CGS offers a full schedule of interactive, cutting-edge workshops that provide participants with helpful strategies, information sharing opportunities, and resources to bring back to their campuses.
All workshops are half-day sessions with a fee of $75 per session. The pre-meeting workshop registration fee includes workshop materials and morning coffee. Lunch will be on your own.
Morning Sessions: 9:00 – 11:00 am
Sustaining Graduate Student Success and Resilience
Facilitators will use videos and written case studies to engage participants in group discussions about how to better communicate, set explicit expectations, resolve conflicts, and use the interest-based approach when mentoring students. We will explore the importance of context and examine scenarios from the perspectives of administrators, professors, and students. Participants will also be guided on how to use numerous mentoring resources to enhance graduate education success on their campuses and academic units.
Preparing for Uncertainty: Strategic Planning in an Era of Change
Flexibility to meet emerging challenges and opportunities in an ever-changing higher education environment has led many universities to move from five-year strategic plans to shorter, more nimble plans. This session will call on the expertise of deans who have been involved in strategic planning at their universities, addressing elements such as university mission, place-based and online strategies, unique programs, and market niches.
Review of Graduate Programs: Master’s and Doctoral
Assessing the quality of master’s and doctoral programs is essential for effective decision making and optimal impact. The presenters will provide strategies for meaningful and manageable program review. Participants will discuss review processes using program outcomes for impact, and directions needed for innovation, and change. Presenters will conclude with perspectives on how to include data and how to incorporate feedback from external reviewers and accreditation requirements into program reviews.
Best Practices and Strategies for International Recruitment and Student Support
Shifting demographics and geopolitical factors present new questions and challenges for international graduate enrollment. What recruitment resources are available to assist graduate education leaders in making informed decisions and aid efforts to internationalize their campuses? What financial support and other means of support services are available on campuses and beyond? This workshop will provide a forum for discussing best practices and strategies for international student recruitment and retention.
Afternoon Workshops: 2:00 – 4:00 pm
Fundraising for Graduate Education
As the need for additional support for graduate education increases, securing external funding from a variety of sources is essential. This workshop will outline fundraising strategies for graduate education with a focus on development fundamentals, building cases for support, and identifying potential donors among alumni, employer, and regional stakeholder networks. Collaborating within the university on fundraising goals and access to resources will also be covered.
Cost of Graduate Education
Promoting accessible, equitable, and high-quality graduate education is a fundamental commitment of CGS and its member institutions. The CGS Cost of Graduate Education Taskforce spent months examining issues such as, cost of attendance, time to degree completion, the ROI, and the need for institutions to be transparent about the cost of graduate education. Learn more about the Cost of Graduate Education Toolkit.
Developing Campus-Wide Efforts to Support DEI in Graduate Education
Graduate education is often decentralized, making it difficult to develop coordinated approaches to diversity, equity and inclusion across all graduate programs. In this session, learn from experienced deans about developing institution-wide strategies in the following areas: recruitment, holistic admissions processes, transparent policies and program expectations, and graduate student mentoring.
Emerging Models of Writing Support for Graduate Students
For the past two decades Thesis and Dissertation Writing Boot Camps have proliferated to support graduate students in their degree completion. So, what’s new and innovative? Join us to discuss emerging models of writing support that include collaborative writing, centralizing research and writing support, virtual events supporting non-resident students, writing as community building, harnessing artificial intelligence as a tool to improve writing, and deploying badges to recognize completion of writing programs.