Graduate School

Creatively expand support for students

OSU strives to support the whole student. A recent National Academies study (1) found that “graduate students are more stressed and in ways that are qualitatively different from those of previous generations” and recommended that universities become more graduate student-serving by, among other things, ensuring they receive mentoring to understand their career options and promote their future success. A recent survey of OSU graduate students ascribed their main sources of anxiety to uncertainty regarding financial support, a desire for a stronger community and inadequate mentoring systems.

OSU supports graduate students through offices like the Graduate Writing Center, Statistics Consulting, Counseling and Psychological Services; events like Grad Welcome Week, Grad Inspire, and Grad Appreciation Week; career development opportunities like Aurora and the Graduate Certificate in College and University Teaching, and more.

To support students also means to equip their graduate advisors for success in selecting, training, and mentoring their students and connecting them with resources as needed.

Aim: Improve mentoring, inclusion, and self-care to promote academic success.

1. Advance effective mentorship

   Partnering closely with colleges and the Office of Faculty Affairs, the Graduate School and academic leaders will engage faculty in a culturally aware mentorship training, and inaugural trainees train their peers in best practices for mentoring graduate students, in partnership with the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experience in Research (CIMER (2)). By 2025, all faculty who wish to advise graduate students will be trained to effectively mentor graduate students. New graduate students will be urged to create their own mentor maps (Figure 1 - Earth Science Women's Network mentoring map).

2. Promote a culture of wellness and inclusion

   From prospective students to alumni, OSU grad students will know we take wellness seriously. We will keep wellness top of mind by speaking about it frequently, inviting and honoring stories of triumph over adversity, and equipping our community for success at OSU and the workplace. We will promote community by facilitating the purposeful gatherings of graduate students.

3. Build financial support

   A full portfolio of financial support will include high-profile recruitment-oriented fellowships, emergency support for financially distressed students, and retention and completion awards.

 

---

 

Build core competencies and transferrable skills

Graduate degrees historically connoted a high level of specialization, normally attained soon after college, for a specific and permanent career. Now, though, a large majority of graduate degree holders change careers at least once, sometimes rendering the specialized training insufficient. Noting this mismatch between workforce demands and higher education supply, the National Academies report (1) urges universities to rethink graduate education to train students more broadly as well as deeply, in order that they may succeed at careers that have not been invented yet, to innovate education to keep pace with the evolving demands of the marketplace for versatility and ‘intellectual mobility’, and to focus on the future needs of the students rather than the value of the student to the university in supporting its teaching and research missions.

Workers increasingly seek retraining or new training later in their careers. (For OSU, these nontraditional learners have fueled the demand for Ecampus courses and programs.)

Core competencies include discipline-specific knowledge and skills, transferable or professional skills, and translational skills, defined as the interaction of discipline-specific and transferrable skills. Discipline-specific skills — or rather, general skills with discipline-specific context and characteristics — include research methods and software used in that field, incorporation of citizen science, science policy, risk, compliance, theory, assessment, reflective practice, and ethics. Transferable skills relevant to academic jobs include grant writing, college and university teaching, communication with academic and non-academic audiences, and research design and management. Broadly transferable skills include working on diverse teams; a deep understanding of how diversity strengthens teams; and an awareness of challenges to inclusion like implicit bias, critical thinking, digital and data literacy, innovation and entrepreneurship, interview techniques, and handling stressful situations including conflict.

Transferrable skills are essential because they

• Ensure intellectual mobility, which will help meet changing demands of the economy for skilled workers and keep the graduate relevant as the workplace changes
• Enhance innovation, entrepreneurial endeavors and commercialization
• Are an essential part of higher education’s value proposition

Focus on DEI: This second theme supports OSU’s DEI goals by providing opportunities for all graduate students to understand and live DEI.

Aim: Create and market a portfolio of learning opportunities to boost transferrable skills to enrich our graduates' lives and increase their employability.

1. Determine key transferrable skills

   Identify the most important categories of skills that our graduate students will need in the workplace.

2. Inventory and communication

   Create and distribute an inventory of existing offerings and training that develop the key transferrable skills.

3. Pursue value-enhancing investments

   Identify gaps and determine which would be most cost-effective to fill, offering the greatest benefit in creating the "whole" student.

