MEMORANDUM Re: Graduate Coordinator Network
Date: December 13, 2000
TO: Deans, Chairs, Directors, Graduate Advisers, Graduate Coordinators
FROM: Rick Cherwitz, Associate Dean
RE: Graduate Coordinator Network
XC: OGS Deans, Executive Officers
As many of you know, for the last few years the Office of Graduate Studies has been working on a number of initiatives designed to help document the extremely important, enormously complex and highly professional role played by Graduate Coordinators in administering graduate education. This fall we announced the completion of the first initiative: the creation and approval of two new staff titles: "Graduate Coordinator I" and "Graduate Coordinator II." These new titles, along with their corresponding job descriptions, are important both rhetorically and practically; they articulate and provide an institutional record of the many functions performed by Graduate Coordinators. For the first time, Graduate Coordinators (if they so elect and with the required approvals) have the option of holding a staff title that might more accurately reflect the duties they discharge and how those duties are integrated into a larger University team effort. In a sense, the new titles and job descriptions codify what we always have known, namely, that Graduate Coordinators are members of a vibrant community of professionals without whom the administration of graduate education at UT would be impossible.
I am pleased to announce the implementation of our second initiative to "professionalize" Graduate Coordinators: the "Graduate Coordinator Network." As the attached pages indicate, the Graduate Coordinators Network serves as a dynamic professional mentoring, training and resource development group for all coordinators at UT. Through the formal and informal exchange of information, experiences, technology and collaborative projects, the Network assists in providing direct support to coordinators by weaving together the strengths of each coordinator into a visible and active professional organization. The Network is developed and run by volunteer coordinators interested in serving as facilitators, mentors, trainers and resource contacts for specific topic areas. Members of the Network will continue to develop written and electronic materials that incorporate the wealth of knowledge Graduate Coordinators possess as a group into an easy access and delivery system (i.e., phone contacts, email addresses, web sites, lists of best practices). They will work with and receive information from administrators and support staff in offices such as the Office of Graduate Studies (OGS), Graduate and International Admissions Center (GIAC), International Office, Registrar's Office, Financial Aid, Graduate School Professional Development Program, etc. In addition, our hope is that members of the Network will develop and then present training seminars for Graduate Coordinators. Like all professional groups, Graduate Coordinators understand the important role they themselves must play in educating and providing professional development for members of their community.
Since the Graduate Coordinator Network is a "work in progress," I hope you will take the opportunity to review the attached materials and peruse our web site: http://www.utexas.edu/ogs/gcnet/
Your comments and suggestions are appreciated.