For Immediate Release

Contacts:

Julia Kent, Council of Graduate Schools

(202) 461-3874 | jkent@cgs.nche.edu

Tom Ewing, ETS

(609) 683-2803 | tewing@ets.org

Washington, DC – Today the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) and the Educational Testing Service (ETS) presented Cornell University with this year’s ETS/CGS Award for Innovation in Promoting Success in Graduate Education: From Admission through Completion. Dr. Barbara Knuth, senior vice provost and dean of the Graduate School, accepted the co-sponsored award on Cornell’s behalf during the 56^th Annual Meeting of the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS).

The award recognizes promising, innovative proposals to enhance student success and degree completion at the master’s or doctoral levels while promoting inclusiveness. The winning institution is selected on the strength of its proposal to meet the award’s goals and to serve as a model for other schools. The winner receives a two-year, $20,000 matching grant.

Through the project: Innovative Inclusion Interventions (I3): Promoting Graduate Student Success through Advancements in the Climate of Graduate Education Cornell University intends to promote graduate student success and a more inclusive climate through four innovative interventions supporting the academic and social engagement of graduate students across identities. These interventions include: a summer success symposium, an interactive theatre project, an intergroup dialogue project immersion program, and an inclusive teaching institute for graduate students and postdocs.

Knuth commented, “Our goal is to achieve a campus climate in which all graduate students feel valued and accepted by faculty and peers, and where incidents of bias are minimized. This recognition from ETS and CGS will help us to provide an environment in which all members of our graduate community understand and value the diverse identities, experiences, and perspectives present on our campus.  I am honored to accept this award on behalf of my Graduate School colleagues and our partners across many offices at Cornell.”

“The practices showcased by this award competition greatly benefit the graduate education community, and we especially want to thank ETS, whose support makes possible this novel way to promote best practices among the graduate community.” said CGS President Suzanne T. Ortega.

“Pursuing and completing master’s or doctoral level study is challenging, and a program such as this that provides both academic and social engagement goes a long way to ensuring higher levels of student success,” said David G. Payne, Vice President and COO of ETS’s Higher Education Division. “ETS congratulates Cornell University for their innovative and inclusive approach.”

This year, the selection committee chose one institution to be named as Honorable Mention: North Carolina State University for a project titled GradPath: A Graduate Student Success App. Led by Maureen Grasso, dean of the Graduate School, this project’s aim is to develop a mobile-friendly tool to give graduate students timely access to critical academic data and professional development information in real time. 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Julia Kent (202) 461-3874 / jkent@cgs.nche.edu

Washington, DC – The Board of Directors of the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) has announced that Dr. Karen DePauw, vice president and dean for graduate education at Virginia Tech University, is the 2016 Winner of the Debra W. Stewart Award for Outstanding Leadership in Graduate Education. The awards ceremony was held during the CGS 56th Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.

The award was created by the CGS Board of Directors to recognize outstanding leadership in graduate education, and particularly those leadership qualities exemplified by the Council’s fifth President, Debra W. Stewart. The selection committee gives consideration to nominees with a strong reputation for ethics and integrity, a history of active participation in the graduate community, and a record of strategic vision and actions resulting in meaningful impacts. Areas of special consideration include evidence-based innovation, program development, diversity and inclusion, student learning and career outcomes, personnel management, policy advocacy in support of graduate education and research, and fiscal responsibility.

Dr. DePauw becomes the award’s first recipient for her invaluable contributions to the Virginia Tech graduate community. Her many accomplishments include: success in building a strong, diverse graduate community in multiple locations in Virginia; establishment of the national award-winning, Innovate Graduate Life Center; creation of the signature academic initiative: Transformative Graduate Education; initiation of 14 unique interdisciplinary graduate education programs; and promotion of work-life management programs that foster thriving (not surviving) during graduate studies.

“We applaud the Council of Graduate Schools’ recognition of Dr. DePauw’s many contributions to graduate education,” said Virginia Tech President Tim Sands.  “Her work has significantly advanced the quality of our student’s experience, and her dedication to the wellbeing of our graduate community exemplifies the Virginia Tech spirit of service.”

