Contact: Katherine Hazelrigg  (202) 461-3888 / khazelrigg@cgs.nche.edu

Washington, DC – The Board of Directors of the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) has announced that Dr. Jennifer R. Teitle, assistant dean of the Graduate College at the University of Iowa, is the 2021 winner of the Assistant and Associate Deans Leadership Award. Teitle received the honor at an awards ceremony held during the CGS 61st Annual Meeting in New Orleans.

The award was created by the CGS Board of Directors to recognize individuals who have shown exemplary commitment to graduate education by demonstrating creativity and innovation in response to institutional challenges and/or limited budgets or resources; building partnerships both internal and external to the graduate school; identifying and obtaining resources, both internal and external to the graduate school; effectively advocating on behalf of graduate education; fostering inclusiveness in the graduate community; and engaging student voices (including diverse voices).

Dr. Teitle becomes the award’s third recipient for her valuable contributions to the University of Iowa graduate community. Her many accomplishments include developing the Graduate Student Success Center to deliver professional development programming across the university; establishing a campus-wide Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) competition, leveraging winning presentations to communicate the value of graduate education to external stakeholders; building relationships with alumni across graduate programs to promote PhD career diversity; and leading campus efforts to improve mentoring and career support.

“In every aspect of Dr. Teitle’s work, she clearly advocates for graduate students, paying special attention to assuring an inclusive perspective in her work. Jen has played a critical role in supporting students during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, designing platforms, leading workshops, and overseeing adjusted appointment structures for hundreds of graduate students across campus,” said Dr. Amanda H. Thein, associate provost for graduate and professional education and dean of the Graduate College at the University of Iowa. “Jen’s colleagues and the students in the Graduate College are exceptionally fortunate to have her professional insight, drive, and dedication.”

“It is a pleasure to recognize the outstanding efforts of our assistant and associate dean colleagues who tirelessly work on behalf of our graduate students, and Dr. Jennifer Teitle is no exception. Her advocacy and collaborative approach to graduate education stood out among her peers. Additionally, she is lauded for promulgating practices and programs with external partners and professional organizations, donating her time and talent to these endeavors,” said Dr. Sheryl Tucker, selection committee chair, and vice provost and dean of the Graduate College at Oklahoma State University.

Nominees for the award must be a current assistant or associate-level dean at a CGS member institution (Regular or Associate) with primary administrative responsibility in graduate education. Assistant or associate deans whose graduate deans currently serve on the CGS Board are not eligible to be nominated for the award during the dean’s active years of board service. Nominations are made by CGS member institutions and are reviewed by a committee selected by the CGS Board of Directors. The winner receives a $1,500 honorarium and is invited to plan and participate in a session at the CGS Summer Workshop on a topic of their choosing.

CGS gratefully acknowledges Liaison’s financial support of the Assistant and Associate Deans Leadership Award.  Liaison, a higher education admissions management and marketing automation software and services company, is a CGS Sustaining Member.

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Contact: Katherine Hazelrigg  (202) 461-3888 / khazelrigg@cgs.nche.edu

Washington, DC – The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) has awarded the 2021 Gustave O. Arlt Award in the Humanities to Dr. Tae-Yeoun Keum, assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The awards ceremony was held during the CGS 61st Annual Meeting in New Orleans.

Bestowed annually, the Arlt Award recognizes a young scholar-teacher who has written a book deemed to have made an outstanding contribution to scholarship in the humanities. Dr. Keum becomes the award’s 51st recipient for her book, Plato and the Mythic Tradition in Political Thought (Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 2020). She received her PhD in political theory from Harvard University in 2017.

In Plato and the Mythic Tradition in Political Thought, Dr. Keum considers the work of Plato, particularly his philosophical myths and their role in shaping modern political thought. She traces Plato’s impact on texts from the early modern era through the twentieth century, demonstrating how his classical mythmaking has influenced political theory across many centuries. While some philosophers viewed Plato’s myths as trivial work from the “inventor of rational philosophy,” Keum contends that mythic tradition “helps us rethink some of the default assumptions we tend to make about what philosophy is, and what it ought to look like.”

“We are honored to present Dr. Keum with this year’s prestigious Arlt Award. Her brilliant work reminds us that rethinking the traditional boundaries of knowledge enhances voices on the margin and reiterates the importance of diversity of thought. Through an analysis of Plato’s classical myths and their treatment by philosophers across many literary periods, Keum elevates the role and importance of myths in modern political discourse and argues they are integral to human understanding,” said Dr. Suzanne Ortega, president of the Council of Graduate Schools.

