Graduate School

Graduate School Bulletin

July 12, 2023

 

Table of contents

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

Faculty and Staff

Admissions

Recruitment

Graduate Student Success

Funding for Graduate Students

Upcoming Events and Deadlines

 

Faculty and Staff

Two years ago, Graduate School personnel, the Graduate Council Academic Affairs Committee (GCAAC), and the Graduate Council Assessment and Review Committee (GCARC) began an effort to create a nimble proposal approval process for new and revised graduate programs. Steps included coordinating the time of review by GCAAC and GCARC, proactively reaching out to proposers to address foreseeable issues before formal review, and creating templates and a guidebook for proposers and the GC committees.

To assess the effectiveness of these many interventions, we performed an analysis of the typical time that a proposal was under consideration by Graduate Council – from its initial review until final approval by the full Council including any additional time required due to rejection of a proposal that necessitated significant additional effort by the proposer. The statistical analysis (a Poisson regression!) revealed that the typical time under GC review dropped from about 30 days for proposals submitted early in AY 2022 to 15 days for proposals submitted late in AY 2023.

Departments and programs planning to submit a graduate program proposal are encouraged to reach out to Dr. Michael Young, Faculty Associate in the Graduate School, at michaelyoung@ksu.edu in advance of submission with any questions. Many issues can be anticipated before formal review thus allowing proposers to address them before GC consideration.

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This week, we welcome two new team members to the Graduate School.

    1. Communications Specialist – Dan Froehlich joined the Graduate School as a communications specialist. He has over 20-years of experience in athletic media relations, including 17 at Auburn University where he handled publicity for multiple teams. Raised in Dix Hills, N.Y., Dan is a graduate of the University of South Carolina ('99). His wife, Stephanie Froehlich, is the Senior Vice President of Development for the Kansas State University Foundation. They have two boys, Jackson (17) and Cole (11), and live in Manhattan.
    2. Admissions Specialist – Jeffery Zhu joins the Graduate School as a part-time admissions specialist and will be assisting the admissions team. Jeffery has a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from K-State, and a Master of Arts in Pacific and Asian Studies, University of San Francisco. He has received many academic awards and has both research and teaching experience at the graduate level. Jeffery is looking forward to working with our graduate programs.

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Graduate School student forms are now live in Softdocs Etrieve, K-State’s new enterprise electronic form and workflow solution. Softdocs/Etrieve provides more user-friendly access, easier processing and up-to-date tracking of approval status.

The Graduate School and our IT support staff, recommend that all faculty and staff who have not yet received a form review notification log into Softdocs Etrieve to ensure their account is active. The login requires eID/password authentication:

Students and support staff/faculty who access Graduate School forms via our webpage are directed to the new forms created in Softdocs Etrieve and links to our forms on the Decisions platform are redirected to the Softdocs Etrieve forms.

The webpage for Graduate School forms remains the same and individual form links will be directed to the Softdocs Etrieve forms: https://www.k-state.edu/grad/about/forms/

Training Video

The Division of Information Technology conducted and recorded a virtual training session that is now available viaTeams Grad-Resources.

Student Form Submission Issue

Students who are submitting the approval to schedule final examination form must have an approved program of study recorded in KSIS for the form to work properly. When the “approval form” is opened by a student (or proxy), supervisory committee information is pulled from KSIS to populate the form. If the POS and committee are not yet recorded in KSIS, the committee information cannot be pulled into the form for the workflow process.

Helpful Information

Some faculty & staff members report that they cannot see how to submit forms or take other actions. The action buttons are at the bottom of the form panel (section of window). The “approve” button appears in the lower left corner of the panel/window or at the bottom of the screen on a mobile device:

Soft Doc

When a form is submitted by proxy on behalf of a student, the form is first routed to the student for their review/approval, so they are aware of the form submission. After the student approves the form, it is routed to the committee members and/or graduate program director as listed on the form.

All forms submitted via Softdocs/Etrieve can be accessed by the student and all listed reviewers on the form (supervisory committee members, graduate program director and program advisor). This allows a student to check the status of a form under review or a view a completed/approved form. In order to view student forms, the student or form reviewers can click on the “activity” folder in Etrieve Central:

Softdoc

Questions and Support
For general form questions, please contact: Scott Schlender, Graduate School, 785-532-6191,
grad@ksu.edu.

