Annual Assessment of Graduate Students

The Graduate College requires departments to administer an assessment process to encourage graduate students to reflect upon their programmatic progress and to enable faculty members to better mentor graduate students.  In response to this request, the Graduate Committee has developed an assessment process that is designed to provide graduate students with the opportunity to self-assess their progress, an activity enables faculty to provide both evaluation and advice to students on an annual basis.

In November, each graduate student receives an e-mail message containing a copy of the Graduate Student Assessment Form.  All graduate students are required fill out the General Information, Scholarship, Teaching, and Professionalism sections.  As part of the process, they also designate two faculty members whom the Graduate Director will contact in order to receive evaluations. 

Faculty members should expect to fill out a number of the Faculty Assessment Forms for their former and current students.  Faculty should attempt to return these forms in a timely fashion.

Once all of the forms have been collected, the Graduate Committee will review them and provide feedback to each Graduate Student, in the form of a letter that will he/she will receive no later than February of the following year.  The forms will only be reviewed by the graduate faculty involved and will be kept in the student’s confidential file.

The purpose of this assessment process is to ensure that Graduate Students are making good progress.  If the Graduate Committee feels that a student is having difficulty, the student will be asked to meet with the Department Chair, the Graduate Director, and (if applicable) the Major Advisor.  In this meeting, the student will help to devise an action plan that will enable him/her to get back on track and make good progress to the degree.  If a student’s assessment report reflects problems the next year, that student will again be asked to meet with the Department Chair and the Graduate Director to consider his/her options.  It is important to note that this assessment process does not excuse students from Graduate College requirements regarding performance (i.e., minimum GPA, timeliness to degree).

The Graduate Committee faculty believes that this assessment process will benefit graduate students in a number of important ways.  It will enable students to reflect on their current progress and on their future academic and professional goals, and it will enable them to receive timely feedback and mentoring from the faculty.  Should students have any questions or concerns, they should contact the Graduate Director.