The Washington Post interviews students and education leaders about the growing demand for workplace skills that are developed through master's degree programs. 

Minneapolis and Washington, DC — The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) is pleased to name Henning Schroeder as the CGS/NSF Dean in Residence for 2013‐14. Dr. Schroeder is currently Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Education at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Schroeder will join CGS on September 1.

The Dean in Residence program was created by CGS and the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support communications between senior graduate education leaders and the NSF. In this role, Dr. Schroeder will share with CGS and NSF the insights, perspectives, and practical experience of a senior administrator at a research university, while collaborating with program officers and senior administrators across NSF to help plan future NSF programs and activities.

“I am delighted that Henning will be joining us,” said CGS President Debra W. Stewart. “His leadership and expertise will help CGS build on the strong relationships we have developed among graduate deans, the NSF, and the science and engineering community.”

In accepting the 12‐month appointment, Dr. Schroeder looks forward to advancing the NSF mission of supporting graduate students.

“I am very interested in being part of the broader national discussion on how federal agencies contribute to the support of graduate students,” said Schroeder. “In order to remain globally competitive, graduate programs in the United States may need to revisit their overall curricular structure as well as current modes of educational content delivery.”

“At the University of Minnesota, we have begun to explore incentives and disincentives of existing tuition models in the United States and abroad with the goal of identifying fiscal mechanisms that best support educational goals in graduate education,” continued Schroeder. “Although graduate programs in the U.S. are still providing the highest quality education, other countries are catching up fast. I look forward to exploring these issues further during my time as Dean‐in‐Residence.”

Dr. Schroeder assumed his current position at the University of Minnesota in 2010, and previously served as the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies at the College of Pharmacy. He holds a faculty appointment as professor in the Department of Pharmaceutics.

After receiving his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Düsseldorf, Germany, Dr. Schroeder worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Nobel laureate Ferid Murad at Stanford. His research and teaching has been recognized with numerous awards, including a Heisenberg fellowship from the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the 1997 Innovation Prize from the Martin Luther University of Halle‐Wittenberg.

Contacts:

Julia Kent, CGS: (202) 223‐3791 / jkent@cgs.nche.edu
Molly Schwartz, University of Minnesota, Graduate School: (612) 626‐3314 / haug0068@umn.edu

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CGS President Debra W. Stewart responds to an editorial in the Washington Post that supported student loan changes, but overlooked the importance of graduate education.

(Reprinted from the May 2013 issue of GradEdge)

Highlights from the 2013 CGS Pressing Issues Survey

Graduate student financial support tops the list of pressing issues for graduate deans in 2013. Recruitment, admissions, and enrollment management was the second most commonly mentioned pressing issue, and graduate program financing, dealing with budget cuts, and issues related to state economies and the national economy ranked third.

Background

Each year, CGS asks graduate deans at member institutions to identify the three most important or “pressing” issues or challenges they currently face in the annual CGS Pressing Issues Survey. The findings from the survey not only inform CGS about the concerns of graduate deans, but also help to shape sessions at the CGS Summer Workshops, Annual Meetings, and other forums. These insights also provide impetus for new best practice projects and research directions at CGS. Since 2004, this survey has been conducted annually as part of the CGS International Graduate Admissions Survey, Phase I: Applications, and through the CGS membership survey and other surveys in prior years. This year, the Pressing Issues Survey was conducted as a stand-alone online survey in order to streamline data collection.

The 2013 Pressing Issues Survey was sent to the 512 U.S. colleges and universities that were members of CGS as of January 2013. A total of 193 institutions responded to the survey, for a response rate of 38%. Responding institutions included 109 doctoral institutions, 69 master’s-focused institutions, and 15 institutions classified as baccalaureate or specialized in the 2010 basic Carnegie Classifications. Fifty-six private, not-for-profit institutions responded to the Pressing Issues Survey, along with 137 public institutions. By geographic region, 57 of the responding institutions were in the Midwest, 38 were in the Northeast, 26 in the West, and 72 in the South. Responses to the Pressing Issues Survey were coded into broad categories. Since respondents were able to contribute up to three pressing issues, the percentages sum to more than 100%.

Pressing Issues in 2013

The top pressing issue identified by more than half (54%) of all graduate deans was graduate student financial support (see Table 1). This category includes health insurance for graduate students, as well as direct support through assistantships, fellowships, etc. Respondents from master’s and specialized institutions mentioned graduate student financial support as a concern more often than graduate deans from doctoral institutions (57% vs. 52%), and respondents from public institutions indicated this pressing issue more frequently than those at private, not-for-profit institutions (59% vs. 43%).

Table 1.

Source:  2013 CGS Pressing Issues Survey

Recruitment, admissions, and enrollment management was the second most commonly mentioned pressing issue, with nearly half (45%) of all respondents indicating this as a concern. Within this category, respondents mentioned trying to increase current enrollment levels, managing declining graduate enrollment, competing for prospective graduate students, as well as handling challenges in attracting a diverse applicant pool, and recruiting quality graduate students, among other concerns. Graduate deans from master’s and specialized institutions indicated that recruitment, admissions, and enrollment management was a concern more frequently than those from doctoral institutions (48% vs. 42%). Respondents from public institutions and private, not-for-profit institutions mentioned this issue at approximately the same frequency (45% vs. 43%).

