OPD Partnerships with Faculty and Staff

The Office of Professional Development (OPD) helps graduate students and postdocs achieve success at UMass and beyond. At our year-round events and workshops, we…

  • Expose the hidden curriculum
  • Enhance writing & presenting skills
  • Develop teaching skills for TAs and instructors 
  • Help students apply for external grants & fellowships
  • Prepare students for (faculty and non-faculty) careers

You can see all of our upcoming workshops here!

The centralization of these different kinds of graduate student support is unique to UMass and allows us to support students in all stages of graduate school. 

OPD as a Resource for Faculty: 

opd [at] grad [dot] umass [dot] edu (Contact us) to discuss possible collaborations!

Encourage Your Students to Attend OPD Workshops to Improve their Skills!

  • Faculty advisors can strategically guide their graduate students and postdocs to relevant and timely workshops, offering a constructive approach to address academic challenges. You can see all of our upcoming workshops here!
  • You can also ask your students to attend OPD events to satisfy a course, pro-seminar, or program requirement. We recommend requiring a certain number of events (ex. 2 events in the fall semester) and then letting students choose sessions from our event calendar that align with their specific interests or needs)

Bring OPD to Your Students!

OPD regularly collaborates with faculty across campus to integrate professional development training into the academic curriculum, support advising, share resources, and alleviate time constraints that hinder student participation. Collaboration examples include:

  • Inviting OPD members to offer departmental, class, or pro-seminar sessions on topics related to OPD topic areas
  • Co-hosting guest speakers to support thematic topics or career exploration
  • Including OPD members in orientation and recruiting weekend activities

Build OPD into your grants!

In addition to supporting our broader graduate and postdoc community, OPD helps faculty strategically integrate professional training into large-scale grant proposals. In fact, OPD grew from a foundation of professional development programs established through federally funded training grants! You can find OPD curriculum embedded in more than five large-scale, federally funded training programs awarded to UMass Amherst (NSF NRT, NIH T32s, NSF ART). Collaboration examples include:

  • Designing professional development curriculum for training grant proposals
  • Organizing events to support career exploration and networking
  • Co-hosting guest speakers