Welcome back to the start of a new semester and a new year!
Announcements/Deadlines
- Proposals for the 05-06 Institutional Plan for Graduate Degrees (IPGD) is due March 1, 2005
- Graduate Education Week is scheduled for March 21-25
- New Graduate Student Of The Year Award Announced — application deadline Feb 4, 2005. Virginia Tech will select two graduate students (one male, one female) to be honored for their outstanding achievements and contributions to professional and campus organizations, involvement in the graduate community, and their commitment to diversity. These graduate students will be named the 2005 Graduate Students of the Year. Recipients will be recognized at the USLA ceremony and the Graduate Student Awards Banquet during Graduate Education Week.
- Spring 2005 Defending Student Status Jan 17-Feb 13
- Spring 2005 Application for Degrees and Certificate Conferrals due by March 1 in order to have names printed in commencement bulletin.
Personnel changes in the Graduate School
On January 17th, Dr. Anne McNabb, Professor in the Department of Biology, joined the Graduate School as half time Associate Dean. Her responsibilities will include Teaching Assistantship Training, Interdisciplinary graduate programs, and working with Transformative Graduate Education initiatives.
After over 30 years of service to Virginia Tech, Dr. Don McKeon retired effective December 31, 2004. Dr. McKeon will continue to assist the Graduate School with English language training for international Teaching Assistants (ITA) during the spring semester. Questions regarding international students should be directed to
Ruth Athanson , phone: 231-9561,
Zelma Harris , phone 231-9561, or
Marija Telbis-Forster , phone: 703-538-3743 in northern Virignia. Questions regarding GTA Workshop, please contact
Dr. Anne McNabb , phone: 231-5645.
Effective January 2, 2005
Marija Telbis-Forster was appointed as the NVC/NCR Student Support Administrator. She will supervise the graduate student services office (GSSO) at Northern Virginia Center working closely with Ms. Debbie Payne and Ms. Aniene Porter. Ms. Telbis-Forster will continue to serve as an immigration specialist providing important services to our international students in northern Virginia. Shortly, we will begin a search for another GSSO staff member.
Spring Workshop
On February 17th, 10 a.m – noon, we will hold a spring workshop for graduate program directors and program assistants. The purpose of the workshop will be to update departments on policy and procedure changes and answers questions regarding graduate education. Included in the discussion will be new procedures for tracking international students’ status from admission to immigration form issuance — new tools and tricks for academic departments.
Reminders
As you recall, we have implemented a priority system for processing admissions:
24 Hour Requests. If you have a need to receive the AA forms from the Graduate School, or should you need a priority decision to be placed on a student, please contact
Angie Webb . Such requests will be processed within 24 hours. Examples are not limited to but would include the following: Student needs acceptance in order to register by deadline. Student needs acceptance in order to put assistantship into Banner by deadlines. Department is interviewing top applicant and needs information. Acceptance needed in order to process international paperwork in certain circumstances.
Rush Requests. If you need to have the AA forms within 5 days, please contact
Angie Webb . We will process the files and prepare the AA forms within 5 days.
Specific deadline requests. Please continue to inform Angie Webb of the dates by which you intend to make decisions and we will work with you to get the files completed in a timely fashion for your review.