Graduate School – Institutional Effectiveness Summary

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Mission

The mission of the Graduate School is to foster excellence in all dimensions of graduate education at NC State, from the admission of individual students through the maintenance, development, and evaluation of programs. Specifically, this mission entails the following:

·         Administering programs at the university level efficiently and effectively

·         Maintaining uniformly high standards for graduate education across all programs

·         Facilitating graduate program development, with emphasis on fostering appropriate program development in interdisciplinary areas

·         Supporting colleges and departments in their efforts to enhance graduate education, particularly their efforts to build a diverse and inclusive graduate community

·         Evaluating programs in terms of nationally recognized standards of excellence

Vision

The NC State Graduate School serves the state, the nation, and the world through offering internationally preeminent doctoral programs and nationally and regionally significant master’s programs that prepare graduates to lead in the creation of new knowledge and in the implementation of acquired knowledge in response to twenty-first-century challenges and opportunities.

Organization

The responsibility for the daily operation of each graduate program is vested in and between the individual colleges and departments by means of Directors of Graduate Programs, who work closely with the Graduate School. The managing official in the Graduate School is the Dean, who reports jointly to the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Studies and the Provost. Ten EPA positions and twenty SPA positions constitute the staff of the Graduate School. As shown in the Graduate School’s organizational chart (pdf), reporting directly to the Dean are two Associate Deans, one Assistant Dean, and the Director of Information and Workflow (all EPA), as well as the Administrative Officer of the Graduate School (SPA).

Scope of Responsibility

The scope of the Graduate School enterprise is suggested, in part, by the following data regarding graduate programs, applications, admissions, enrollment and degrees conferred during 2001-02:

·         158 master’s programs (5 M.A., 77 M.S., 21 M.Ed., and 55 “Master of” programs)

·         58 doctoral programs (53 Ph.D. and 5 Ed.D.)

·         7551 prospective students applied for admission in Fall 2002

·         2,240 were admitted in Fall 2002

·         1,387 new students enrolled in Fall 2002

·         5450 students enrolled in graduate programs, on and off campus, in Fall 2002

·         1479 graduate degrees were conferred in 2001-02 (1179 master’s and 300 doctoral).

The clients of the Graduate School include prospective and enrolled graduate students, graduate faculty, graduate program directors and secretaries, college and university administrators, and administrators from the University of North Carolina and other graduate schools. Responsibilities to these clients can be grouped into the six broad categories listed below. Where hyperlinks are provided, readers can drill down to more detailed descriptions of assessment activities.

1.      Responsibilities most directly related to graduate students (prospective and enrolled): These include enrollment planning, student recruitment, fellowship awards and management, admissions, student orientation, diversity programs, professional development programs, monitoring all graduate students’ academic progress, processing student and program academic action requests, serving as the “appellate court” for graduate student grievances, scheduling dissertation defenses, processing theses and dissertations, performing graduation check-out, administering student exit surveys, and conferring graduate degrees.

 

2.      Responsibilities related to University rules governing graduate education: These include initiation and approval of new rules and procedures through the Administrative Board of the Graduate School; preparation and maintenance of the Graduate Administrative Handbook, the Thesis and Dissertation Preparation Guide, and the Graduate Catalog; granting or denying requests for exceptions to rules; and working with the Office of Student Conduct on graduate student misconduct cases.

 

3.      Responsibilities related to new course or graduate program (and certificate program) development: These include reviewing and responding to all graduate course action requests (for new, revised, or eliminated courses) through the Administrative Board of the Graduate School; helping faculty prepare proposals for new degree programs, distance education and certificate programs, and minors; reviewing and approving these proposals through the Administrative Board of the Graduate School; shepherding proposals for new degree programs through the system to the UNC Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs; and helping departments implement new programs.

 

4.      Responsibilities related to graduate program review: These include preparing guidelines for the self-study and site review, scheduling reviews; appointing review committees; providing a Graduate School administrator to serve on each review committee; collecting and disseminating the self-study, the review report, and the program response for each review; and convening a meeting of departmental, college, Graduate School, and university administrators to discuss the review documents and approve action plans in response to reviewer recommendations.

 

5.      Responsibilities related to graduate faculty: These include reviewing requests for graduate faculty appointments (reviewing nominees’ credentials), appointing graduate faculty, maintaining a graduate faculty database, reviewing credentials of instructors for graduate courses, and assisting faculty and staff in mentoring graduate students and in managing their graduate programs.

 

6.      Responsibilities related to developing and administering the financial resources to support graduate education: These include developing proposals for institutionally awarded fellowship and traineeship programs, managing a wide range of individual and institutionally awarded fellowships, publicizing individual fellowship competitions, administering the Graduate Minority Recruitment and Retention Program, and managing the Graduate Student Support Plan, which provides over 2,000 full-time graduate student assistants and fellows with health insurance and tuition awards each semester.

