In order to facilitate faster processing and improved accessibility, the Graduate College is moving to electronic forms, routing, and signatures. We have partnered with DocuSign to add security, mobility, accessibility, and reliability to these new processes.
Fall 2018 will mark the beginning of our transition into DocuSign in the Grad Rebel Gateway, thereby making all Graduate College forms electronic and ending the use/acceptance of any paper forms. All of your graduate students will access their student forms through their Grad Rebel Gateway portal on a new “Forms” tab, while additional electronic forms (such as the Graduate Faculty Status Application) will be located on the Graduate College website.
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” - Lao Tzu
Welcome back! As we embark on a fresh academic year, the Graduate College team is excited to roll out several new programs and initiatives to help advance our MSI Tier One aspirations. We remain very involved in UNLV’s Top Tier mission and are committed to promoting excellence and student success at all levels, in all programs.
Graduate College Awarded Grant to Study Ph.D. Career Pathways
The Graduate College has been awarded a $50,000 grant from the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) to participate in an Understanding Ph.D. Career Pathways for Program Improvement project, a multi-institution effort to collect and analyze data on Ph.D. career pathways in STEM and humanities fields.
Interdisciplinary Grad Programs in the Graduate College
After two years of Top Tier committee review and campus recommendations, the provost’s office has approved the proposal to house interdisciplinary graduate programs in the Graduate College. As such, interdisciplinary graduate programs that involve faculty from two or more colleges will now be structurally located in the Graduate College.
Degree Audit Out, Plan of Study In!
After considerable campus input and weighing the cost of degree audit for graduate students against its benefits, the Graduate College will discontinue degree audit when DocuSign goes live. These online forms will facilitate faster processing and improved accessibility as well as afford the opportunity to streamline the tracking and review of student coursework and their degree requirements.
Grad Rebel Gateway Phase II, DocuSign, and Generic Email Addresses
The second phase of the Grad Rebel Gateway, which brings current students into the portal, will roll out this semester. Part of the second phase is the introduction of DocuSign, a platform for electronic forms, routing, and signatures that will facilitate faster processing and improved accessibility. The implementation of DocuSign requires the creation of generic unlv.edu email accounts for graduate coordinators, department chairs, and deans.
The Graduate College’s Professional Development Academy (formerly known as the Student Success Institute) is currently a virtual center. Established in 2015, it included one certification, several events and workshops, and non-academic advising. Since then, the Academy has expanded to offer skills support; career support; and a number of professional development opportunities, including four academic support certifications, seven Grad Rebel programs, and more than 60 events and workshops annually. Summer 2018 will mark the beginning of exciting new changes and growth for the Professional Development Academy, including the roll-out of the new Pillars of Success and Student Lifecycle models.
The Graduate College (and university) is moving to a single system for the creation, submission, routing, review, approval, and tracking of all curriculum forms and proposals. This system, Curriculog, completely replaces the previous MS Word forms, email submissions, and Qualtrics portal used for creating and routing graduate curriculum proposal forms. Curriculog will streamline the curriculum approval process through a single system that supports simplicity and transparency.
We are excited to bring a completely online course and program approval process to campus through Curriculog! We are offering frequent training sessions, so please watch for announcements in UNLV Today and on the Graduate College calendar! Department training sessions can be scheduled by contacting GradCurriculum@unlv.edu.
From Aug. 13-17, 26 students participated in the Grad Rebel Writing Boot Camp, a weeklong program that allowed them to work on a thesis/dissertation proposal, thesis, dissertation, publication, and more. This was the largest cohort yet.
HELPFUL RESOURCES
Graduate College Calendars
To help get the right information to the right audience, the Graduate College has reorganized the calendars on its homepage. There are now separate calendars for students, faculty, and postdoctoral scholars. These calendars are further organized by the type of event to facilitate easier access to the information someone might be looking for (e.g. the student calendar is organized into deadlines, workshops, and events). Please view the new faculty calendar, separated into deadlines, meetings, and events, here. The thesis and dissertation defense calendar from before remains unchanged.
Ivet Aldaba-Valera was the first in her family to graduate from college and now she’s helping other first-generation students get to the finish line, too.
