Announcements for Current Students

Academic Resources

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Academic Resources

As we approach the 9th week of the semester, it is important to remind you of resources dedicated to helping students, both graduate and undergraduate. Many staff and faculty are ready to help you navigate life’s challenges, which may be affecting your individual experience. This message highlights support services and policies to help you make informed decisions about your individual student experience.

The academic calendar highlights the dates and deadlines for the University which you should be aware of as you make decisions about your individual status. Specifically, keep in mind the following dates:

  • November 2, 2020 – Last day to withdraw from a course without an exception from the academic dean
  • November 20, 2020 – Last day to place courses on or remove courses from Pass/Fail grading (Undergrads only)
  • December 7, 2020 – Last day of fall semester classes

Academic or Faculty Advisor:  A student’s major advisor is a resource in navigating academic challenges. Some academic departments also have program staff that can help you determine next steps academically and connect you to resources.  If you are a graduate student, make sure you discuss all possible options with your advisor. If you aren’t sure who your advisor is, you can find this information in StudentAdmin.

Academic Support Services: Graduate and undergraduate students can seek academic support from the Writing Center and the Academic Achievement Center.  The Writing Center provides online writing assistance to both undergraduate and graduate students.  An overview of support for graduate students is available at this link; undergraduates can view this link to learn about available services. The Academic Achievement Center (AAC) offers an array of academic support services, including coaching, mentoring, and student success workshops. Although many of the offerings are geared toward undergraduate students, graduate students can contact the AAC directly to discuss specific support needs and will be referred to available resources. Undergraduate students may seek support from the Q-Center for classes that have a quantitative component. Specifically, the Q-Center provides direct assistance to students via peer tutoring, review sessions, and the creation of innovative learning tools.

Course Instructors:  Students can speak with their course instructor to discuss options within the course, such as opportunities to make up work or extra time on an assignment, as well as the possibility of an Incomplete grade.  The Graduate and Undergraduate Catalogs provide more information on Incomplete grades for students considering this option.

Dean of Students: Staff in the Dean of Students Office are available to support undergraduate students with academic, personal, and other concerns that impact their student experience. Staff in this office provide support without judgement and can help students as they consider completing current courses, rescheduling final exams, or processing a withdrawal or cancellation for those considering taking a break. Questions for the Dean of Students Office staff can be emailed to dos@uconn.edu or students can make an appointment with an Assistant Dean by visiting the Dean of Students Office website to access our online scheduler.

Graduate Student Affairs Office of The Graduate School:  The Graduate Student Affairs Staff can answer questions about both academic and non-academic resources that are available to graduate students and advisement on strategies for dealing with challenges.  If you are struggling to determine what academic resources are available, you can email gradschool@uconn.edu and a staff member can help connect you to the most appropriate resources. They also administer requests for late course drops and for leaves of absence.  Information about dropping a course after November 2, 2020 can be found on the academic calendar. Graduate students who feel the need to step away from their academic studies temporarily or to withdraw from their program can find more information about taking a leave of absence or voluntary separation at The Graduate School website or by emailing gradseparation@uconn.edu.

Regional Student Services Staff: Undergraduates at the regional campuses needing support of an academic or personal nature should connect with the Student Services staff on their home campus. Regional campus Student Services staff can help students as they consider completing current courses, rescheduling final exams, and processing a withdrawal or cancellation if you are considering taking a break. Visit this website to schedule an appointment with a Regional Student Services staff member.

Student Health and Wellness - Mental Health: SHAW provides mental health services to promote the emotional, relational, and academic potential of all undergraduate and graduate students. SHAW-Mental Health offers:

  • Rapid access screening appointments
  • Emergency/Crisis assessment
  • Individual and group therapy
  • Medication management
  • Mindfulness/Meditation/Yoga workshops
  • Referral and off-campus support services

Storrs students (undergrad or graduate) may access SHAW-MH by calling 860-486-4705 or schedule a screening appointment online.

Regional campus students (undergrad or graduate) seeking mental health resources will find campus specific contact information at this link.

Tutoring: Students in need of tutoring may find help within specific academic programs. Below is a list of tutoring resources students may want to access for potential help.

The UConn Library is available to help students with research assistance.

University Advising: Each school or college as well as each regional campus has an office or center with oversight over advising. These centers/offices serve as a resource to undergraduate students, faculty and staff on a wide range of advising matters, including:

  • Permission to register for excess credit or add or drop a course
  • Requesting a late withdrawal from a course
  • Academic probation, dismissal, and appeals of academic dismissal
  • Requesting a general education substitution

To learn more about Advising resources, visit the University Advising website.

We are here to help. Please reach out to one of the many offices listed and the staff and faculty will try their best to provide support and identify solutions. Questions about this information should be directed to dos@uconn.edu or gradschool@uconn.edu.

