Graduate Appointments

Sponsor: Cora Marrett, Provost

Team Leader: Josh Kroner, Graduate School

The project team concluded that the appointment process is slow and often frustrating for graduate students and staff alike. Appointment forms require layers of approval; too many appointments occurring simultaneously can jam the system; timing of assistantship budget allocations for departments does not support early recruitment or appointment processing. In response to these concerns, the project team recommended several improvements to the appointment process. In order to improve communication between offices, a new committee, the Graduate Appointment Administration Committee, has been formed. Comprised of staff members from several student services offices, this committee is developing new calendars for appointment processing. It has provided an opportunity for staff to engage in cross-functional coordination, problem-solving, and capacity-building. A new staff member has been hired for the Graduate Assistantship Office. This clerk position, partially supported by an internal reassignment, is dedicated to supporting graduate appointment processing and has greatly increased the productivity of the office as well as the office's capacity to communicate with departments and students. The Graduate Assistantship Office has been working to simplify the paperwork involved with the appointment process. Authorization at the dean's level is at the individual dean's discretion. Building on many years of design ideas, discussions about the development of an on-line appointment process in PeopleSoft are underway. Further, the Graduate Assistantship Office has designed a comprehensive data tracking system and will be testing batch authorization and electronic transfer of appointments in select departments over the next year.

For comments or questions regarding the implementation of this project, please contact the project sponsor or the project team leader.

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