UBC-V offers over 300 graduate degree programs through more than 80 academic units. An important priority for G+PS is to work collaboratively with programs to promote and share best practices in graduate education and to ensure that centralized support is timely and effective.
Strengthening the Graduate Ecosystem
A sense of community among those involved in graduate education and administration is critical to ensuring continual improvement and innovation. The geographic, disciplinary, administrative, and contextual diversity of graduate programs across UBC, however, makes it challenging for program staff and faculty to experience this. G+PS currently offers periodic events and workshops for programs on relevant topics, provides a quarterly newsletter for faculty, and has several key online resources. More needs to be done, however, and strategies to build on our current efforts include:
- Increase and regularize events, resources, and workshops for graduate advisors and staff on graduate program excellence, and expand opportunities for programs to share best practices with others. Include online programming and social opportunities.
- Coordinate and formalize the outreach to programs that the G+PS office currently undertakes on topics such as wellbeing, student professional development, funding, and supervision.
- Conduct an environmental scan of graduate staff and advisor positions and responsibilities, and work with the Faculties and VP-Human Resources to strategize on improving equity and effectiveness within the graduate community.
Please find a preliminary draft discussion outline of qualities associated with excellence in research graduate programs.
Expanding Administrative Training and Support
Graduate program staff and advisor positions frequently turn over, often resulting in gaps in administrative expertise and experience. This, combined with evolving enterprise systems and increasingly complex responsibilities in graduate administration can be detrimental to the experience of students, staff and faculty. While the G+PS dean’s office provides individualized support and regular onboarding or refresher sessions on graduate administration processes for program staff and advisors, we understand that this is not always sufficient. Strategies for improving support and training include expanding online resources, creating training modules, and strengthening the community generally as outlined above.
G+PS is also committed to reviewing and supporting existing business processes, including eVision and delegated admissions, and devoting high-quality resources to the Integrated Renewal Program (IRP) planning and implementation.
Improving Program Review Processes
Working with the Provost's office, G+PS is committed to improving external review processes for academic units. Our goals include addressing logistical issues, streamlining and improving the creation of self-study material related to graduate education, and implementing more effective follow-up practices.