Graduate School

Graduate School Bulletin

June 11, 2024

 

Table of contents

Click on a category name to view that section or click on a headline to read the full announcement.

Articles of interest

Faculty and Staff

Admissions

Graduate Student Success

Opportunities for Graduate Students

Funding and awards for graduate students

Upcoming Events and Deadlines

 

Articles of interest

National Science Foundation expands mentoring requirements to bolster STEM pipeline

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is now requiring all grant applicants to submit a mentoring plan for graduate students. The requirement is part of the federal government’s wider push to increase support for scientific research and maintain the United States’ competitive edge as a global leader in technological innovation. Read more about this new policy in a recent article in Inside Higher Ed.

Support for K-State faculty

The Graduate School and the Office of Research Development are partnering to put together guidance for faculty to develop graduate student mentoring plans. Stay tuned for more information this summer.

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Video: “Generative AI in Higher Education: The Good, The Bad, and The Kinda Scary Aspects to Consider”

AI is certainly one of the hottest topics in higher education right now. You might be interested in this video that provides a good overview of AI and the impact for higher education. Implications for higher ed are addressed at about the 12-minute mark in the video.

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If you come across an article that would be of interest to other graduate programs, please send it to Taylor Alicia Witt, Graduate School communication specialist, at taylorwitt@ksu.edu to have the article featured in a future Bulletin!

 

Faculty and Staff

Graduate Catalog Update: Credit Hours for PhDs

We endeavor to continuously improve clarity and continuity in the Graduate Catalog and ensure university catalog descriptions meet state and federal higher education guidelines. This summer, we prioritized our PhD program entries to ensure prospective students understand admission requirements, total credit hours required for graduation, and how many credits can be transferred from an applicable master’s degree to a PhD. We identified 44 PhD programs’ catalog descriptions that could benefit from explicit statements of these items and whether a master’s degree is a condition for admission to the program. These programs’ updated information will be entered into the 2024-2025 Graduate Catalog that is slated for publication in the beginning of July.

The graduate programs directors of these 44 doctoral programs are being contacted by the Graduate School, respectively by Timon Smock at gradinfo@ksu.edu to address any discrepancies in catalog entries. For any questions about this process, please contact Dr. Phil Payne, associate dean at ppayne@ksu.edu.

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Donoghue Renewal Process

The Graduate School is collecting renewals for the Donoghue scholarships awarded for the 2023-2024 academic year. Renewal letters were sent to graduate program coordinators and department heads last week. The Qualtrics survey to submit renewal recommendations are due by June 28th, 2024. Program coordinators, department heads, and scholarship recipients will be notified of this renewal process's outcome by July 19th. Questions about this process can be directed to Miranda Schremmer (mquint@ksu.edu).

Thank you for submitting the renewals for the 2023-2024 scholarship recipients!

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Reminder about Grad Resources folders in Teams

The Graduate School created the Graduate Resources folder in Teams to share information with all graduate constituents. Data, strategic planning, admission, student success, Know-how and Townhall presentations, and many other useful information is being continuously added to this folder. This is the main resource for all our graduate constituents. The Graduate Resource Teams folder can be accessed with your KSU log-in credentials. If you do not have access to it, please contact Joe Horan, jphoran@ksu.edu

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Graduate School welcomes new communications specialist

On June 10, the Graduate School welcomed Taylor Witt as our new communications and marketing specialist. In Spring 2024, Taylor earned her bachelor’s degree in mass communications and a certificate in social media management from K-State. During her time as an undergraduate, Taylor worked as a social media assistant for the K-State Student Union and as a social media manager for Joyce and Joe’s Cornerstone Cafe in Hale Library. She was also heavily involved in leadership and service roles. Taylor will lead coordination of the Graduate School’s communications and marketing initiatives to support graduate student success and retention and collaboration with graduate programs. Taylor’s email address is taylorwitt@ksu.edu.