4. Teach diversity and inclusion

   Ensure our graduates are culturally literate, understand systemic racism and how to combat it, and are prepared to be good partners in a diverse workplace.

Figure 2. Examples of transferable skills - The European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers.

 

---

 

Promote interdisciplinary opportunities

It is sometimes said, “universities have departments, but the world has problems.” Many of today’s most pressing challenges are best met through the convergence of disciplines through the arduous task of blending perspectives, insights, and data. Many faculty and students cite OSU’s ease of interdisciplinary collaborations as a significant reason they chose to come here. Interdisciplinary programs can draw top students, forge partnerships among faculty, and emphasize the university’s growing strength in areas that do not fit neatly in a department. The Water Resources program is a highly ranked, mature example, and the Robotics program is a more recent example that was launched only five years ago and was ranked #4 in the country.

By developing and fostering an institutional structure and culture of problem-centered interdisciplinary research and education, we will strengthen our reputation and impacts on a global scale, increase sources of funding for interdisciplinary studies and collaborations, and attract and retain the best scientists and graduate students.

As we confront the challenges of working at the intersection of disciplines, OSU also seeks to work at the intersection of epistemologies, e.g., Traditional Ecological Knowledge.

Aim: Strengthen our current interdisciplinary efforts and strategically target the growth of interdisciplinary opportunities.

1. Promote interdisciplinarity

   Effectively communicate the value and successes of interdisciplinarity.

2. Create a new interdisciplinary program

   The Graduate School, in partnership with deans and other campus leaders, will invite faculty proposals for a new interdisciplinary graduate program or creative expansion of opportunities for interdisciplinary learning in areas of strategic value to OSU.

3. Support student-driven interdisciplinary projects

   Groups of students could propose year-long collaborations that lead to shared chapters of their dissertations or theses.

 

---

 

Innovate how we reach and serve

OSU is among the top tier of universities offering online graduate programs. Our Ecampus distance learning enterprise is ranked #5 in the nation, the sixth year in a row in the top 10. Evidence suggests that its size, R1 status, and reputation for quality online programs place OSU among a select few universities positioned for future growth in online education.

Our ability to meet changing demands for how, when, and where students learn is critical to sustaining and growing our educational reach in Oregon and beyond and to serve underserved communities and people. This means that we must equally value and ease the accumulation of educational components into effective levels of knowledge and training for our students.

Aim: Expand for-credit learning opportunities, building on OSU’s academic strengths and its award-winning Ecampus platform.

1. Immediately pursue expanded Ecampus offerings

   Leverage OSU’s advantage in online education by fast-tracking current course and program offerings and vigorously advertising.

2. Beyond degrees

   Increase offerings of certificates and other sub-degree modules, and explore ways to leverage existing programs and degrees.

   Revise the accelerated master’s platform and explore 3+2 and 4+1 possibilities within and beyond OSU.

Focus on DEI: Holistic admissions increases the diversity and quality of graduate applicants.

3. Holistic admissions

   The Graduate School will continue to lead graduate programs toward using holistic admissions, an approach that rigorously assesses the whole student.

4. Cut red tape for students

   Following the success in converting the Program of Study form to a digital process, the Graduate School will develop digital processes for all remaining forms.

5. Support the development of dual-degree programs

   The Graduate School will develop a handbook or best-practices document to streamline the process for faculty wishing to develop new partnerships with universities in Oregon and beyond.

 

---

 

Pursue a robust portfolio of graduate programs

Thoughtfully choosing the right mix of academic programs is essential to an institution’s financial and academic health. Coasting along does not lead to excellence. A portfolio approach combines bottom-up leadership — in which faculty will continue to propose new programs — with a strategic consideration of the OSU’s overall program offerings and its competitors, marketplace and workforce needs, and emerging directions.

Aim: Assess current programs and opportunities to strengthen our portfolio.

1. Develop criteria to define a strong program

   Select relevant metrics for assessing all programs.

2. Take stock of existing programs

   Systematically analyze all degree-granting graduate programs.

3. Identify growth opportunities

   Look for value and relevance and consider multiple measures of demand.

4. Increase institutional flexibility

   Seek ways to make it easier for programs to change courses, plan of study, and name of the degree.