GradEdge | Fall 2023
Applications to U.S. graduate schools increase, but domestic enrollments are down
The Graduate Enrollment and Degrees: 2012 to 2022 Report is available with new application and enrollment trends from the past 10 years. Published annually since 1986, the report presents the findings of the CGS/GRE Survey of Graduate Enrollment and Degrees and provides essential data on trends in graduate education. Findings from this year’s report include:
- Applications for admission to U.S. graduate schools rose by nearly four percent between Fall 2021 and Fall 2022, but domestic enrollments fell by 4.7 percent.
- Underrepresented minority groups experienced declining first-time enrollments in the range of 2-8%, suggesting a need for additional resources to strengthen their participation in the knowledge economy.
NSF supports the Council of Graduate Schools in efforts to broaden participation in the nation’s technology workforce
CGS is excited to announce that the National Science Foundation (NSF) is investing $5.8 million in two key projects to help expand participation in advanced degrees.
The NSF Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) is investing $4.6 million over four years to help CGS expand the Graduate Enrollment and Degrees survey to collect information on graduate applications, admissions, enrollment and completion rates.
Additionally, NSF will provide over $1.1 million over five years to help CGS expand its National Name Exchange (NNE) program.
News and Project Updates from the Humanities Coalition
CGS is excited to announce the new Humanities Coalition webpage which features all of the work of 16 institutions in the third phase of the PhD Career Pathways project. The Humanities Coalition is building on this work to enhance the knowledge base and suite of promising practices that better support preparation for diverse careers for humanities PhDs.
History in Service of Critical Professions: An Update from Texas A&M’s Humanities Coalition Project
Texas A&M’s Humanities Cluster launched 2021 to connect their faculty and administrators from across the campus to identify career opportunities for humanities PhD students through workshops, professionals-in-residence programs and internships.
Fuhui Tong, Interim Associate Provost and Dean of the Graduate and Professional School at Texas A&M and project director, said that part of this effort is to secure funding for visits from professionals and grants for unpaid or low-paid public service internships. Learn more about how the Humanities Cluster at Texas A&M is helping humanities PhDs expand their career opportunities through public service.
GradImpact:
Digging into the Past: A Historian’s Path to Public Service
In December of 1944, as the cloud cover lifted in the early days after the Battle of the Bulge, a B26 bomber was shot down in Belgium. A Belgian child who witnessed the plane crash collected a few things from around the crash site and put them in a shoebox.
Seventy-four years later, Tristan Krause and his teammates from the University of Wisconsin Missing in Action Recovery and Identification Project show up, digging around the crash site, trying to locate the remains of the pilot.
For Krause, who had just graduated with his bachelor’s degree in 2018 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, this was an example of how he wanted to combine his passion for history and desire to serve his community.
“This is more than history. This is about somebody getting closure back at home,” Krause said.
Learn more about this humanist’s journey to public service while getting his PhD in history at Texas A&M University.
Community Voices: Things I Wish I Had Known Before Becoming a Graduate School Dean
This quarter in Community Voices, Alyssa Crittenden, University of Nevada Las Vegas Graduate College Dean, shares the things she wish she 
had known before she became a dean at her institution.
Crittenden said she would have felt better prepared her first year to make changes and improve graduate student success had she known these two key pieces of knowledge.
NSF’s Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) Grants Announced
Supported by NSF, the Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) program supports “bold, new, and potentially transformative approaches to STEM graduate education training.” As facilitator of the IGE Hub through a contract with NSF, CGS is excited to congratulate the following 12 institutions on their successful proposals to the NSF-IGE Program:
Boise State University
Clemson University
Iowa State University
Morgan State University
University of Arizona
University of Connecticut
University of New Mexico
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, UNC Charlotte
University of Pittsburgh
Utah State University
Washington University
Learn more about our new IGE awardees and their programs as they are added to the IGE Hub.
For the latest in STEM graduate education resources and updates, subscribe to the IGE Insider newsletter.
There’s Still Time to Join the Biggest Event in Graduate Education
You can still register to join the CGS community for the 63rd Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, from December 6-9. You won’t want to miss this unique forum where graduate education leaders gather to connect and learn from peers and thought leaders on issues driving graduate education.
Register now so you don’t miss the opening keynote on December 7 presented by Shelly Lowe, Chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities and a citizen of the Navajo Nation. Chair Lowe will focus her remarks on humanities graduate education and research. To compliment Lowe’s remarks, CGS will host a reception that evening at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), which has the world’s most expansive collections of Native artifacts covering the entire Western Hemisphere.
This year will also feature five other engaging plenary session:
- “Graduate Education for a Changing World-LaPidus Lecture” presented by Tim Killeen, Carlos Santiago and Chuck Ambler.
- “From Arriving to Surviving to Thriving: Serving the Whole International Student” presented by Rajika Bhandari.
- “From Artificial Intelligence to Collective Wisdom: Reimagining the Default Settings of Technology and Society” presented by Ruha Benjamin.
- “Socially Directed Science and Engineering: Graduate Education for a More Sustainable Future” presented by Christine Ortiz, Saif Rayyan and Ellan F. Spero.
- Three-Minute Thesis (3MT®): Showcase and Roundtable Discussion.
2023 Strategic Leaders Global Summit: The Internationalization of Postgraduate Education
In October, global leaders in graduate education met for the Strategic Leaders Global Summit to discuss the internationalization of graduate education. The summit was held in Melbourne, Australia, at RMIT University.At this year’s convening, attendees considered the ways in which graduate education leaders across the world think about internationalization and how internationalization is central to solving global grand challenges. Findings from this year’s Summit will be released in early 2024.
New CGS Leaders and Members
New Graduate Leaders/Deans
- Tracy Baynard, Associate Vice Provost for Graduate Education, University of Massachusetts Boston
- Aziz Douai, Dean, Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina*
- Gretchen Edwalds-Gilbert, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, University of the Pacific
- Chris Gage, Vice President for Enrollment Services, Belmont University**
- Sabrina Jedlicka, Deputy Provost for Graduate Education, Lehigh University
- Tau Kahdi, Associate Vice President of Academic Administration and Dean of the School of Graduate Studies, Alabama A&M University
- Padraic Kennedy, Dean of The Graduate School and Associate Provost for Graduate and Professional Education, University of Kentucky
- Clare McCausland, Director, Monash Graduate Research Office, Monash University
- Mark Nawrot, Interim Dean, College of Graduate and Interdisciplinary Studies, North Dakota State University
- Tracy Raivio, Vice-Provost and Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Alberta
- Jenni Redifer, Interim Associate Provost for Research and Graduate Education, Western Kentucky University
- Kenneth Wong, Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Dean of the Graduate School, University of Maryland, Baltimore
*Graduate education leaders at new CGS member institutions
** Graduate education leader at new CGS member institution
New CGS Members
- Belmont University, Regular Institutional Member, Nashville, Tennessee
Returning CGS Members
- University of Regina, Regular Institutional Member, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