Graduate program financing, dealing with budget cuts, and issues related to state economies and the national economy ranked third (33%) among the most pressing issues of graduate deans in 2013. This category also includes planning for the consequences resulting from sequestration, attaining a balanced financial portfolio to distribute limited resources across the institution, developing sustainable funding streams, and providing high-quality graduate education with limited resources. Respondents from master’s and specialized institutions mentioned this issue more frequently than graduate deans from doctoral institutions (36% vs. 30%), and public institutions raised this concern more often than private, not-for-profit institutions (34% vs. 30%).

Student support and services and general management and administration issues tied as the fourth most pressing issue this year (16%). The student support and services category includes advising and mentoring, services for international students, mental health counseling, among other concerns. Respondents from doctoral institutions more frequently mentioned both issues (i.e., general management and administration and student support and services) than graduate deans from master’s and specialized institutions (17% vs. 14%). Respondents from public institutions indicated that general management issues were a pressing issue more often than those at private, not-for-profit institutions (18% vs. 11%); however, respondents from private, not-for-profit institutions mentioned student support and service issues more often than those at public institutions (27% vs. 12%).

In response to the increasing percentage of respondents raising concerns about specific topics, this year four new pressing issue categories were split out from existing categories: online education/massive open online courses (MOOCs); graduate-to-career transitions; underrepresented students; and research ethics. Previously, graduate-to-career transitions was grouped with the student support and services category, online education/MOOCs was part of the program delivery category (which was renamed this year to program structure), and underrepresented students and research ethics were part of multiple categories. Online education/MOOCs (15%) include the delivery of courses, issues of credits, and offering courses to students in different states. The issue of online education was essentially equally represented among all respondent categories.

The percentage of respondents who mentioned the remaining pressing issues are shown in Table 1. All issues related to program quality; the evaluation, assessment, or review of graduate programs; accreditation; and student learning outcomes were grouped together as program quality, evaluation, assessment, and review (13%). The category of leadership and advocacy (13%) includes responses related to promoting graduate education and communicating the value of graduate education to internal and external stakeholders, among other related issues. Issues pertaining to retention, completion, attrition, and time-to-degree (12%) are also grouped together, as are responses related to developing or eliminating programs (12%). The category of faculty and staff issues (11%) primarily includes responses about faculty workloads and salaries. Responses related to program structure, which in previous years was called program delivery, include concerns about interdisciplinary programs, including the creation and maintenance of joint and dual programs (9%). Issues related to job placement, preparing students for careers outside of academe, tracking of career outcomes of graduates, and preparation of future faculty were grouped in the graduate-to-career transitions category (5%). Underrepresented student issues included increasing the diversity of student and faculty populations through recruitment and retention efforts, mentoring of underrepresented students, and creating a culture of diversity and inclusiveness on campuses (4%). Finally, the category of research ethics included plagiarism, research integrity, and communicating research standards to international students (4%).

Pressing Issues by Geographic Region

Graduate student financial support was the top pressing issue identified by graduate deans at institutions located across all regions of the United States except the Northeast (where this issue ranked second), and ranged from 56% in the Midwest to 58% in the West (see Table 2). Recruitment, admissions, and enrollment management was the second most pressing issue for institutions in the Midwest (54%), South (38%) and West (38%); however, it was the top pressing issue for institutions in the Northeast (47%). Graduate program financing/budget/economy was the third most pressing issue for respondents from all regions. Additionally, respondents from the Northeast more frequently mentioned issues related to student support and services (26%) than respondents in other regions of the United States.

Table 2.

Source:  2013 CGS Pressing Issues Survey

Historical Comparison of Pressing Issues

Two broad topics, in particular, have been mentioned frequently by graduate deans since 2008: graduate student financial support and recruitment, admissions, and enrollment management (see Figure 1). For the past three years, these have been among the two most pressing issues faced by graduate deans. Graduate deans have also frequently mentioned over the past four years issues related to graduate program financing and budget cuts, including the ongoing effects of the economic recession, and most recently sequestration. Student support and services issues have also been cited as concerns in the last three years. Interestingly, this concern has remained a top pressing issue despite the fact that concerns regarding graduate-to-career transitions were split from this category in this year’s analysis.

Figure 1.

Conclusion

The results of this year’s Pressing Issues Survey reveal that the majority of graduate deans view graduate student financial support as their top concern, as they face issues related to providing competitive aid packages, student debt, and increased pressure to ensure the affordability of graduate education. They also remain concerned about the costs associated with recruiting applicants. In particular, ten percent of respondents in this category mentioned recruitment issues pertaining to underrepresented students. Graduate deans also indicated continued pressures to increase enrollment during an economic downturn. Finally, the results reveal graduate deans’ concerns about the future of federal funding amidst sequestration and budgetary cuts. At the heart of these concerns is the ability to continue to provide high-quality education and research experiences to equip graduate students with the knowledge and tools necessary to enter a globally competitive market.

By Jeannette Remington, Program Manager; Leila Gonazles, Manager of Surveys and Information Services and Jeff Allum, Director, Research and Policy Analysis, Council of Graduate Schools

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