“Karen DePauw’s leadership has contributed greatly to the success of graduate students at her institution and to the enterprise of graduate education worldwide,” said Dr. M.J.T. Smith, dean of the Graduate School at Purdue University and chair of the Council’s Board of Directors. “Dr. DePauw’s innovative use of technology and life-long commitment to building a diverse and inclusive graduate community sets a standard of leadership for deans of graduate education across the globe.”

Nominees for the award must be a current senior, graduate dean at a CGS member institution (Regular or Associate) and cannot be an active member of the CGS Board of Directors. Nominations are made by CGS member institutions and are reviewed by a selection committee of former graduate deans in the CGS community. The winner receives a $4,000 prize to support continuing innovations at the awardee’s institution.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Julia Kent (202) 461-3874 / jkent@cgs.nche.edu

Washington, DC – The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) has awarded the 2016 Gustave O. Arlt Award in the Humanities to Dr. Barlow J. Elmore, assistant professor of environmental history at The Ohio State University. The awards ceremony was held during the CGS 56th Annual Meeting.

The Arlt Award is given annually to a young scholar-teacher who has written a book deemed to have made an outstanding contribution to scholarship in the humanities. Dr. Elmore becomes the award’s 46^th recipient for his book, Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism (W.W. Norton, 2014). He received his PhD in history from the University of Virginia in 2012.

Citizen Coke chronicles the making of what Dr. Elmore calls “Coca-Cola capitalism,” a system for making money deployed by many twentieth-century businesses, one that involved scavenging on natural capital stockpiles generated by vertically integrated industrial empires, agribusinesses, and government-run utilities. Dr. Elmore argues that Coca-Cola capitalism ultimately weighed heavily on host communities, especially in regions where the company was able to capture precious water resources in arid regions of the country. The book has been praised in media outlets ranging from The Wall Street Journal to Times Higher Ed.

“The Arlt Award has a long and prestigious history of recognizing exceptional humanities scholarship generated by early-career humanities faculty,” commented Dr. Suzanne Ortega, president of the Council of Graduate Schools. “The Council of Graduate Schools is delighted to recognize Dr. Elmore for his important contributions to the field of History.”

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 History. The winner receives a $1,000 honorarium, a certificate, and travel to the awards ceremony.

For Immediate Release

(Updated February 1, 2017)

Contacts:

Julia Kent, Council of Graduate Schools

(202) 461-3874 | jkent@cgs.nche.edu

Beth Dempsey, ProQuest

(248) 349-7810 | beth.dempsey@proquest.com

Awards recognize outstanding research by graduates in the fields of Mathematics, Physical Sciences, and Engineering & Social Sciences

Washington, DC – The Council of Graduate Schools / ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Awards, the nation’s most prestigious honors for doctoral dissertations, were presented to Scott Cushing and Michael Muthukrishna at an awards ceremony during the Council’s 56th Annual Meeting. Dr. Cushing completed his PhD in 2015 at West Virginia University in Physics, and Dr. Muthukrishna received his PhD in 2015 from the University of British Columbia in Psychology.

Bestowed annually since 1982, the awards recognize recent doctoral recipients who have already made unusually significant and original contributions to their fields. ProQuest, an international leader in dissertation archiving, discovery, and access, 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, a $2,000 honorarium, and funds for travel to the awards ceremony.

“The Distinguished Dissertation Awards demonstrate the dramatic impact young scholars have on their fields,” said CGS President Suzanne T. Ortega. “It’s a testament to the vitality and value of graduate education when recently minted PhDs contribute and expand upon knowledge to raise the level of understanding in their fields.”

Austin McLean, director, ProQuest Scholarly Communication and Dissertations Publishing said, “ProQuest is passionate about the impact dissertations make in advancing both research and learning through their fresh insights and innovative thinking. Dr. Cushing and Dr. Muthukrishna have produced works that will be of tremendous value for generations to come. We’re very proud to partner with CGS in honoring them.”

