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.

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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.

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Photo Credit: Nathan Kurtz

March 13 to April 2, 2018:  Survey Data Collection Period

Data from two surveys will be collected from March 13 to April 2.  The two surveys include a university survey focusing on admission attributes required by the university for graduate deans to complete.  The second is a program survey focusing on admission attributes required by individual master’s programs for graduate program directors to complete.  The surveys were distributed to the graduate dean community along with guidelines for sharing and encouraging the completion of the program-level survey by graduate program directors.

April-July 2018:  Data Analysis, Advisory Board and Committee Review

Data from the two surveys will be analyzed and used to create potential practice guidelines. Best approaches for sharing the findings and emerging practices will be considered.  Preliminary data from the surveys will be reviewed and discussed by the Project Advisory Board during a webinar in June 2018.  The 15-member board will guide development of the final practice guidelines that emerge from the data collection along with best ways to share and distribute the findings.  Preliminary findings will also be reviewed and discussed by the CGS Steering Committee on the Master’s Degree during a luncheon during the CGS Summer Workshop & New Deans Institute in Chicago.  Similar to the Project Advisory Board, the committee, whose original work launched the study, will offer guidance on practice guidelines and methods for sharing the results.

September 2018: Convening Event

The final project and practices will be shared and discussed during a Second Colloquy on the Master’s Degree.  Those attending the convening event will include the Project Advisory Board and selected graduate deans. The event will be held in Washington, DC, in September 2018.  Following the convening event, the plan for disseminating the practice guidelines will be initiated.

December 2018:  Annual Meeting Sessions

The final project, practices, and future directions for study of the master’s degree will be presented and discussed by the CGS Steering Committee on the Master’s Degree during the CGS Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.  Multiple events are planned, including a concurrent session to share findings and a breakfast where members of the committee will consider and discuss future directions for master’s degree research. 

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.

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Photo Credit: Peter Marting

Supporting Diversity in Graduate Education

November 11-13, 2018
University of Johannesburg

The 2018 Summit theme, “Supporting Diversity in Graduate Education,” addresses the ways in which graduate education leaders across the world seek ways to identify, create, and disseminate curricula and strategies to ensure diversity in their programs and on their campuses. Developing a diverse graduate education community may mean different things in various parts of the world (race; ethnicity; gender; and socioeconomic, first-generation, or immigrant status). Through efforts to educate our communities and change social attitudes or focused outreach and support through workshops, recruitment fairs, and specialized program offerings, our shared goal is to foster learning environments that provide access and equity for all current and future graduate students.

The 2018 Global Summit on Graduate Education included leaders of graduate institutions from 17 countries across six continents. Attendees contemplated current efforts in the international graduate education community to promote diversity, including assessment in the admissions process, peer and faculty-mentoring, robust summer orientation programs, annual performance review system, etc. In addition, participants considered how individually and collectively we can improve upon these efforts for the benefit of students, universities, and broader communities.

Event Materials:

• Online Proceedings

The 2018 Summit is generously sponsored by the Educational Testing Service (ETS).

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.

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Photo Credit: Steve Zylius / UCI

Invertebrates comprise roughly 97 percent of life on Earth and “ensure habitat quality, serve as the foundation for most food chains, and sustain both marine and terrestrial ecosystems.” Their rapid decline poses significant risk to this planet’s future. Jacquelyn Dale (JD) Whitman, an MFA candidate in art at the University of Iowa, combines art with marine ecology to educate the public on a decline in marine biodiversity due to human threats like habitat destruction, overfishing, invasive species, pollution, and climate change.

Whitman’s thesis project presents Ireland’s Blaschka Invertebrate Models—glass replicas of marine invertebrate species from our 19th-century oceans—through an interactive, sculptural installation made from recycled plastic and animated video projections. She intends for her installations to combat ecophobia – “a negative response or automatic desensitization to visual images of environmental disasters” – an issue she’s studied since her time as a student in Ireland. 

“This installation will positively educate viewers on the global decline in marine biodiversity due to the threat of plastic pollution,” says Whitman, a native of Philadelphia, Pa. “Almost every single food chain and ecosystem depends on invertebrates. If we eliminate the invertebrates, it is doubtful that we as a species will survive. If we remove just one of the human threats—if we work to resolve the plastic pollution crisis—that could help to reverse this potentially catastrophic, global decline.” To learn more about JD’s work, visit the University of Iowa website.

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Photo Credit: JD Whitman is pictured at the National Museum Ireland-Natural History.

According to the American Psychological Association, as many as 1 in 7 women experience postpartum depression. Adriana Dyurich, a recent doctoral recipient in counselor education from Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi, developed an innovative mobile application called VeedaMom to help combat this illness. The app was created to screen for and manage symptoms of perinatal depression and promote maternal wellness, and it’s designed to support and accompany women during their pregnancy and the first year after the birth of the baby.

Dr. Dyurich wrote her dissertation based on research collected from pregnant women who used VeedaMom. “The app features the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale for the screening of depression, psycho-educational videos, and mindfulness exercises, plus a variety of other features designed to facilitate professional care and make the app fun and user friendly.”

Dr. Dyurich presented her research at TAMUCC’s Doctoral Three Minute Thesis Competition (3MT®) and won first place. She will be competing at the regional competition in Arkansas. To learn more about Adriana’s research, visit the Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi website.

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Inspired by her ten years of teaching high school mathematics and as the first in her family to graduate from college, Dr. Tracey Kiser’s research aims to improve community college students’ success in mathematics. As the number one predictor of student success in completing a college degree, mathematics and improving math skills is critical to improving graduation rates. Kiser is dedicated to closing the academic achievement gap.

In her dissertation project Mindset Matters: Supporting Persistence Through the Developmental Mathematics Pipeline, Kiser examines the lack of support for low income and minority students struggling in community college mathematics courses. She focused on better understanding students’ learning needs and the ways in which instructional practices address those needs. 

Kiser received her Ed.D. in Teaching and Learning from the University of California San Diego in June 2016 and is currently teaching high school mathematics. To learn more about Kiser’s research, visit UCSD’s website.