The Distinguished and Distinctive Graduate Education Strategic Planning Committee is soliciting feedback that will inform its recommendations for a five-year plan to preeminence in several doctoral and other graduate programs at the university.
The public forum will be held from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday in the Executive Case Room on the seventh floor of the Milken Institute School of Public Health, 950 New Hampshire Ave. NW. An ID is required for access to the building.
The Distinguished and Distinctive Graduate Education Strategic Planning Committee—one of four committees tasked with developing recommendations for each of the strategic plan’s pillars—is charged with developing a strategy “to identify, resource and elevate 10 doctoral programs to national preeminence, as well as a strategy and criteria for the creation, evaluation and termination of professional graduate degree programs.”
In the public forum, the Distinguished and Distinctive Graduate Education Strategic Planning Committee will be looking for feedback from graduate students, staff and faculty on the following questions:
- What criteria should define distinguished doctoral education that contributes positively to the university and enhances its reputation?
- What processes should be used to: (a) identify and elevate 10 doctoral programs to preeminence and (b) review all doctoral programs (and program proposals) with the goal of ensuring that all offered are of high quality?
- To what extent should the university support doctoral programs that are not likely to become preeminent given our resource limitations?
- What criteria should define distinctive professional graduate education at the master’s and doctoral levels?
- What processes should be in place to create, change or eliminate professional graduate programs?
- More generally, what should GW do to ensure that it offers graduate programs at all levels that are of high quality and that meet the educational and career needs of students as well as the needs of relevant job markets?
- What university resources or commitments would facilitate the improvement of graduate education at GW?
The committee chair is Carol Sigelman, professor of psychology in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. Liesl Riddle, associate dean of graduate programs in the School of Business, is vice chair.
“We hope to give GW’s faculty and graduate students a unique opportunity to define what great graduate education is and enable GW to create more of it,” Dr. Sigelman said.
Those who cannot attend in person can join through WebEx (password is graduate; meeting number access code is 736 285 348) or by phone at 1-855-282-6330 or 1-415-655-0003. Feedback can also be submitted through the strategic plan website. Additional information regarding the strategic planning process is available at strategicplan.gwu.edu.
The forum will be recorded and available following the event on the strategic plan website.
