Dear Colleague,

We invite you to join us for a 90-minute conversation about the professional development of our graduate and professional students at Mason and the future of graduate education at Mason on Friday, September 27, 2019.  

The primary goals of this community event are to:
 
- Share results from the previous efforts to exchange ideas about supporting the professional development needs of graduate students (e.g., 2019 August Conversation Event);
- Discuss these results with an eye towards needs assessment; and
- Build on recommendations collected and explore what next steps could look like in practice.

For those who weren't able to participate in the recent August event, there will also be an opportunity to add/contribute
to our collective understanding of the topics and approaches of graduate student professional development currently being offered at various scales (from local program or unit models to institution-wide opportunities) at Mason.

The desired outcomes of this event are to share a list of current graduate student professional development offerings across the university and to further distinguish which activities or topics would be best supported centrally to benefit all graduate students from those that are most appropriately offered at the local or unit level.  

This is an opportunity to have your voice heard and help shape what graduate student professional development at Mason could look like!  We are structuring the event to ensure the opportunity for graduate student education representatives from academic units (faculty advisors, graduate student directors and coordinators, and administrators) to exchange ideas with university-wide service representatives who offer graduate student support as part of their programming portfolios.

NOTE: Attending the August event is NOT a pre-requisite for attending this event. This is also NOT a repeat of the August event, it is a "part II" if you will.

In order to help us with our planning, please complete our brief RSVP form (below) by noon on Friday, September 20th.  

This event is co-located with the Innovations in Teaching and Learning conference.  You do NOT need to register/attend the conference to participate in this event.  If you wish to also attend the rest of the ITL conference events, we ask that you also please review the program details and register: https://stearnscenter.gmu.edu/programs/annual-conference-itl/

Thank you for taking the time to RSVP, and we look forward to seeing you on September 27, 2019!

Sincerely,

Laurence Bray, PhD
Interim Associate Provost for Graduate Education

Julie Choe Kim, PhD
Director of Graduate Student Life

Laura Lukes, PhD
Assistant Director for Teaching Excellence in the Stearns Center for Teaching & Learning