The 2016 Award in Mathematics, Physical Sciences, and Engineering was presented to Dr. Cushing for his dissertation, Plasmonic Enhancement Mechanisms in Solar Energy Harvesting. Plasmonics, the study of the interaction between electromagnetic field and free electrons in a metal, appear to offer advancement in the efficiencies of solar energy conversion. Cushing’s thesis investigates why plasmonics rarely appear in top performing solar architectures given their potential. Using his findings, Cushing developed a theoretical framework to optimize the application of plasmonics in solar energy conversion. Cushing notes that, “Based on this framework, several top performing solar-to-fuel devices were created which use sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Additionally, the developed plasmonics technology is being incorporated into a commercial photovoltaic panel for turning sunlight into electricity.” Dr. Cushing is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Leone Group at the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Muthukrishna received the 2016 Award in Social Sciences for his dissertation, The Cultural Brain Hypothesis and the Transmission and Evolution of Culture.  His project introduced two theories: the Cultural Brain Hypothesis and the Cumulative Cultural Brain Hypothesis. The first theory “explains the increase in brain size across taxonomic groups. In doing so, the theory makes predications about the relationships between brain size, knowledge, group size, social learning, and the length of the juvenile period, which are consistent with existing empirical literature.” The second theory, Cumulative Cultural Brain Hypothesis, makes predications about the conditions under which these evolutionary processes lead to a positive feedback loop between brain size and knowledge. Muthukrishna argues that these conditions are the key to what makes the human pathway unique and explains various aspects of our psychology and our large brains. Dr. Muthukrishna is currently an assistant professor of economic psychology at the London School of Economics.

This year the following scholars received honorable mentions: Adam Behrens, nominated by the University of Maryland; and Deblina Sarkar, nominated by the University of California at Santa Barbara.

More information about the CGS / ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award is available at www.proquest.com/go/scholars or at www.cgsnet.org.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

October 27, 2016

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

Washington, D.C. — The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) announced today that it has been awarded a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to help universities collect data on the career pathways of humanities PhDs. Through a competitive sub-award process, CGS will select 15 doctoral institutions to pilot surveys of humanities PhD students and alumni, gathering information about their professional aspirations, career pathways, and career preparation.

The project builds upon two earlier phases of CGS research: a feasibility study supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and a survey development phase supported by Mellon, Sloan, and the National Science Foundation (NSF). In the most recent phase, CGS developed two surveys—one for current PhD students and one for PhD alumni— by gathering input from senior university leaders, research funders, disciplinary societies, researchers, PhD students, and alumni.

While recent data exist on the first jobs obtained by PhDs in the humanities, relatively little is known about the longer career trajectories of these degree-holders. The survey pilot will be the first large-scale effort to collect data on the long-term career pathways of humanities PhDs since 1996, when the National Science Foundation’s Survey of Doctoral Recipients (SDR) eliminated the humanities from its data-collection efforts. While the main purpose of the project is to enable institutions to collect data about their own PhD alumni, it will also provide an opportunity to analyze patterns across the 15 partner institutions.

CGS President Suzanne Ortega noted that the initiative has the potential to improve the preparation of humanities PhDs for a more diverse range of careers. “Information on the full range of careers that humanities PhDs follow will allow graduate schools to improve curricula, professional development opportunities and career counseling services,” she said. “By offering a more complete picture of PhD holders’ career options, it will also enable current and prospective students to make more informed decisions when selecting degree programs and planning their careers.”

In the coming months, CGS will issue a Request-For-Proposals (RFP) to CGS member institutions to participate in the project as funded partners. The RFP will be accompanied by the survey instruments and an Implementation Guide that offers a framework for successful implementation. In addition to collecting aggregate data from partners, CGS will gather information about the implementation process with a view to developing recommended practices for data collection and analysis.

