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Grad Services at Carleton – A Year in Review

The Faculty of Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs(GS) has spent the last year putting a number of new initiatives in place that are designed to enhance graduate student services at Carleton.

Many of these initiatives are the result of a one-year Benchmarking Committee that Graduate Studies undertook in 2011-12 to better understand what grad students want and to come up with solutions.

As professional services are a priority for grad students, Graduate Studies has now introduced the following:

To help grad students better promote their research, Graduate Studies has organized Carleton’s first Three Minute Thesis competition (3MT). The top two winners will compete at the first Ontario 3MT competition.  As well, the Graduate Students’ Association, in conjunction with Graduate Studies, will be hosting the inaugural Graduate Student Research Forum on March 27. As well, Graduate Studies created the GRIT award for senior PhD students to help them fund their travel expenses to national and international conferences associated with their research.  A story about the winners of this new award is on the Graduate Studies website.

Another area that the Benchmarking Committee recognized as a specific need for graduate students was improved Communication. As such, Graduate Studies:

Together with the Educational Development Centre and the Paul Menton Centre, Graduate Studies has helped to create a new workshop for new faculty on best practices when supervising graduate students.  As part of that workshop, three professors who won Graduate Mentoring Awards in 2012 will then share their strategies for effective communication, conflict management, and facilitating completion in their roles as graduate student advisors.