Graduate Education

Engage in strategic recruitment, retention, progression, and completion to grow and diversify our graduate student body and promote equitable outcomes.

Tasks:

• Engage multiple tactics to support both centralized and program-specific strategic graduate recruitment to expand international, national (outside S. NV), and regional applicants, admits, and new student matriculation.
• Establish a comprehensive omnichannel communications, marketing, and advertising plan to successfully promote graduate programs at UNLV and garner national and international attention as a first-choice graduate school.
• Engage recruitment strategies and complementary holistic admissions practices to cultivate a more diverse student body overall, and to specifically increase inclusion of underrepresented minorities, first generation, economically disadvantaged, sex/gender diverse, and highly competitive graduate student applicants, admits, and new student matriculation.
• Facilitate and support the development and management of transparent and actionable graduate data; track and report on relevant graduate data and provide easy access to information, data, reports, and dashboards that drive strategic program innovation, aid decision-making, support our GEM efforts, and promote student success and completion.
• Train and support graduate faculty and graduate program staff to develop and deploy expertise in graduate enrollment management that reflects nationally accepted best practices and leading-edge operations to better support graduate student retention, progression, timely completion, and success.
• Generate a campus-wide GEM plan for admissions, enrollment, graduation, and targeted time-to-degree.
• Deliver a personalized graduate student experience that provides information and support to students as they need it in a "just in time" format.
• Grow our graduate programs, increase enrollment, and graduate more doctoral students annually.

Metrics: applications, admits, and enrollment; continuing enrollment; graduate FTE; graduate coordinator training; graduate faculty training

Cultivate a diverse, inclusive, and equitable campus environment that optimizes support for graduate student success.

Tasks:

• Create a campus infrastructure to support student well-being so that they can focus on their research, scholarship, and creative activities, including reasonably priced housing, programming to support student mental, emotional, and physical well-being, and financial wellness resources.
• Address graduate program alignment with career pathways, provide customizable interdisciplinary experiences, and track graduate student first placement and career trajectories for academic purposes, distinct from philanthropic outreach.
• Increase nationally competitive Graduate Assistantships, grant-funded GA positions, need-based and merit scholarships, and research fellowships to expand equitable access and outcomes for graduate student success.
• Provide engaged and responsive nonacademic advising to foster a just and equitable campus climate free from discrimination and prejudice that supports fair treatment, successful and timely student progression, and equitable completion rates that are program-specific and consistent across student groups.
• Design and support innovative admissions gateways, pipelines, and pathway program tracks to increase and diversify recruitment, and admit, engage, and graduate students with (racially, ethnically, culturally, gendered, etc.) diverse experiences, interests, and needs.
• Recognize, respect, and celebrate diversity in all its forms within the Graduate College, enact an inclusive, equitable, anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-discriminatory perspective, and ensure that an inclusive and just culture prevails including specific support to promote access and equity for BIPOC students.
• To engage in strategic alumni, individual, and corporate development work to increase direct philanthropic support for our students, as well as financial resources for programming that helps ensure student success including programs to promote access and equity.

Metrics: graduate faculty status; ratio students to graduate faculty; access awards; graduate fellowships; graduate academy participants; Grad Advantage program participants

Align programs to promote career success and provide students with academic curriculum and co-curricular experiences to prepare them to become experts in their disciplines and leaders in their fields.

Tasks:

• Provide nationally recognized, research-informed leadership and professional development opportunities, as well as co-curricular microcredentials, to ensure that all graduate students have career-ready transferable skills that supplement and enhance their academic training and support post-graduate success.
• Design and deliver innovative graduate programs to attract competitive students and support diverse student populations and interests, including but not limited to interdisciplinary programs, design-your-own interdisciplinary programs, certificates, badges, micro-master’s, and stackable certificates.
• Provide nationally recognized, research-informed leadership and professional development opportunities, as well as co-curricular micro-credentials, to ensure that all graduate students have career-ready transferable skills that supplement and enhance their academic training and support post-graduate success.
• Provide a strong infrastructure of support for graduate faculty to facilitate program innovation and excellence, and ensure the delivery of consistently high-quality, tier one, transformative student experiences that lead to diverse career pathways and post-graduate success.

Metrics: graduate and professional degrees conferred; graduate certificates awarded; climate survey (graduate); exit survey (graduate); Grad Academy opportunities and satisfaction