CGS’s career tracking project will complement its recently-announced effort to support career diversity for humanities PhDs. Through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), CGS has established the Next Generation Humanities PhD Consortium (Next Gen Consortium), a collaborative learning community for the 28 NEH Next Generation PhD grant awardees. These universities, all of which are CGS member institutions, will seek to broaden the career preparation of PhD students in the humanities. 

Overall First-Time Graduate Enrollment Increases by 3.9%

Contact:
Julia Kent, CGS: (202) 461-3874 / jkent@cgs.nche.edu

Washington, DC — The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) today reported modest growth in first-time enrollments for a number of key demographic groups enrolling in graduate school. Notably, all underrepresented minority (URM) groups monitored by the survey saw greater increases in first-time graduate enrollment than their White, non-Hispanic counterparts, although their overall representation in the graduate student body still remains relatively low. Among first-time U.S. citizens and permanent resident graduate students in Fall 2015, at least 22.5% were underrepresented minorities, including American Indian/Alaska Native (0.5%), Black/African American (11.8%), Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander (0.2%), and Hispanic/Latino (10%).

CGS President Suzanne T. Ortega responded to the growth in URM graduate enrollment with cautious optimism. “The sizeable increase in overall first-time enrollments for underrepresented minorities, particularly seen among URM women, is great news, but the share of underrepresented minorities among U.S. citizens and permanent residents is similar to previous years. URMs remain proportionally underrepresented, and we must sustain this trend for several years to ensure a larger impact across graduate programs and a more diverse workforce.”

Survey results also showed increases in domestic and international enrollments. Between Fall 2014 and Fall 2015, there was an increase (3.8%) in first-time enrollments for U.S. citizens and permanent residents, the largest one-year increase since 2010. These gains contributed to a 3.9% one-year increase in all first-time graduate enrollment between Fall 2014 and Fall 2015—the largest since 2009.

First-time graduate enrollment of international students rose by 5.7%, a rate considerably lower than in recent years, though international students still constitute a robust share (22%) of first-time graduate students. At research universities with very high research activity (RU/VH), three out of ten first-time enrollees (30.4%) were temporary residents. Shares of international students among first-time enrollees were particularly high for fields of mathematics and computer sciences (63.2%) followed closely by engineering (58.5%).

Institutions responding to the CGS/GRE Survey of Graduate Enrollment & Degrees for Fall 2015 again set new highs for the admissions cycle, receiving more than 2.18 million applications, extending over 877,000 offers of admission in Fall 2015, and enrolling nearly 507,000 incoming, first-time graduate students in graduate certificate, education specialist, master’s, or doctoral programs.

Other report findings are summarized below. 

Findings by field

• Engineering, business, and health sciences saw the largest number of total applications for Fall 2015. Together these broad fields of study accounted for 39.3% of total applications.
• The largest share of doctoral-level applications was seen in the social and behavioral sciences, which saw 18.7% of all doctoral applications reported. Social and behavioral sciences was also the second most competitive in terms of acceptance rates (14.7%), trailing only business (13.4%).
• Consistent with previous surveys, business, education, and health sciences were the three largest broad fields of study in Fall 2015 for first-time graduate enrollments.
• Roughly one-third (33.4%) of all first-time graduate students were enrolled in master’s degree or graduate certificate programs in business and education.

Findings by degree level

• The large majority of first-time graduate enrollment in Fall 2015 was in programs leading to a master’s degree or a graduate certificate (83.6%).
• Applications for admission decreased for doctoral programs (-4.3%) and increased for master’s/other programs (3.8%) between Fall 2014 and Fall 2015.
• At the doctoral level, education (4%) had the largest one-year increase in the number of applications of all broad fields of study. At the master’s/other level, mathematics and computer sciences (11.2%) reported the highest one-year percentage increase.

