Report and Recommendations on the Administrative Structure of Graduate Education

Date

Background

The Graduate and Professional Education Committee and the Research Committee were jointly given the following charge:

The University is about to embark on a search for a new Vice President for Research, and it would be timely to consider the job description for this position. In particular, consider whether the Graduate School ought to report to the Vice President for Research (i.e.-whether it ought to be, say, called the Vice President for Research and Graduate Education), rather than the present reporting relation to the Executive Dean of the FAS. Also consider any other areas, such as the Graduate Admissions Office, that ought to be included within the job description for this position.

The two committees met jointly on November 12 to discuss and consider this charge. We considered that the timing of the appointment of a new Vice President for Research gives a valuable opportunity to propose that there should be a strong advocate for graduate and graduate professional education and affairs located at the central administration level of the New Brunswick Campus. A combined position of Vice President for Research and Graduate Education is rather common at major research universities throughout the U.S.

Advantages of the combined position include that graduate education would be represented on the University's Promotion Committee, since the VP for Research presently sits on this body. Also, there are Ph.D. programs in almost all of the academic units on the campus, so it would be perceived as, perhaps, fairer, or at least more symmetrical, to have a campus-wide officer, rather than the Executive Dean of the FAS, in her/his capacity as Graduate Dean, oversee the Graduate School, which oversees all Ph.D. programs. It would also be natural to have this person also oversee postdoctoral appointees (through the Graduate School). This person would also oversee the various graduate professional programs on the campus (through the various professional schools offering graduate programs).Both graduate students and postdocs are supported to a large degree by outside grants and carry out much of the research, so combining these responsibilities would also be very useful to help insure proper support for graduate students and postdocs as well as supporting our research programs.

Disadvantages include the fact that much of graduate student support is in teaching assistantships which are necessarily mostly located in the Arts & Sciences. So having the Executive Dean of the FAS being also the Graduate Dean tends to make him/her recognize more strongly the value of TA's to the graduate programs, and the interrelationship between graduate and undergraduate education.

Recommendations

The title of the Vice President for Research (VPR) should be changed as appropriate to reflect the expanded role as given below.

  1. The responsibilities of the VPR shall include the research programs of the University, as at present, including the operations of the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs.
  2. In addition, the VPR's responsibilities shall include oversight of all graduate and graduate professional education and related affairs for the new Brunswick Campus. The Dean of the Graduate School should report directly to the VPR. It is important that the Dean of the Graduate School be an effective representative and spokesperson for graduate education at Rutgers-New Brunswick, including being actively involved in such organizations as the Association of Graduate Schools of the AAU. The Graduate Admissions Office will also report directly to the VPR.
  3. The responsibilities of the VPR shall also include oversight of all programs relating to postdoctoral appointees, which presumably will become a responsibility of the Graduate School-New Brunswick.
  4. The VPR will chair a Council of Graduate Deans, which shall meet regularly to discuss issues of graduate and graduate professional education in all of the academic units that offer graduate degrees.
  5. The VPR shall have responsibility for monitoring the effective use of graduate support resources (such as fellowships, teaching and graduate assistantships, and tuition remissions) by the academic units insofar as they are used to support graduate programs.