To report a technical issue such as denied access, submit a ticket via the IT Service Portal or contact the IT Service Desk at (785) 532-7722.

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  • Survey on annual graduate student evaluation

    The Graduate School is sending a survey to graduate program directors to understand how academic units are doing the graduate student annual review of progress (Graduate Handbook Section 1.E). The survey was developed with input from current and previous graduate program directors. Survey responses will help us identify ways to better support graduate students and graduate faculty. The survey will be distributed this week. We look forward to receiving your responses by July 31.

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Admissions

  • CollegeNET Scheduled Maintenance

    On Friday, July 21, 9pm PT, CollegeNET will perform scheduled maintenance that may continue for one or more hours. ApplyWeb® Forms Management, the ApplyWeb CRM (including Admit and Prospect), as well as all other ApplyWeb forms and services will be unavailable during this window.

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Recruitment

The Graduate School has begun reaching out to programs that still have students awaiting their decision to help aid in the process of communicating with these prospective students and to begin building plans for future admissions cycles to best mitigate no-decision outcomes. Additionally, we will be sharing a live spreadsheet with GPDs and staff members to make notes to aid in communication including deferments and other status updates as needed. This information will be shared the week of July 17th for updates as needed. If you have any questions, please email Sarah Tortella at stortella@ksu.edu.

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The Graduate School and other graduate programs across K-State would like to collaborate on recruitment events for the 2023-2024 academic year. If your program is planning to attend events, please let us know so we can connect programs and collaborate. Please email Sarah Tortella at stortella@ksu.edu.

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The Graduate School is now accepting nominations to support up to five Donoghue Scholarships for incoming graduate students beginning a master’s or doctoral program in Spring 2024.

This scholarship program was initiated by Timothy Donoghue, former Graduate School dean, as a way to recruit top candidates throughout the United States to attend K-State’s graduate programs by offering graduate assistantship packages that are highly competitive.

Application deadline: October 1, 2023

For more information on eligibility, funding guidelines and to submit your application please visit the webpage.

Please direct questions about the Timothy Donoghue scholarship to Miranda Schremmer at donoghuescholarship@ksu.edu or to the Graduate School at or 785-532-6191.

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Graduate Student Success

  • Soft Doc Etrieve Forms

    Once the form is signed by all required individuals, it is then approved by Degree Analysts to be placed into their work queues for processing. The form is not processed immediately. Please share with students that adequate time for routing and processing of the forms is needed.

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The Summer 2023 graduation and commencement checklist has been updated. All requirements must be completed by August 11 for students to officially graduate in the summer 2023 term. Please direct your students to graduation and commencement checklists to ensure they complete all requirements by the posted deadlines.

      • Important reminder: Approval to schedule Final Examination form
        This form, with ALL approvals from the supervisory committee, must be received by the Graduate School at least 10 business days before the scheduled exam. The student submits the form, and then it routes to the committee members for their signature, and then the form is processed by the Graduate School. Therefore, the student needs to submit the form more than 10 business days before the final exam to allow time for the form to route to committee members and to be processed by the Graduate School.

For information about student success contact Dr. Megan Miller at mmmiller@ksu.edu

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Please work with students completing graduate certificates in summer 2023 to submit the graduate certificate completion form on or before July 28, 2023. This information is available in the Graduation and Commencement Checklist for Summer 2023.

Certificate students
Receiving your graduate certificate

    • The electronic graduate certificate completion form should be submitted by students (or staff proxy) on or before July 28, 2023, to ensure timely posting to transcripts and printing of graduate certificates for summer 2023. If you have questions about this process, please contact Angela Pfizenmaier, Lead Degree Analyst, akt@ksu.edu.

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Funding for Graduate Students

Spring 2024 Scholarship/Award Deadlines

All other spring 2024 scholarships will have a deadline of May 1, 2024.This will include the following scholarships.

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Upcoming Events and Deadlines

August 1

GSC travel award application deadline for events that begin in October

August 14

ISSS orientation for new international students

August 16

Graduate School Welcome Session for New Graduate Students

  • 9:00-10:00am – Zoom offering
  • 2:00-4:00pm – in-person offering

August 17

Orientation for new Graduate Teaching Assistants, 8:00am-12:00pm (organized by TLC)

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