“Dr. Keum's receipt of the 2021 Gustave O. Arlt Award in the Humanities recognizes not only her impressive achievement, but also the centrality of humanistic approaches to understanding politics. Reaching across disciplinary boundaries, Dr. Keum's work suggests that even the most rationalistic of systems draws upon the power of symbols and mythic representations. It is truly a tour de force,” said Leila Rupp, interim Anne and Michael Towbes Graduate Dean, University of California, Santa Barbara.

Created in 1971, the Arlt Award honors the first president of CGS, Gustave O. Arlt. The winner must have earned a doctorate within the past seven years, and currently be teaching at a North American university. Nominations are made by CGS member institutions and are reviewed by a panel of scholars in the field of competition, which rotates annually among seven disciplines within the humanities. This year’s field was Linguistics and Philosophy. The winner receives a $1,000 honorarium and travel to the awards ceremony.

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Contacts:

Katherine Hazelrigg, Council of Graduate Schools  (202) 461-3888 | khazelrigg@cgs.nche.edu

Gilia Smith, ProQuest   (734) 277-7320 | gilia.smith@proquest.com

Washington, DC – The Council of Graduate Schools / ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Awards, the nation’s most prestigious honors for doctoral dissertations, were presented to Caitlin Cornell and Denisa Jashari during an award ceremony held at the CGS 61^st Annual Meeting in New Orleans. Dr. Cornell received her PhD in physical chemistry and biophysics from the University of Washington in 2019; Dr. Jashari completed her PhD in Latin American History at Indiana University Bloomington in 2020.

Bestowed annually since 1982, the awards recognize recent doctoral recipients who have already made unusually significant and original contributions to their fields. ProQuest, Part of Clarivate – whose ProQuest^® Dissertations & Theses Global^™ database (PQDT) features the world's most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses – sponsors the awards, and an independent committee from the Council of Graduate Schools selects the winners. Two awards are given each year, rotating among four general areas of scholarship. The winners receive a certificate of recognition, a $2,000 honorarium, and a travel stipend to attend the awards ceremony.

“The CGS/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award recognizes the innovative research of young scholars and their momentous impact on their disciplines and the broader graduate education community,” said CGS President Suzanne T. Ortega. “The significant contributions Dr. Cornell and Dr. Jashari have made in their respective fields continue the tradition of excellence. Their work represents the best of graduate education and research and merits recognition.”

“We’re proud to honor the incredible breakthroughs these researchers have made,” said Angela D’Agostino, vice president of product management, dissertations at ProQuest. “The past few years have been immeasurably difficult for PhD students, which makes Dr. Cornell and Dr. Jashari’s outstanding works even more impressive and well-deserving of the 2021 Distinguished Dissertation Award. ProQuest is pleased to include their research in the PQDT corpus where it can be discovered and expanded upon by other researchers around the world."

Dr. Cornell received the 2021 Award in Biological and Life Sciences for her dissertation, Lipid Membranes: From Organizational Strategies in Cells to the Origins of Life. Cornell’s dissertation research “bridges the gap between synthetic model membranes, cell-derived membranes, and living yeast organellar membranes.” Her work examines cell membranes, from the simplest forms to the most complex, to better understand how lipids found in cell membranes may contribute to improved protein function. In addition, she investigates the formation of the earliest protocell membranes billions of years ago. Dr. Cornell is currently a James S. McDonnell postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley’s Fletcher Lab.

The 2021 Award in Humanities and Fine Arts was presented to Dr. Jashari for her dissertation, Cartographies of Conflict: Political Culture and Urban Protest in Santiago, Chile, 1872-1994. Jashari’s work tracks disputes over urban spaces in Santiago, Chile, beginning with the social reform period of 1872-1970, through the Marxist government of Allende and dictatorship of Pinochet, to democratic rule from 1990-1994. She “historicizes the political importance of space and moves [...] between national and street-level dimensions of social and political struggles in urban space,” while expanding the period of study beyond the more narrow scope of current scholarship. Dr. Jashari is currently an assistant professor of Latin American history at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Two outstanding scholars received honorable mentions: Kathleen Houlahan (nominated by the University of Toronto) for the Award in Biological and Life Sciences, and Ariana Brazier (nominated by the University of Pittsburgh) for the Award in Humanities and Fine Arts.

More information about the CGS/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award is available at https://cgsnet.org/2021-cgs-award-winners-announced. For a list of past ProQuest Award Winners visit https://about.proquest.com/en/dissertations/spotlight/.

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Shabana Sayed, a master’s degree student in educational leadership at Hood College, has been an educator for Frederick County Public Schools (FCPS) for eight years. She’s served in a variety of leadership roles, including as the Science Department Chair at Walkersville Middle School. Sayed is currently working with Frank Vetter, an adjunct professor in Hood’s educational leadership program, to open Frederick’s Middle School Blended Virtual Program. The new blended program will follow the same academic calendar and student will attend synchronous daily classes, while assignments and some class activities will be asynchronous.

The new program is being developed after educators realized that the shift to virtual learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic was more beneficial for some students than in-person learning. When Sayed learned about the new virtual program, she was intrigued. “I saw this as a unique and exciting opportunity to broaden my teaching experience while also allowing me to serve a role in opening a new program that will benefit students across the county,” said Sayed. “Once I learned that Mr. Vetter was appointed principal of the program, I knew that this was something I wanted to be a part of. He is an incredible leader and working with him continues to be very valuable and fulfilling. I am excited to be part of a program that is using informed practices and instructional strategies to serve our students!”

Sayed aspires to be a school administrator and believes the experience she’s gaining as part of the blended virtual program is invaluable. She chose to pursue her master’s degree at Hood, in part, because of its unique partnership with FCPS. “Attending Hood College has helped me to connect and collaborate with other FCPS educators across the county. I believe that my time at Hood will help me in my career because of the connections I have been able to make with FCPS leaders and administrators.” To learn more about Shabana’s research, please visit the Hood College website.

Visit the GradImpact Feature Gallery to learn more about the amazing, innovative research being done by graduate students and alumni across the world.

Photo Credit: Hood College Marketing Team

CGS Employer Roundtable member, Dr. Lisa Amini, is at the cutting edge of advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). She currently serves as director of IBM Research Cambridge, home to the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab and IBM’s AI Horizons Network.

In her more than 25 years at IBM Research, Dr. Amini has held a number of positions, including her current role as director of AI scaling and automation, and former roles as the director of knowledge & reasoning research in the Cognitive Computing group at IBM’s TJ Watson Research Center, founding director of IBM Research Ireland, and the first woman lab director for an IBM Research Global Lab. Dr. Amini earned her PhD in computer science from Columbia University.

We sat down with Lisa to talk about the role of graduate education in preparing researchers to solve the problems of the future.

As an employer, what do you see as the value of hiring people with advanced degrees?

We value advanced degrees, because they help to build deep expertise in relevant areas such as Artificial Intelligence or mathematics, and to tackle problems leveraging scientific methodologies. An IBM researcher strives to advance science or to envision the future of technology, and then work towards creating that future. Accomplishing this requires two things. One is deep expertise in their chosen field, along with sufficient breadth in related areas, for a broader context.  That depth and breadth of expertise requires advanced courses and research project experiences available in graduate school.

The second is that working at IBM Research requires leveraging scientific principles and methods, to bring rigor and theoretical underpinnings to our research. Working at the forefront of science and technology, requires tackling problems that are not initially well-posed. Much of a researcher’s job is in formulating challenges as more well-defined problems, which can then be tackled with principled approaches. These skills are usually developed and refined through graduate work. When we’re hiring people with PhDs, we look at their coursework and also their research results. We want to hire people who can demonstrate their ability to formulate impactful problems, generate new ideas, and communicate their research to peers in the scientific community, for example through papers and presentations in top-tier conferences and journals.

Your company does a lot of work to address complex societal challenges. Could you tell us about one or two of those initiatives and your role in them?

I'll start with one of the biggest projects I took on personally to tackle complex societal challenges: the Smarter Cities Initiative. In 2003, I had started researching capabilities to analyze streams of data and extract patterns and insights as the data streams were being generated. We were inventing scalable stream mining systems and machine learning algorithms to handle what we saw as a growing tide of data that would be continuously generated from large numbers of sensors and devices.

In 2009-2010, I was asked to start a new research lab in Ireland to extend and leverage these ideas and technologies for building smarter cities and utilities, such as energy, water and transportation. This was an exciting initiative because at that time, much of the machine learning research on very large data leveraged synthetic data. Large, real-world data sets were not widely available in academic settings. It was also exciting because there were huge efficiencies and societal benefits to be gained by improving these systems. This enabled us to engage with organizations seeking to deploy smarter transportation systems, transportation grids, water networks, and large energy grids.

We were able to take our expertise in stream processing, machine learning, optimization and control theory, and apply it to real-world challenges. Our goal was to help people run a more efficient city by providing better technology to those managing city operations or utilities. It was also exciting because we were building a new research lab from the ground up. It was a compelling mission, and we were one of the few labs getting that magnitude of data and access to address real problems.

One of the more recent projects you've probably seen us talking about is our work in AI that drives data-driven discovery using generative AI approaches. This is one of the areas we are tackling as part of our AI Horizons Network (AIHN) of university partners. You often see this research in terms of the future of materials, molecular discovery, or medicine. This is such a large and challenging space with huge potential for societal impact, it is important for us to create communities of discovery to enable better science, better collaboration and sharing, and better ability to reproduce and build upon research results across those communities of discovery.

This also ties back to the initiative I lead within IBM Research, the automation of AI. By automating the processes of AI model creation and operations, such as, feature engineering, machine learning (ML) model building, and ongoing ML lifecycle management, we hope to bring AI systems with better repeatability, transparency, fairness, and scalability to these problems. This is because the AI automation algorithms seek to bring best of breed algorithms and techniques to ML tasks and pipelines. And I hope that these capabilities will be one of the foundations for these communities of discovery we see emerging.

What advice do you have for students, particularly women in STEM thinking about graduate school?

If you want to get an advanced degree, do it in on a topic you're deeply passionate about. The work is not easy, and there will be times when you're struggling to meet the demands. So, you really need that passion to keep going. If you finish your undergraduate degree and aren’t sure which fields or problems you should bring your passions to, consider taking time to work in the industry and then decide when you are ready to pursue an advanced degree. I actually worked industry for a while before returning to grad school for my doctoral degree.

I would also say not to worry if your path isn’t linear. You may start off in a particular area and find something else you enjoy more. It's not like you lose that knowledge or experience. I’ve heard people say things like, “I’m already a year into my program, I can’t change tracks, because I will lose the time I’ve already invested.” In my opinion, graduate school is the time to experiment and learn, and every new thing you learn helps you to build your own personal body of knowledge. You will be faced with other pivots throughout your career, so all these little shards of evidence help you to reason better and to find your space.

The last point is that regardless of your field of study, you should learn data-driven approaches, techniques, and tools. We see more people pursuing fields such as finance, economics, social science and others, while also learning machine learning and data science methods and tools. Using grad school to learn these techniques early will enable you to bring data-driven grounding to your research in any domain, throughout your career.

Washington, DC — New data from the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) on graduate enrollments and degrees demonstrate the continued demand for graduate education in the U.S. According to a CGS report released today, both graduate applications (7.3%) and first-time graduate enrollment (1.8%) increased overall for the Fall 2020 semester, welcome news during the disruptive COVID-19 pandemic. While international graduate first-time enrollment declined 37.4%, domestic enrollment grew 12.9% — growth driven, in part, by increases in traditionally underrepresented students. First-time, part-time graduate enrollment increased by 13.5%. These data are part of the latest CGS/GRE Graduate Enrollment & Degrees: 2010-2020 report.

“Graduate schools had to pivot quickly as the pandemic disrupted traditional modes of instruction, increasing part-time, virtual, and hybrid learning options,” said CGS President Suzanne Ortega. “To see continued growth in first-time enrollment rates during a global pandemic shows confidence in the value of graduate education and the importance of increased flexibility in delivery methods.”

Ortega added that an increase in flexible learning options has supported diversity. “It’s striking that 43.4% of graduate students are enrolled part-time and these students are more likely to be women and students from traditionally underrepresented groups. We’ve long believed that improved access would further diversify the graduate student body, and these data provide supporting evidence.”

Between Fall 2019 and Fall 2020, first-time enrollment among underrepresented minorities grew at a healthy pace. First-time graduate enrollment of American Indian/Alaska Native students increased 8.8%, with corresponding increases of 16.0% for Black/African American students and 20.4% for Latinx students. While this growth is encouraging, Black/African American students constitute 12.8% of U.S. citizens and permanent resident graduate students overall, and remain considerably underrepresented in physical and earth sciences (3.8%), engineering (6.2%), and biological and agricultural sciences (6.6%). Similarly, Latinx students constitute 12.0% of U.S. citizens and permanent resident graduate students, and remain considerably underrepresented in mathematics and computer sciences (9.9%) and physical and earth sciences (10.4%).

Institutions responding to the CGS/GRE Survey of Graduate Enrollment & Degrees for Fall 2020 enrolled more than 1.7 million graduate students. Nearly three quarters (72.9%) of total graduate enrollment was in master’s programs. Over one million of those graduate students, or 59.7%, were women. Education (63.8%), business (53.0%), and health sciences (43.0%) continue to be the three largest broad fields of study and the fields with the largest proportions of part-time graduate students.

About the report

Graduate Enrollment and Degrees: 2010 to 2020 presents the findings of an annual survey of U.S. graduate schools, co-sponsored by CGS and the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) Board. It is the only annual national survey that collects data on graduate enrollment by all fields of study and is the only source of national data on graduate applications by broad field of study. The report includes responses from 558 institutions and presents statistics on graduate applications and enrollment for Fall 2020, degrees conferred in 2019-20, and trend data for one-, five- and ten-year periods.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

 Contact: Katherine Hazelrigg (202) 461-3888 / khazelrigg@cgs.nche.edu

Washington, DC — Today the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) announced a cooperative agreement with the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF# 2105723) to lead the Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) Innovation Acceleration Hub, which is designed to foster learning and collaboration among awardees of NSF’s IGE program and the broader STEM graduate education community. The Hub aims to amplify the impact of the NSF IGE grantees’ projects by providing mechanisms to support creative, widespread, and sustainable change across U.S. graduate institutions.

Over the five-year project, CGS will work with IGE grantees to design Hub activities, develop strategies for greater visibility for the grantees’ work, and engage a broader audience of stakeholders. By creating opportunities for IGE project teams to communicate regularly, the IGE Innovation Acceleration Hub will provide a platform for participants to share lessons learned, promoting scalable, successful practices within and across grantee institutions. Increasing the number and competitiveness of proposals from historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), other minority-serving institutions (MSIs), and other institutions serving underrepresented populations will be a core component of the project.

“The goals of NSF’s Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) program are closely aligned with CGS’s core mission of advancing master’s and doctoral education and research, and we’re well positioned to leverage our role as a membership organization to broaden awareness for the wonderfully innovative work developed by IGE awardees,” said Suzanne Ortega, president of the Council of Graduate Schools. “We’re dedicated to facilitating the development and implementation of bold, transformative approaches to STEM graduate education training.”

The range of Hub activities will include assessment of needs and interests among Hub participants, the development of a dedicated website, workshops, and a range of activities that engage disciplinary societies and other organizations with a strong commitment to graduate education. An external evaluation will help CGS to continuously refine Hub activities to support participants’ needs and advance the goals of the IGE program.

“This cooperative agreement with the Council of Graduate Schools will accelerate national innovation in graduate education in STEM and broaden participation in the IGE program,” said Sylvia Butterfield, acting assistant director for NSF's Education and Human Resources Directorate.  “The IGE Innovation Acceleration Hub will strengthen and expand the community of researchers, educators and administrative leaders engaged in identifying and implementing evidence-based best practices in graduate education.”

The Hub Advisory Committee members include:

• Lisa Amini, Director, IBM Research Cambridge; Member, CGS Employer Roundtable
• David Asai, Senior Director, Science Education, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)
• Lorelle Espinosa, Program Director, DEI in STEM Education, The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
• Norman Fortenberry, Executive Director, American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE)
• Cynthia Fuhrmann, Assistant Dean of Career and Professional Development, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, UMASS Medical School; Principal Investigator, pd|hub
• LaTrease Garrison, Senior Vice President, Education and Membership, American Chemical Society
• Ann Quiroz Gates, Vice Provost, Faculty Affairs and Director, CAHSI INCLUDES Alliance, University of Texas at El Paso
• Juan Gonzalez, Dean of the Graduate School, University of Texas at Dallas
• Clay Gloster, Vice Provost of Graduate Research and Dean of the Graduate College, North Carolina A&T State University
• Sara Hernández, Associate Dean, Inclusion and Student Engagement, Cornell University; Chair, CGS Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Committee
• Maureen Hoyler, President, Council of Opportunity in Education (COE)
• David Kieda, Dean of the Graduate School, University of Utah
• Christine Ortiz, Morris Cohen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, MIT; Founder, Social Entrepreneur, Station1
• Michelle Penn-Marshall, Vice President for Research and Associate Provost, Hampton University
• Talitha Washington, Director, Atlanta University Center Consortium (AUCC) Data Science Initiative

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CGS summer intern Kay Gomes Saul chose the New York City campus of Pace University for her undergraduate education because she thought it would offer her a lot of opportunities. She also wanted to stay in a major metropolitan city. Saul spent the majority of her childhood in South America, moving to New York during high school, and she feared the discrimination she could face if she moved to a less diverse city.

Double majoring in English and sociology/anthropology, she planned to attend graduate school to earn a PhD in either sociology or anthropology, but her plans were upended. “I was diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease called Keratoconus,” said Saul. “So, I was slowly going blind during undergrad, and I eventually went completely blind at the start of my junior year. I was fortunate to have two corneal transplants, and I started to think about medical school as an option, but I realized it was not the right fit for me.”

After interning at a few non-profits, Saul received a job offer in the private sector right before graduation. She worked with several small businesses and started to notice a significant lack of leadership. “I was motivated basically by having really bad bosses. I realized how many small business owners were looking for direction. A lot of them were first-generation entrepreneurs from immigrant populations, and I saw an opportunity to help guide them with strategy and project management,” said Saul. “The lack of empathy in leadership started to get to me.”

Saul began working for a business that implemented upward evaluations. This meant that the 10-person team she managed had the opportunity to give her feedback. “It was an interesting experience. I scored pretty low on EQ, and I realized that I was contributing to the same problem I had identified in my own managers. I didn't have a mentor in the workplace to teach me how to be a more empathetic leader. I started reading books on leadership, took a ‘leading with EQ’ course, and really invested in being a better manager and leader. The curiosity grew and inspired me to pursue an MBA. I chose the University of Illinois – Gies College of Business because of their mission to democratize graduate education and make MBAs more accessible.” From Saul’s perspective, being an expert in a field is very different than leading people in that field. “It's like the difference between knowing something and teaching something. Leadership is all encompassing; it's teaching and learning to relate to others. It's also about being vulnerable and willing to put the needs of your employees ahead of your own.”

When Saul graduates with her MBA from the Gies MBA program, she hopes to work for a larger company. “I want to help corporations expand internationally in ways that are socially and environmentally sustainable. There are enormous opportunities in other countries, but business expansion should avoid exploitation of the people and the land at all costs.”

Saul says her best advice for prospective graduate students is to find a mentor you can relate to, someone who you see aspects of yourself in. “I went through undergrad and most of my career without that, and I think about how my life would be different if I’d taken the opportunity to find a mentor who I saw myself in. I’m multiracial, multicultural, and an immigrant and I felt I was really different from everyone else for a long time. I had a very complex racial identity, and I didn't know where I fit. If you see someone you admire, tell them, and don’t be afraid to ask for guidance.”

In addition to pursuing her MBA and working, Saul is a competitive power lifter. She’s faced additional health challenges in recent years and says she’s learned lessons from being a competitive athlete that she’s applied to her work and her studies. “Part of my recovery was rebuilding strength, which led me to power lifting. My coach is an extraordinary leader, and he’s been very influential. Watching his leadership in action helped lead me to pursue my MBA and has helped me learn to set small, achievable goals.”

Saul credits her ability to self-motivate with getting her though all the adversity and obstacles she’s faced. “When you realize tomorrow isn’t promised, you feel this internal drive to do more and be better. I look forward to the day when I feel content.” Until then, Saul will be finishing her MBA, working part time, serving as a board member of UIUC’s Students Advising Graduate Education (SAGE) and as a course assistant (CA) for the MBA program, volunteering, and she hopes to be an MBA-program mentor next spring. “From my perspective, leading doesn't have anything to do with being the boss.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Contact: Katherine Hazelrigg, CGS: (202) 461-3888 / khazelrigg@cgs.nche.edu

Washington, DC — The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) has announced that Lisa Tedesco, currently vice provost for academic affairs – graduate studies and dean of the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies at Emory University, has been named the CGS Dean-in-Residence for 2021-2022.  Tedesco, a long-time advocate for graduate education, has served as a member of the boards of CGS and the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) and as president of the Association of American Universities (AAU) Association of Graduate Schools.

CGS established the Dean-in-Residence program to incorporate a campus-based perspective across the Council’s projects and initiatives. The program offers an opportunity for graduate deans and associate or assistant deans at member institutions to spend an academic year at CGS’s headquarters in Washington, DC. Each year the CGS president selects one applicant to pursue projects aligned with the dean’s interests and the Council’s needs.

Tedesco will help the Council on projects connecting best practices for mentoring and mental health/well-being. 

“Lisa has spent her academic career dedicated to building environments where students can do their best work, supporting student mental health and well-being, creating opportunities for interdisciplinary study and professional development, and ensuring equitable access to quality graduate education,” said CGS President Suzanne T. Ortega. “Her expertise in health promotion and wellness will help CGS members better understand the power of high-quality mentoring, in addressing the value of wellbeing for student success.”

In accepting the appointment, Tedesco expressed her readiness to join the CGS team. “I’m so looking forward to this opportunity. Much of my academic career has focused on collaboration across teams. The dean-in-residence role will allow me to work on connecting and expanding best practices representing the commitments and values of CGS and the graduate communities served by our leadership. The Council is an essential resource for anyone interested in graduate education, and I look forward to contributing to its mission.”

Tedesco received her doctorate in educational psychology from the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. Before her time at Emory, she was a professor and associate dean in the School of Dentistry at the University of Michigan (UM) and also served as UM’s Vice President and Secretary and as Interim Provost. She will step down from her current role at the end of August; her Dean-in-Residence position begins on Oct. 1.

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As CGS summer intern Lydia Gandy-Fastovich was finishing her bachelor’s degree in human development at the University of California, Davis, she knew she wanted to do something in education. “I was really interested in education and how it’s a springboard for people to expand opportunities. In the K-12 setting, it’s also something that everyone in the U.S. experiences and it’s a very impactful time. But, teaching didn’t feel like a future career for me,” said Gandy-Fastovich. So, she worked in the human resources office at a school district and learned the business side of education and how the administration functions, but she didn’t feel like she was making an impact.

After applying to a few different graduate programs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Gandy-Fastovich settled on the educational leadership and policy analysis doctoral program. She had been drawn to education policy but had no experience in it.  She says, “The ELPA program was one I felt very connected to, and it had a social justice oriented focus that I thought would be important for my training.”

In the early stages of her dissertation research, Gandy-Fastovich will focus on K-12 education, specifically working with parents who have children receiving special education in public K-12 schools. Of particular interest to her is working with parents of color and parents who aren’t native English speakers to learn more about their experiences navigating the system. According to Gandy-Fastovich, those communities are often left out, and data show there’s a disproportionate number of students of color in special education classes, especially Black boys. “I’m trying to unpack that a little bit. There’s federal law about special education that requires a parent be involved and provide a more holistic view of the child. I wonder if there are inconsistencies or gaps in how some parents are included that hinders that holistic view. A child not doing well in school doesn’t necessarily mean they need special education.”

While unclear as to what comes after her doctorate, Gandy-Fastovich has enjoyed working in higher education and could see herself following the higher education administration path, but she’s also enjoyed learning about the public policy and government affairs side of higher education during her time at CGS. “Understanding how advocacy happens, and all the ways you have to be plugged into what’s happening in the public policy arena has been eye opening. I’m learning how to translate complex policy so that it’s more accessible to a broad audience, and I’ve found that to be very exciting and really important work.”

Along the way, Gandy-Fastovich’s been fortunate to have good mentors. As an undergraduate, she had a graduate student mentor who was instrumental in helping her feel confident that graduate school was an option. For the last three years, she’s worked in the UW-Madison Graduate School’s Office of Professional Development. “I don’t know where I’d be if I hadn’t had that job opportunity and met my two supervisors, Eileen Callahan and Amy Fruchtman,” said Gandy-Fastovich. “The focus was always on us as students first, and then leveraging what we learned to build stronger professional development opportunities for graduate students. I actually knew a bit about CGS before my internship, because we used the CGS PhD Career Pathways data to determine programming and develop resources.”

Gandy-Fastovich’s advice to prospective graduate students is simple: connect with graduate students and mentors and learn as much as you can from them. “I’ve found that graduate students really appreciate the opportunity to talk about their work, so if you reach out to someone, they’ll generally be excited to talk to you.” Gandy-Fastovich also recognizes that people’s experiences and levels of comfort vary and believes the hidden curriculum is a challenge for many. “My family always assumed I would go to college; that was never a question. But, that’s not everyone’s experience and keeping perspective is so important.”