Graduate School Bulletin – August 15, 2025

GRADUATE SCHOOL BULLETIN 

A publication of the Graduate School for Graduate Program Directors and Coordinators   

Postings are distributed on the Graduate Program Directors and Coordinators listservs on the 1st and the 16th of the month and are also available in a blog for public viewing here: https://monthlymemo.graduateschool.vt.edu/   

August 15, 2025 

IN THIS BULLETIN:    

Meetings, Workshops, & Events  

1. Implementation Plan for PATH, the New Course Registration System 

2. New GPD/GC Orientation Sessions 

Deadlines & Dates to Remember 

None at this time. 

Policy Updates  

None at this time.  

Administrative Announcements  

3. Update on M365 Storage for Graduate Students 

4. New Cybersecurity Training Requirement for Student Employees 

5. Dashboard for Tracking International Student Visa Attainment 

6. Updated Guidance for Generative AI 

7. Raising Awareness of the Graduate School Ombuds 

Announcements for Distribution to Students

None at this time. 

Meetings, Workshops, & Events

_____________________________________________

1. Implementation Plan for PATH, the New Course Registration System

The University is launching a new course registration system, PATH, on October 8, 2025. Join the Office of the University Registrar and Academic Advising Initiatives to learn how students will use PATH to submit Course Requests and Add/Drop courses during the registration period. 

Faculty and staff can register online now for one of eight training sessions—four offered in a hybrid format and four via Zoom only. Please register at least 24 hours in advance to receive your Zoom link. 

In late September, three office hour sessions (no registration required) will provide time for follow-up questions after you’ve explored and tested PATH. Save the dates for these sessions: 

  • September 8, 3:00-4:00pm 
  • September 19, 9:00-10:00am 
  • September 23, 10:00-11:00am 

Link for registration: click here

2. New GPD/GC Orientation Sessions

Thursday, Aug 14, 2:00-3:00pm 

Thursday, Sep 11, 2:00-3:00pm 

Join members of the Grad School team and fellow GPDs and graduate coordinators to receive an introduction to a variety of resources available to you in your new role and review the various tasks that may be expected of you. Discussion topics will include a review of faculty/staff resources; GPD role and faculty management; data-informed decision-making, and an open forum for discussion. Two virtual sessions will be offered to accommodate different schedules. Please complete this form to register to attend: click here 

Administrative Announcements

____________________________________________

3. Update on M365 Storage for Graduate Students

The Division of IT (DoIT) has been engaged with graduate students via the Graduate and Professional Student Senate and the Graduate School to identify a way to improve cloud storage availability in the M365 service (e.g.: OneDrive). A path to increase storage for graduate students has been identified and the DoIT is hoping to implement the increase On August 29, 2025.  That increase will be from 10G to 50G of storage, which is in line with employee storage allocations.  Look for announcements in the VT Daily News Email. 

While this is great news, we also want to underscore that, for shared work, graduate students are encouraged to work with their faculty to identify/create departmental shared resources, such as Microsoft Teams, to house and maintain their data.  This would also ease the transition of data over time, which is a common need for research data. 

**Please note that we mistakenly stated the storage should increase from 10G to 100G in our initial email. The correct quota will be from 10G to 50G

4. New Cybersecurity Training Requirement for Student Employees

We are sharing this information from the IT Security Office Team to increase your awareness and ask that you help ensure that your graduate student employees (whether on assistantship or wage) complete the required training. You can review the full announcement at https://news.vt.edu/notices/2025/08/it-cybersecurity-training-student-employees.html. The student training-compliance dashboard shows whether your student employees have completed their required cybersecurity training: https://metrics.iso.vt.edu/studentSecurityTraining. Current FERPA training is required to access the student dashboard. Please contact the IT Security Office at itso@vt.edu with questions about the training, dashboard functionality, or dashboard request link.

5. Dashboard for Tracking International Student Visa Attainment

The Cranwell International Center reports that as of July 16, 482 graduate students received their visas out of a total 3,464 admitted students. The pool of admitted students includes those who may not have completed the immigration intake process and will not attend. 

If you would like to see more granular details, you may request access to the Cranwell International Center dashboard by completing this request form: https://forms.office.com/r/eukCJ7sdNN, so that you may run a report for your specific department. Visa issuance varies by country and from discipline to discipline, so some colleges may be more impacted than others. For more information contact the Cranwell International Center at international@vt.edu

6. Updated Guidance for Generative AI

There has been much discussion about the potential appropriate uses of generative AI by graduate students and how faculty may proactively address it. TLOS provides some general guidelines on their website at https://tlos.vt.edu/resources/generative-ai.html, and we have added an updated Graduate School statement to it: https://tlos.vt.edu/resources/generative-ai/graduate-school-statement.html. Please visit these sites as you prepare for the 2025-26 academic year and discuss program-level standards and expectations with faculty and graduate students. 

7. Raising Awareness of the Graduate School Ombuds

Connecting face-to-face with students and the faculty they work with is one of the best ways for individuals to learn about the services the Ombuds Office offers. A 10-minute presentation during your orientation program for first-year students is sufficient to introduce this service to your students, including an introduction to the role, the types of support available, and current initiatives of the office. Longer sessions may include skill-building topics such as managing difficult conversations or working successfully in teams are also a possibility. The Ombuds is also available to speak during a faculty meeting. If you would like to schedule a session or discuss other opportunities to connect with your students and faculty, please contact Bryan Hanson at bryanh76@vt.edu.