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Etrieve Update

The Division of Information Technology is currently working to restore all Graduate School electronic forms in the Etrieve/Softdocs system. The Division of Information Technology has scheduled July 15 as the date to reopen Graduate School electronic forms for use by Graduate School constituents. As part of the system restoration and cleanup process, forms that were in-progress at the time of the Etrieve shutdown will be updated with the status “Declined” with a note in the document history stating the form was declined due to the system shutdown related to the cyber event. The “declined’ status will stop notifications for the in- progress forms but will allow students to access the forms in their “Activity” folder. The Graduate School will send out additional information regarding restored access to electronic forms in Etrieve prior to July 15. If you have questions about Etrieve/Softdocs and electronic forms, you can contact Scott Schlender <scottsch@ksu.edu> in the Graduate School.

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Upcoming Events and Deadlines

June 11 June Slate Showcase: Recruitment, 1:00pm, Zoom
June 19 University Closed
June 25 Slate Application for Summer 2025 Opens
June 28 Donoghue Renewals Due
All Graduate School events and deadlines

Doctoral defenses

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Admissions

Slate CRM Implementation for Graduate School - Update

Graduate recruitment moved into Slate on May 30th. If you used Salesforce in the past that is going away this month. This means the Request for Information form has been updated. Please ensure you are directing students to the form on the web, the old form is being deactivated. Five years of historical data from CollegeNet has been moved into Slate to help with this transition. There is a daily feed of current CollegeNet applications and updates feeding into Slate.

The Slate application for summer 2025 will launch on June 25th. If you link out to the application, please ensure the Slate link is included after June 25th. We are doing a web audit to find all the places the application is linked, but we cannot see everything. Summer 2025 applications and later will have a new application link- if you link to the application on your website you will need to add this link.

The current timeline is as follows:

    • Phase 1- Completed
      • Building Records, Forms, Events, and Communications
    • Phase 2- Completed
      • The Application form developed
    • Phase 3- Completed
      • Workflows designed
    • Final Implementation meeting with Carnegie: Complete , April 29th
    • Recruitment Launch: Complete, May 30th
    • Historical Data Migration into Slate: Complete, May 31st
    • Application Launch: June 25th, 2024

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Update on application numbers

Applications at this point in the cycle (6/25)

Fall 2023 Fall 2024 Difference F24-F23
Applied Admitted Applied Admitted Applied Admitted
Domestic 764 588 911 616
147
28
Certificate 19 16 27 22 8 6
Doctoral 213 152 250 178 37 26
Masters 522 411 614 400 92 -11
Non- Degree 10 9 20 16 10 7
International 1,036 421 1,464 534
428
113
Certificate 2 1 3 3 1 2
Doctoral 640 217 849 253 209 36
Masters 394 203 612 278 218 75
Non-Degree 0 0
Grand Total 1,800 1,009 2,375 1,150
575
141

All Applications To Date

Fall 2023(total) Fall 2024 (April 25,2024) Difference F24(4/25/24)-F23 (total)
Applied Admitted Applied Admitted Applied Admitted
Domestic 1,092 889 911 616
-181
-273
Certificate 52 47 27 22 -25 -25
Doctoral 249 186 250 178 1 -8
Masters 740 607 614 400 -126 -207
Non- Degree 51 49 20 16 -31 -33
International 1,046 431 1,464 534
418
103
Certificate 2 1 3 3 1 2
Doctoral 640 217 849 253 209 36
Masters 402 211 612 278 210 67
Non-Degree 2 2 -2 -2
Grand Total 2,138 1,320 2,375 1,150
237
-170


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Update on Fall 2024 enrollment numbers

As of June 10, 2024, graduate student admits are up 22% (+209). Domestic grad admits are up 14.3% (+79), and international admits are up 34% (+130) when compared to this point in time last year.

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Graduate Student Success

Spring 2024 KSIS graduation applications

Degree Analysts are currently processing 890 spring 2024 KSIS graduation applications. The Office of the Registrar posts degrees each Friday. Students may check their graduation application status to see if their degree has been posted within their KSIS account.

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Webinars for admitted graduate students

Last week, the Graduate School had a successful start to the “Getting Started in Grad” webinar series for incoming graduate students.

    • June 3, Enrollment, Billing, and Making Payments – 96 students registered, 73 attended
    • June 5, Making Your Move to the U.S. – 51 registered, 32 attended

The webinars continue this week and next.

    • June 11 – Preparing for Your Assistantship, 1:00pm
    • June 17 – Making Your Move to the U.S., 9:00am (repeat offering of June 5 session)

Recordings of completed webinars and registration for upcoming webinars are available on the Incoming Graduate Students section of our website. Questions may be directed to Dr. Megan Miller (mmmiller@ksu.edu, 532-6191).

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Timeline for assistantship tuition waivers processing

Graduate assistants (GTAs, GRAs, and GAs) with at least a 0.4 FTE appointment qualify for a waiver of non-resident tuition charges. GTAs are eligible for tuition waivers for up to 10 credit hours in the fall and spring semester and up to 6 hours in the summer semester (see the Graduate Handbook, Chapter 1, section G4).

The employing unit must submit the tuition waiver request each semester the student is on an assistantship.

June 15 at 5pm is the priority processing deadline for Fall semester assistantships.

Tuition waivers are applied when the following are met:

    • Student is enrolled in at least 6 credit hours, fall and spring semesters
    • Student’s assistantship appointment is on record in HRIS
    • The employing unit submits the tuition waiver request (available on the Registrar’s website under Waiver Forms), which prompts the Registrar’s Office to apply the tuition waiver.

Once the priority processing deadline has passed, waivers will be processed in the order received. The benefit of submitting the waiver request by the priority deadline is that the waiver will be processed prior to the student’s bill posting.

Point of contact for waiver forms and processing: Office of the Registrar, registrar@ksu.edu, 532-6254

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Housing resources available for graduate students

Incoming graduate students who have not yet secured housing are encouraged to use resources available on the Graduate School website. The Graduate School has promoted these resources via email communication and in the Getting Started webinars.

Here are key resources to help promote to incoming graduate students who do not have housing arrangements for the fall semester.

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Opportunities for Graduate Students

Online conversation on “Family Life and the Pursuit of Higher Education Abroad”

Based on survey data from K-State graduate students, approximately 20-25% are parents. Concurrently managing the responsibilities of these roles is not easy. Adelaide Delali Klutse, a K-State master’s alum (Applied Family Science), is hosting an online conversation on this topic on June 15 from 3-5pm GMT (or 10am-noon U.S. central time). Adelaide is currently pursuing her doctoral degree in Human Development and Family Studies at Penn State University. This online event is an opportunity for prospective and current students to hear and learn from panelists with lived experiences of balancing parenting and student responsibilities. Among the panelists will be Ernestina Wiafe, K-State doctoral student in curriculum and instruction.

Please share this event with current and prospective graduate students who you think might be interested. We also encourage graduate faculty to attend to learn about the experiences of our graduate students who are also parents. Those interested in attending should register in advance to receive Zoom meeting information.

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Funding and awards for graduate students

Laura Bassi Scholarship provides editorial assistance in all disciplines

The Laura Bassi Scholarship awards $8,000 three times per year for editorial assistance. All currently enrolled master’s and doctoral candidates in any discipline are eligible to apply, as are academics in the first five years of full-time employment. The summer 2024 funding application deadline is July 24. Visit the scholarship website for further details and application instructions.

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Upcoming Events and Deadlines

June 11 Getting Started in Grad: Preparing for Your Assistantship webinar, 1:00pm, Zoom
June 17 Getting Started in Grad: Making Your Move to the U.S. webinar, 9:00am, Zoom

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