 

 

 

Decision on Fee Reductions for Graduate Students

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Dear UConn Graduate Students,

I am reaching out to provide information on a question regarding fee reductions for graduate students. Specifically, we have been asked to allow the fee reduction for online only students to apply to graduate students whose only in-person course is a graduate research course. In most cases, this situation occurs when a student has finished formal coursework and is completing research for a thesis or dissertation.

After considerable deliberations, we have shared with Graduate Student Senate (GSS) and Graduate Student Union leadership that we cannot extend this waiver for graduate students with research as their only in-person course.

We considered multiple factors in weighing this request. First, we started with the original motivation behind the fee reduction for entirely online courses. In large part, that was designed as a measure to promote safety and de-densify campus by providing a financial motivation for students to take online courses. Doing so also allowed us to open more in-person seats for students who preferred that option.

Second, we recognize that thesis and dissertation research for many of you will not occur on campus, but this has also been the case before COVID-19. Thus, a fee reduction for graduate students enrolled only in graduate research courses would not lead to any further de-densifying of campus. We also have to be mindful that honoring this waiver request would cost around $500,000. At a time when we are already experiencing cuts across the University from the impact of COVID-19, additional costs such as these would have further damaging consequences.

We understand the request that has been made to provide a fee reduction for graduate students whose only in-person course is a graduate research course, but making a change to graduate student fee structures associated with graduate research was not the intention of this waiver and we need to stand by the original intent. As a result of our multiple conversations about these issues I am going to work with Dean Holsinger and graduate student leaders over this next semester to evaluate graduate student fees and we will be in touch over this period with any changes we can consider making for the future.

Relatedly and as part of our conversations with GSS, we did develop the Graduate Students Emergency Fund that was announced last Thursday. It is an effort to help those of you whose plans to complete your degrees were delayed by COVID-19. Detailed information about the program and requirements are available here: https://grad.uconn.edu/graduate-students/emergency-fund/.

I recognize that addresses only part of the issue here, and want you to know that I welcome continued conversation on graduate student fees more broadly. I appreciate the advocacy of your graduate student leaders and look forward to working with them, as well as hearing from you on your concerns.

Sincerely,

Carl

Carl Lejuez

Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs

COVID-19 testing for graduate students

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To the Graduate Student Community at Storrs and the Regional Campuses:

The Graduate School has been working closely with Student Health and Wellness (SHaW), Human Resources, the Office of the Provost, the Graduate Student Senate, and the Graduate Student Representative to the Board of Trustees to develop the following plan for testing members of the graduate school whose work will require them to be on campus. What follows is a summary of those procedures. Please note: Graduate students at UConn Health should follow the procedures in place at UConn Health.

  • All graduate students who are expected to be regularly on campus (Storrs or any regional campus) in order to participate in in-person course work or to fulfill their duties as GAs (including those RAs who have already been working labs as part of the summer research ramp-up) will be provided access to COVID testing without cost.
  • Graduate students who have no regular duties or coursework that require them to be on campus will not be tested. They are permitted to come to campus occasionally for very brief  periods during the semester. In general, however, they are urged to stay off campus and arrange for virtual meetings with faculty advisors or other colleagues.
  • Testing will be done by Vault Health. Eligible graduate students will receive an email link to their UConn email along with detailed instructions for how to order a kit by mail for collecting their own samples, which should then be mailed directly back to Vault labs for testing.
  • Students who have already had a test within the 14 days prior to the start of classes (August 31st) may instead submit a test result to SHaW directly here.
  • Over the next several days the Graduate School will be working with Human Resources, Departments, and the Registrar in order to identify all graduate students who fall within these categories. Therefore, please note the following:
    • Given our need to have accurate information about students being on campus due to enrollment in in-person or hybrid courses, it is very important that all graduate students complete their course registrations for the Fall 2020 semester by August 17th.
  • Test results will be sent to the students and will also be shared with Student Health and Wellness (SHaW). No further action is necessary if test results are negative, and students may come to campus. For Storrs students who receive a positive test result, contact SHaW at (860)486-4700 or your primary care provider to obtain medical attention and instructions on how to self-isolate.  For regional campus students who test positive, contact your primary care provider to obtain medical attention and instructions.
    • Students who are taking in-person courses should contact their professors to make arrangements to continue their studies online.
    • GAs who test positive for COVID-19 are expected to initiate a report directly to HR and are also expected to self-quarantine as instructed by HR. (Vault/SHaW will NOT be sending those results to HR due to HIPPA privacy laws. GAs are expected to report their positive tests results to HR by sending a note to hr@uconn.edu).

Carl Lejuez, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
Kent Holsinger, Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Dean of The Graduate School

Grad Conversations: July

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Last month, The Graduate School and the Graduate Student Senate (GSS) held our first Grad Conversations event. These events highlight the collaborative and deliberative efforts between the University and graduate student leaders to address topics and questions voiced by the graduate student body.

We invite UConn grad students join us for our second joint event being held virtually on Tuesday, July 21 from 4:00-5:00 pm EST. This question and answer session brings together panelists to discuss topics pertaining to the graduate student experience, based on questions and concerns received from graduate students. Join us as we take your questions and discuss topics including: the Fall 2020 opening, international student issues, financial concerns, effects on research, and resources from CETL for teaching assistants. 

