October 8, 1999
M E M O R A N D U M

TO: Graduate Advisers and Coordinators

FROM: Rick Cherwitz, Associate Dean

RE: Faculty "Feeder School" Database for Graduate Admissions

XC: Terry Sullivan, Vice President and Graduate Dean; OGS Deans, Deans, Department Chairs and Directors

I am pleased to announce that, with the 2000-2001 admissions season upon us, we recently migrated the Faculty "Feeder School" Database to the WEB (go to: http://www.utexas.edu/ogs/feeder/feeder.html). The database will enable you to put your very best graduate applicants in contact with former UT students who are now faculty members at institutions currently attended by applicants. Because of the responses of 50 UT programs to my April 15 Memorandum, I have written 1000-plus faculty members at over 400 colleges and universities in the U.S. Approximately 700 of these former UT students already have granted us permission to include their names in the Faculty "Feeder School" Database, and I continue to receive "Yes" responses on a daily basis.

INSTRUCTIONS: To access and utilize the database, you or the person in your program who is in charge of admissions will need to obtain a password. To do so, please contact Richard Cherwitz. Because I promised faculty that this would be a "secure" database and that their names would be available only for recruiting graduate students, we are assigning each user their own password. Do not give out this password to others; it is for your use exclusively.
CONTENTS: The database is in FileMaker Pro and includes Name, School, Address, E-Mail, Telephone, Program (UT degree), and Notes; you may search and sort by any of these fields. If you encounter technical problems with the database, notify us immediately. Because of its fluidity, we will update the database regularly.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Although we will allow all UT graduate programs access to the database, even those who did not send us faculty names, please be prepared at the time you request a password to inform us when we will be receiving names from your program. I am aware from your e-mail this summer that a handful of UT programs do not place their students at academic institutions, but there are many not in this category who still have not responded. In a sense, it is unfair for programs that can and don't participate in building the database to utilize its contents. Remember: Your list of names need not be exhaustive and you may add to it a little at a time (See April 15 Memo for instructions on submitting names).

To guarantee proper utilization of the database, please adhere to these very simple guidelines:

(1) USE THE DATABASE JUDICIOUSLY: Since many of the feeder schools have only one or two UT graduates, please reserve use of names for your very best applicants, i.e., those top few for whom an all-out recruitment effort is in order.

(2) USE THE DATABASE STRATEGICALLY, BUT WITH SENSITIVITY TO FACULTY: Because faculty members in the database have an e-mail address or telephone number, it might be desirable to contact them prior to giving out their names to applicants. In fact, you will discover in the "Notes" field that many faculty who have been away from UT for a long time would like information to aid them in speaking to your recruits. An additional advantage of contacting faculty in advance is that they might be willing (with your assistance) to write an e-mail or a note on their school's letterhead to the student being recruited; this "personal" touch could pay dividends.

(3) NOTIFY US OF CHANGES: From time to time you may discover that faculty are no longer at an institution or that there is outdated information in one or more of the data fields. When you discover this, let us know immediately so that we can update the database. We will contact all faculty in the database electronically at least once annually to make sure information is accurate.

(4) HELP EXPAND THE SIZE OF THE DATABASE: The Faculty "Feeder School" project will only work if we steadily add names. For those of you who have not responded to the April 15 Memo, therefore, please do so as soon as possible. In addition, those of you who provided us with a partial listing of faculty should continue to forward additional names. And all programs should submit new names, corrections and updates as they become available. If you wish to know whether your program already has responded, feel free to call me (471-4511); once you obtain a password, it also will be possible to search the database by "UT Program" to discover the names of students from your program.

I hope the Faculty "Feeder School" Database will assist your recruitment efforts for 2000-2001. Many of the faculty responded quite enthusiastically to my request for permission and are excited about helping UT recruit students.

If you have questions, please Richard Cherwitz.