 

Graduate School Assessment, Findings, Responses, and Compact Planning

 

The Graduate School evaluates the institutional effectiveness of the unit on an ongoing basis. Although assessment in some of the six categories is described in more detail in the linked documents, listed below are examples of currently utilized assessment tools. In parentheses are the numbers of the areas of responsibility (as listed above) whose outcomes the assessment tools help measure:

 

• Annual NC Graduate Profile Reports, which provide data for each graduate program, including quality indicators for applying, admitted, and enrolling students; enrollment demographics; Time to Degree; and student exit survey data. A rolling five-year database for each program is made available online to DGP’s, department heads, deans, and associate deans. One of our goals, which is to increase the diversity of the graduate student body, is supported by recent profile data for all applying and enrolling graduate students, which indicated that for 2002, applications from African Americans had increased by 24% and enrollment by 7.7% over 2001. Our findings also indicate that we have been successful in increasing the number of minority students both applying to NC State and graduating with the master’s degree or the doctorate. (4,1).
• Exit surveys, which are filled out online by each student who submits a thesis or dissertation. Students in non-thesis programs are mailed a survey. The exit surveys help us determine how satisfied students have been with various aspects of their graduate experience. Qualitative and quantitative data from the surveys have indicated a generally high level of student satisfaction, particularly with our faculty. For example, one student stated that he/she was “always treated with respect as a student and as a valued customer…. and very impressed with all the instructors’ attitudes towards students.” Survey data, which are shared annually with the graduate faculty through the Annual Graduate Profile, help graduate programs identify and address weaknesses in their programs (1,4).
• Annual surveys of NC State’s GAANN Fellows to determine their level of satisfaction with the GAANN program. The level of satisfaction has generally been very high. Several years ago, when Fellows expressed dissatisfaction with the reimbursement process for their research-related expenses, the response was to streamline the reimbursement process. There are no current issues of dissatisfaction with the administration of the program (1,6).
• Annual surveys and informal interviews with participants to evaluate all aspects of the Minority Graduate Education program. Data from these surveys have enabled the Graduate School to better match students with faculty mentors and to improve the format and content of the MGE professional development seminars and research symposia (1,6).
• Evaluation forms for all Graduate School student professional seminars (pdf), through which participants comment on both the content and overall quality of each seminar. The aggregated data are sent to presenters and are also used by the Graduate School to improve the series by deleting, adding, and revising seminars. Satisfaction with the series has been consistently high (1).
• Evaluation forms for the annual summer workshop for DGP’s and graduate secretaries (pdf). The organization, content, and usefulness of the workshop, as well as the speakers and the overall quality, have consistently been rated excellent or above average. The responses to the open-ended questions have been used to improve the content and organization of the workshop over the past three years (1-6).
• Annual or biennial “How-Are-We-Doing?” surveys e-mailed to all DGP’s and graduate secretaries. Respondents have indicated a generally high level of satisfaction with Graduate School staff and services. Problems that have surfaced in earlier surveys (e.g., slower than optimal turnaround time on applications or plans of work) have been corrected through both the dedication of the staff and the development of web-based applications and student records systems (1-6).
• Semi-annual Fall and Spring meetings with DGP’s and graduate secretaries to present new initiatives and elicit feedback. These meetings provide an excellent forum for discussion of areas in Graduate School operations that need improvement (1-6).
• Ongoing meetings with other Graduate School clients in which feedback is continuously solicited. These include semi-monthly meetings of the Administrative Board of the Graduate School (consisting of graduate faculty and administrators with graduate responsibilities), monthly meetings with all associate college deans with graduate responsibilities, and monthly meetings with the University Graduate Student Association (1-6).

 

Information gathered through these various assessment activities strongly influences the Compact Planning process. Indeed, many of the goals in the Graduate School’s 2002-03 Compact Plan were developed in response to various assessments, and future assessment will be used to measure the success of the initiatives outlined in the Compact Plan to achieve those goals.

 

Despite the success of these assessment efforts, we are always working to improve them. For example, this year the Dean of the Graduate School commissioned a task force to recommend ways to strengthen the graduate program review process. The Task Force is currently in the process of developing an improved process for Graduate Program Review to ensure that the expectations of all stakeholders in graduate education at NC State are being met. The Task Force has determined that inadequate resources currently exist to allow full implementation and operation of the proposed revised Graduate Program Review process. The Task Force recommends, and the Graduate School agrees, that a Director of Graduate Program Review be hired and that this Director be assisted by a full-time staff support person. In addition, an operational budget of $30,000 annually should be made available, initially for training and implementation (workshops, travel/honorarium for trainers, etc.) and ultimately for operation (travel for reviews, etc.).

 

Based on the recommendations of the Task Force thus far, the Graduate School has requested funds through the Compact Plan for two permanent full-time positions (director and supporting staff) to coordinate a revised Graduate Program Review process. These initiatives are described in more detail in the supporting graduate program review document.

 

A major goal of the Graduate School for 2003-04 is to continue to evaluate the assessment tools we currently have in place to further improve our unit’s effectiveness. This will mean formalizing assessment activities such as the DGP and fellowship management surveys, adding questions to the graduate student exit survey about Graduate School services, and documenting information gathered through informal assessment activities. To this end, the Dean has asked Dr. David Shafer, Assistant Dean of the Graduate School, to monitor progress towards the goals and objectives indicated in the Compact Plan and report assessment data to the Dean. Dr. Shafer brings to this responsibility the expertise he developed through his doctoral research in Public Administration, which focused on the effectiveness of universities in meeting the goals of institutionally awarded federal fellowship programs. The outcome of his efforts will be a “unit effectiveness” plan for the Graduate School, which will allow us to more systematically assess services and programs and to improve our processes for making and monitoring changes based on assessment data.