2020 Dean’s Distinguished Dissertation Award recognizing outstanding research and scholarship by a doctoral student.
The nomination form for the award and more info can be found on the Graduate School’s Awards Gateway. Supporting materials must be submitted by nominees to Aura Young (aura.young@uncc.edu) by 5:00 p.m. May 29, so allow your nominee time to assemble their packet.
The 2020 fields of competition are mathematics, physical sciences, and engineering; and social sciences.
Please circulate this reminder among your faculty.
Margaret Kocherga, Ph.D., Nanoscale Science, was selected to join Chain Reaction Innovations (CRI), the entrepreneurship program at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Argonne National Laboratory.
She will begin the two-year program in June. Her work through CRI will focus on the development of a single robust material to create higher-efficiency cost-effective OLEDS (Organic Light Emitting Diodes) used in digital displays.
Kocherga also won First Place in the Innovate Carolina 2020 Student Innovation Competition sponsored by the Product Development and Management Association. Margaret will receive a $750.00 cash prize for this award.
Read more at Ventureprise Launch.
Congratulations to the 2020-2021 Graduate School Fellowship recipients:
Wayland H. Cato Jr. First-Year Doctoral Fellowship
Andrew Dunphy, Ph.D. Biology
Hector Samani, Ph.D. Geography
Herschel and Cornelia Everett First-Year Graduate Fellowship ~ Doctoral
Hannah Luce, Ph.D. Educational Research, Measurement, and Evaluation
Herschel and Cornelia Everett First-Year Graduate Fellowship ~ Master’s
Camille Gossett, M. Public Health
William F. Kennedy Graduate Fellowship
Lauren Roppolo Brazell, Ph.D. Bioinformatics
Joanna R. Baker Memorial Graduate Fellowship
Fahad Mohammed Abdul, MS Electrical Engineering
Dr. Craig R. Brown Graduate Fellowship
Kelsey Smith, MA Counseling
DRReaM Graduate Fellowship
Thelma Achidi, MS Health Informatics and Analytics
Faye Jacques Memorial Graduate Fellowship
Jason Solomon, MS Mechanical Engineering
John Paul Lucas Jr. Scholarship for Educational Leadership
Abby Olive, MA English
Zonta Club Scholarship
Amanda Roberts, MA History
Claudia Reynolds Graduate Fellowship
April Vazquez, MA Spanish
Thomas L. Reynolds Graduate Student Research Award
Tengteng Cai, Ph.D. Public Policy
Morgan Chandler, Ph.D. Nanoscale Science
Abhishek Shibu, Ph.D. Nanoscale Science
Emilie Cobb, MA Anthropology
Mukulika Bose, Ph.D. Biology
Nitika, Ph.D., Biological Sciences, and Caroline Brinegar, MA, Geography, were recently designated UNC Charlotte’s most Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistants (TA).
The pair were recognized remotely as part of the University’s effort to fight the Coronavirus pandemic. Each received the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award, which includes $1,000 and a plaque.
Read more at the Graduate School’s news page.
The Center for Graduate Life (CGL) will host live online workshops Mar. 31 that offer timely information on how to get the most from networking and interviewing online.
For more information and to register, please visit Networking in a Virtual World and Interviewing in a Virtual World.
The CGL also plans a Virtual Writing Workshop and a Virtual Coffee Hour. Visit the CGL for details.
The Center for Graduate Life is working to convert some workshops and all courses so that they can be delivered virtually. The CGL space is currently closed, but most services and all staff will be available via email, phone or WebEx, as appropriate. They have confirmed the following virtual services for UNC Charlotte graduate students with more to come:
