FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

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

Washington, DC —Today the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) announced that Lauren Inouye has been named the Council’s vice president for public policy and government affairs. Her tenure at CGS begins May 1, 2018. She succeeds Beth Buehlmann, who had served in the role since 2013.

Inouye comes to CGS from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), where she was the director of government affairs. In her prior role, Inouye served as AACN’s primary liaison to Congress on workforce, research, higher education, and practice issues. She also led their University Government Relations Collaborative, working to bolster unified advocacy on issues impacting nursing schools, and developed their Principles for Higher Education Act reauthorization.

CGS President Suzanne T. Ortega commented, “Lauren Inouye has a deep understanding of the contributions of graduate institutions to our country and workforce and is equally attune to the challenges faced by institutions of higher education. CGS members will benefit from her experience and knowledge as the organization continues to advance the graduate education agenda in Washington.”

In accepting the appointment, Inouye emphasized the role of elevating CGS’s voice in the federal sphere. “I look forward to helping CGS members speak with a powerful and unified voice for graduate education,” Inouye said. “I value the opportunity to use my skills as a leader, collaborator, and coalition builder while developing a policy agenda that moves our country forward.”

Inouye holds a Master’s in Public Policy from Georgetown University and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Michigan. Prior to her public policy work, Inouye served as a registered nurse in the medical intensive care unit at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.

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After spending five years in the Marine Corps, including two deployments in Iraq and working as a mechanic on AV8B II jets, Jessica Phillips was eligible for the G.I. Bill to pay for higher education. She was working as a ranger at Kerr Lake State Recreation Area in North Carolina and at least an hour drive from a major university. Phillips discovered an online program at North Carolina State University and went on to earn her Professional Master’s Degree in parks, recreation, tourism, and sports management.

Phillips’s love of the outdoors started during childhood. After leaving the Marines, she knew she needed to find a job that would provide variety and wouldn’t require sitting at a desk all day. “In the Marine Corps, I was out on a flight deck and an open squadron, and I learned that I was somebody who didn’t want to work in an office,” she said. “I would have slowly died.” Phillips believed her skill sets would be a good match for a park ranger, and she has taken her work as a ranger to the next level. While at Kerr Lake she developed a regular “Ask a Ranger” column for the local newspaper and programming for the local radio station.

In 2014, Phillips moved to Umstead State Park, where she has developed an “Ask a Ranger” blog on the website, started podcasts by recording interviews with her colleagues, and created photo exhibits to celebrate the state parks’ centennial. Ultimately, Phillips wants everyone to appreciate all the parks have to offer. “I thought that by bringing the parks to (the people), we might then bring them to the parks.” To learn more about Jessica’s work visit the North Carolina State University website.

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Photo Credit: Becky Kirkland, NC State University

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 JoAnn Canales, founding dean of the College of Graduate Studies and professor in the College of Education and Human Development at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, has been named the CGS Dean-in-Residence for the 2018-19 academic year. Dr. Canales brings to the post significant experience leading graduate education, including launching a professional development program specifically for graduate students. Canales will join CGS on August 1.

The CGS Dean-in-Residence program was created to infuse a campus-based perspective and vision across a variety of the Council’s programs and initiatives. The Dean-in-Residence works on multiple projects aligned with his or her interests and the Council’s needs.

“Dr. Canales has spent her academic career ensuring a diverse community of scholars has access to quality graduate education,” said CGS President Suzanne T. Ortega. “Her expertise in assessment and facilitating the development of assessment skills will also greatly benefit CGS and its members.”

In accepting the appointment, Canales remarked, “I am honored to have been afforded the privilege of working with the graduate education enterprise at the national level.  I look forward to working with the very talented and dedicated team at the Council of Graduate Schools and its partners to enhance the initiatives of our colleagues.”

Dr. Canales holds a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Bilingual Education from The University of Texas at Austin. She began her academic career as an assistant professor in the College of Education at the University of North Texas. In 2002-2003 she was recognized as a fellow in the American Council on Education Leadership Training Program. As founding Dean of the College of Graduate Studies and Professor in the College of Education and Human Development at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, Canales established the AC & Ende Canales Si Se Puede Scholarship.

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Juan Velasquez, a recent doctoral recipient in neuroscience at the University of Southern California, was awarded a prestigious Chateaubriand Fellowship to study how antidepressants affect fetal development during pregnancy. Somewhere between 12-18% of women experience depression at some point during the course of their pregnancy. Scientists, including Dr. Velasquez, are researching selective-serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a class of antidepressants increasingly prescribed to treat depression in pregnant women, and their effects during fetal development.

Understand the importance of Dr. Velasquez’s work requires a basic understanding of how SSRIs work. Depression is linked to the way chemicals, specifically serotonin, in your brain operate. Researchers believe that an imbalance of serotonin contributes to things like depression, anxiety, and stress. By taking SSRIs, patients alter their brain chemistry to balance levels of serotonin. One of the questions Dr. Velasquez wants to answer is whether changes in a pregnant woman’s brain chemistry can affect the fetus. How would it affect a fetus? The same way a fetus gets its nourishment among other things: through the placenta.

Early results from Dr. Velasquez’s research indicate that SSRIs do cross the placenta and affect the fetal brain, and other studies have shown that taking antidepressants during pregnancy can increase the risk of things like autism and ADHD. However, not treating depression during pregnancy is not an answer Dr. Velasquez will accept. He is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and continues to study this process to ensure the health of both the fetus and the mother. To learn more about Juan’s work visit the USC Graduate School YouTube Channel.

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Hironao Okahana, Associate Vice President, Research & Policy Analysis

A number of recent studies have drawn attention to the mental health challenges experienced by graduate students.[1] Studies note that the prevalence of mental health challenges among PhD students is higher than that of the highly-educated general population, and much higher than in the general population.[2] The most recent study published in Nature Biotechnology reported that 39% of their participants, mostly doctoral candidates, fell into the moderate-to-severe depression range,[3] while other studies reported that one in two PhD students has experienced psychological distress, and one in three is at risk of a common psychiatric disorder.[4]  Some factors known to adversely affect the mental wellness of graduate students have also been noted in CGS’s recently concluded “Doctoral Initiative on Minority Attrition and Completion (National Science Foundation grant number 1138814)” project. In that study, we found that underrepresented minority doctoral candidates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields were more likely to feel isolated from other students and worried about their mental or physical health than their peers[5].

The challenges surrounding mental wellness of master’s and doctoral students are at the forefront of the minds of many graduate deans in the CGS community. In the 2018 CGS Pressing Issues Survey[6], 63% of respondents strongly agreed or agreed that current graduate students struggle to maintain mental wellness more than students five years ago. Only 10% of respondents disagreed with the statement and none strongly disagreed. However, even with this heightened awareness about mental health challenges among graduate students, graduate deans also seem concerned that campus stakeholders may not currently be equipped to address these challenges.

Identifying Mental Health Challenges

When asked how well their institutions inform and train various campus stakeholders to recognize symptoms of mental health challenges in graduate students and in turn refer those students to appropriate support services, many graduate deans who responded expressed concern that their institutions weren’t doing enough. Notably, the results suggest that more than four out of ten graduate deans think that more can be done to inform and train graduate faculty members, faculty advisers, PIs, and dissertation/thesis chairs, as well as graduate program directors/department chairs and graduate students themselves. Only 21% of deans reported that their institutions do an excellent or good job of informing and training graduate faculty members.  About one out of ten respondents (11%) reported that they do not know if graduate students are informed or trained about symptoms of mental health issues.

However, we also learned that support services for mental health are available at institutions. In the 2017 CGS Pressing Issues Survey[7], 96% of CGS member graduate deans who responded indicated that mental health support and crisis counseling are provided either by their graduate schools and/or by other units at their institutions. Yet, the results from the 2018 survey suggest that institutions are not doing as well at informing and training graduate school stakeholders to recognize and refer students with mental health challenges to the appropriate and available resources at their campuses. This is problematic, particularly given that 70% of graduate deans in the 2018 survey felt that when provided with adequate information and training, graduate faculty members—including faculty advisers, PIs, and dissertation/thesis chairs—should be best positioned to recognize the signs and symptoms of mental health challenges and ensure that graduate students are referred to appropriate support services. Graduate schools may have a role here in better connecting graduate students with available resources through their graduate faculty members.

When she was six years old, Dafne Guevara, a doctoral candidate in musical arts at the University of Nevada, Las, Vegas, discovered her musical ability. Her mother had enrolled her in a music program to keep her off the streets of El Chorrillo, Panama, a country with the second worst income distribution in Latin America and where roughly 25% of the population lives in poverty. Guevara overcame many obstacles, including discouraging words from an elementary school teacher.

Guevara left Panama for North Carolina on a Fulbright scholarship in 2010 to study flute performance and earned her master’s degree. While pursuing her doctorate at UNLV, she decided to do something to benefit her home country and organized the first-ever flute festival at the University of Panama. Guevara began by founding a non-profit organization, Asociación Panameña de Flautistas (APAFLUT), to assist with fundraising. She applied for scholarships and grants, reached out to mentors, and held recitals to raise money to host the festival.

67 students aged 12-21 from six countries and 17 artists and instructors gathered during the summer of 2017 to see first-hand the power of music. Sponsors helped to pay the tuition and fees for many of the students. “I wanted the whole music community to see that they can do it,” Guevara said. “If you set your mind to something, you can do it.” To learn more about Dafne’s work visit the University of Nevada, Las Vegas 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: UNLV Creative Services

Last week, Nathan Kurtz left on a trip for Greenland, not exactly a frequent location for travelers and definitely not for a few months a year. But for Kurtz, Greenland and Antarctica are becoming recurrent destinations. After receiving his doctorate in atmospheric physics from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Kurtz spent several years working as a research associate for the Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Center at UMBC. His research interests have centered on sea ice and its role in the global climate system. Needless to say, becoming the project scientist for NASA’s Operation IceBridge was a dream come true.

“The Earth's polar ice covers, including the massive ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica as well as the surrounding ice-covered seas, have recently been observed to be undergoing a state of complex change,” said Kurtz. “Understanding these changes and their influence on climate using the latest in satellite and airborne remote sensing technology forms the core of my research.”

The IceBridge project and Kurtz’s work as project scientist have received quite a bit of attention recently. Time published an article in January 2018 that describes some of the data collected during a mission, and the attention from the public is welcome. This is a critical project to better understand the connections between the polar regions and the global climate system. To learn more about Nathan’s work, visit the University of Maryland, Baltimore County 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: Nathan Kurtz

Though master’s programs and degree recipients have thrived, there has been scant research on the processes by which students gain admission into master’s programs. Recognizing this gap in our understanding of master’s admissions, in 2017 CGS, with support from Educational Testing Service (ETS), embarked on a project to better grasp how graduate programs evaluated applicants’ cognitive and noncognitive attributes and reviewed application materials. Improved understanding of master’s admissions would help graduate deans and their admissions teams put transparent processes in place to better identify promising candidates for admission and avoid unfair biases.

Project Goals

In December 2018 CGS released Master’s Admissions: Transparency, Guidance, and Training, which investigated master’s degree admissions practices. Information about master’s admissions was gathered through regional focus group discussions; from surveys completed by graduate program directors and graduate deans; and from discussions during a colloquium convened in September 2018 with graduate deans, employers from business and industry, and representatives from professional associations focusing on the admissions process. The data collected from these three sources were then distilled into Master’s Admissions: Transparency, Guidance, and Training, including its key findings, practice implications and directions for future research. This report is designed to enhance our understanding of current master’s admissions processes and chart a path to their future improvement.

Press Release

In Master’s Degree Programs, Admissions Processes Prioritize Retention (Dec. 4, 2018)

Additional Materials

• Master's Admissions: How Are Application Materials Used? (Research Brief)
• The Master’s Degree Admissions Study: Your Opportunity to Shape the Future of Master’s Education (January 2018,GradEdge)
• Complete Project Background

Contact

Enyu Zhou

In collaboration with:

Our personalities – characteristics or qualities that form our character – are, in part, what make us unique individuals. Peter Marting, a doctoral candidate in animal behavior in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University, has discovered that ant colonies have unique personalities, too.

Azteca ant colonies make their homes in Cecropia trees, which provide nutrients to the ants. In exchange, the ants act as security guards – protecting trees from choking vines and leaf-eating insects – but some colonies are better protectors than others. Marting’s research reveals that ant colonies actively displaying more aggressive behaviors protect their trees more from leaf damage than more docile colonies. Why is this important? Marting wants to better understand how the personality of an ant colony can affect its symbiotic relationships and whether there are identifiable factors that determine personality.

Studying animal personalities is a relatively new field and observing animals in the wild can be extremely difficult given the challenges in observing consistent behavior in the same animal. However, the study system Marting uses allows him to revisit the same trees with the same colonies on a regular basis over the course of months and years. Marting takes his research one step further through a marriage with artistic expression. He has created interactive sculptures representing the ants and plants that blink with data collected from real ant colonies. To learn more about Peter’s work, visit the Arizona State University 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: Peter Marting

Zachary Labe, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Earth System Science at the University of California, Irvine, has become a bit of a Twitter celebrity because of his satellite data images on Arctic sea ice. Labe sees the ability to communicate his research to a broad, public audience as imperative to the success of his work. With almost 14,000 followers, Labe has demonstrated that there is a public eager to learn.

Labe’s primary research happens in Dr. Gudrun Magnusdottir’s Modeling Lab on UCI’s campus. Their focus is to better understand the crucial relationships between the circulation patters in the atmosphere and oceans and the external processes that affect them. These outside forces include things like concentration of greenhouse gases, variability from volcanic eruptions, or anomalies in the surface temperatures of the water. This research is particularly important given the accelerated rate of temperature increase in the Arctic – it’s twice what it is in the rest of the world.

“The way I see it, why should I do this science if I can’t better explain and share it with the public?” says Labe, who wrote his own algorithms for the data. “Climate change is already affecting everyone, even if they don’t realize it, and this is a perfect opportunity to communicate the science.” To learn more about Zack’s work, visit the University of California, Irvine 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: Steve Zylius / UCI