Student demographics

• The majority of first-time graduate students both at master’s degree and certificate level (58.2%) and at the doctoral level (51.3%) were women.
• According to survey respondents, women earned nearly two-thirds (66.4%) of the graduate certificates, 58.4% of the master’s degrees, and 51.8% of the doctorates. Academic year 2014-15 marked the seventh straight year women earned a majority of doctoral degrees.
• Overall among first-time enrollees in Fall 2015, men were more likely to be enrolled full-time than women (72.8% and 66%).
• All underrepresented minority groups experienced larger increases in first-time graduate enrollment than in the prior year.

About the report

Graduate Enrollment and Degrees: 2005 to 2015 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, which includes responses from 617 institutions, presents statistics on graduate applications and enrollment for Fall 2015, degrees conferred in 2014-15, and trend data for one-, five- and ten-year periods.

Full Report

Media Kit

Contact: Katherine Hazelrigg
202.461.3888 / khazelrigg@cgs.nche.edu

Washington, D.C. —The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) recently released a report: Evaluating International Research Experiences for Graduate Students, which outlines the findings of a one-day workshop convened in February 2016 along with the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Division of Graduate Education (DGE), the NSF Office of International Science and Engineering, and the North American Office of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation, DFG). This project was driven by the graduate education community’s desire for a deeper understanding of the impact of international collaboration on subsequent graduate careers and a need from funding agencies to validate their investment in international research collaboration.

The workshop convened 55 international participants who presented the current state of knowledge on assessing international research experiences and formulated a set of recommendations for program administrators to use in evaluating the effectiveness of these activities. “While additional research and data collection is needed, international research experiences for graduate students provide unique professional development opportunities and have value in an increasingly global economy, said CGS President Suzanne Ortega.

“The workshop generated a great deal of discussion in the assessment community on how best to evaluate international research experiences. I hope the report recommendations will motivate funding agencies and international exchange organizations to look more carefully at the long-term benefits their international activities provide to participants,” said Brian Mitchell, the CGS/NSF dean-in-residence and co-project leader.

Proceedings may be accessed at http://cgsnet.org/2016-cgsnsf-workshop-evaluating-international-research-experiences-graduate-students.

Contact: Katherine Hazelrigg

202.461.3888 / khazelrigg@cgs.nche.edu

Washington, D.C. – Since 2004 the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) has conducted the International Graduate Admissions Survey, an annual study of applications and offers of admission, as well as first-time and total enrollment of international graduate students in master’s/certificate and research doctoral programs. The data from the 2016 preliminary applications survey provide an initial look into Fall 2016 international graduate admissions at U.S. institutions, and suggest that it will follow recent trends.

Key points gleaned from our preliminary dataset are below. Visit the CGS website for additional information including infographics, data tables, and notes and definitions from the survey. The final application counts, along with first-time and total international graduate enrollment for Fall 2016 will be available in early 2017.

Key points from the 2016 CGS International Graduate Admissions Survey: Preliminary Applications

• The total preliminary number of international graduate applications reported in this year’s survey declined slightly from the results of the 2015 preliminary survey; however, this may be due to the lower response rate (n=345), as well as the change in the census date for this survey.
• Chinese and Indian applicants continue to represent the vast majority of international graduate applications in both master’s/certificate and doctoral programs.
• For the first time, the survey asked the preliminary application data for Iranian applicants and found they constituted 8% of international doctoral applications, tied with South Korean applicants.
• Engineering fields continue to be the most popular fields of study for international graduate applications in both master’s/certificate and doctoral programs.
• Master’s/certificate applications in mathematics & computer sciences have increased proportionally by five percentage points compared to the Fall 2015 preliminary data.

A January report on post-PhD careers by the US Council of Graduate Schools in Washington DC found that there are no standardized ways to collect information on graduates after they have left their educational institution; only around one-third of universities in the United States and Canada formally compile such data.

Graduate school has long been a popular choice for people wanting to elevate their careers, but the number of students enrolling has recently jumped.

Between fall 2013 and fall 2014, first-time graduate enrollment increased by 3.5 percent, the largest spike since 2009, according to a September report from the Council of Graduate Schools. These new graduate students were studying education, business and other subjects, but the field that saw the biggest bump in enrollment was math and computer science.