Update: July 23, 2020: Watch a recording of this event.

Grad Conversations: June

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The Graduate Student Senate (GSS) and The Graduate School, invite UConn grad students to join us for this joint event to discuss topics and questions pertaining to the graduate student experience.

The current pandemic has affected graduate students in unique ways, and we understand that in a changing landscape, the path in front of us all may be unclear. This event will bring together panelists to help guide you during this time and highlight the collaborative and deliberative efforts between the University and graduate student leaders over the last few weeks.

The conversation will include the following topics: financial concerns, international student issues, effects on research, academics, and Fall 2020. Graduate student leaders will also share their experience during this crisis and what they have been doing to help keep grad student voices heard.

For more information, visit our event page.

June 17 Update:
View a recording of this event.

Response to Open Letter of Concerns

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Last week President Katsouleas, Interim Provost Elliot, and Dean Holsinger received an email from a group of graduate students with a link to an open letter created by UConn graduate students calling for additional responses to the COVID-19 crises. More than 400 members of the UConn community (graduate students, undergraduate students, postdocs, faculty, and staff) signed the letter.

It has been a challenging time for the University and all its members, and graduate students have played a critical role in supporting the key mission elements, including successfully transitioning to online classes, supporting faculty, and students and carrying out critical research. President Katsouleas, Interim Provost Elliott, and Dean Holsinger directly responded to Mr. Ramirez about concerns in the open letter. You can read this response below.

Thank you for sharing the thoughtful letter describing concerns that graduate students at UConn face. As you know better than we, graduate students often feel isolated or marginalized even at the best of times, and these are far from the best of times. It has been a challenging period for the University and all its members, and we want first to acknowledge the critical role that graduate students have played in supporting the key mission elements, including successfully transitioning to online classes, supporting faculty and students and carrying out critical research.

We hope you will be pleased to learn that the University has already taken action on several of the items mentioned in your letter: The University will continue to teach its courses this summer and fall. Even if remote instruction is necessary, teaching assistants will be needed at least as much as they have been needed this spring, and it is reasonable to anticipate that most or all of them will receive appointments this fall. The Graduate School has long allowed remote participation in general exams, final exams, and defenses, and it also worked with the Registrar's Office to allow electronic signatures on all required forms, including approval pages of theses and dissertations. Similarly, it has long been possible for international students to complete their degrees from their home country while paying only the continuous registration fee, provided that they have completed all other degree requirements. The Students First fund has long been a priority for fundraising through the University of Connecticut Foundation, and the Foundation has redoubled its efforts to ensure that the Students First fund is able to meet the needs of as many students as possible. Connecticut state government is centrally coordinating the use of space, including residence halls at UConn, to meet a variety of needs or potential needs associated with the pandemic. This includes housing first responders, healthcare workers, patients, those recovering from coronavirus and/or homeless populations. In fact, on April 16 the Board of Trustees approved an agreement between UConn and the City of Stamford that will allow recovering coronavirus patients to use UConn’s largest residence hall in Stamford to house individuals recovering from coronavirus. In addition, space has been identified and held on the Storrs campus for the state’s potential future use, as well as the quarantine and isolation needs for our own students, about 800 of whom remain on campus. In addition to ensuring that all on-campus workers have access to personal protective equipment (PPE), the University has also donated thousands of items of PPE from its labs and research offices to healthcare workers. Governor Lamont also recently issued an executive order regarding the use of masks in workplaces which the university will of course follow.

The University is also responding to other concerns you mention. For example, procedures already exist for graduate student to request extensions of the time needed to complete their degree. We will prioritize this processing for returning students closest to completing their degrees and terms of appointment. The Graduate School will approve any extension request based on hardships associated with COVID-19, provided that the student's major advisor supports their request. In addition, graduate assistants who have their degree conferred in May already have health insurance coverage through the end of August, and graduate students covered by the student health plan have coverage through August 14. In addition, we have been independently considering your request to extend the pass/fail option. We have been thinking of this in the context of ways to ensure a smooth and safe re-entry to campus for all students and staff. We believe a key part of that strategy involves removing any incentives to come to campus sick. Knowing that grade pressure can be a reason students push themselves to come to school when they perhaps shouldn’t, we will be asking the Graduate Faculty Council to approve an extension of the pass/fail option to Fall 2020.

You mention other concerns that we understand and that we are committed to addressing in a case by case basis working with departments, major advisors and outside agencies. Our overarching 15priority is to ensure that the pandemic does not prevent students from completing degrees towards which they are making satisfactory progress. The circumstances graduate students face differ dramatically from department to department, and even from student to student within a department. The University is, however, working closely with federal agencies, with leaders in Congress and the state, with advisors and departments to address as much of the shortfall in funding for students as possible. There will be some for whom these measures still leave students with substantial hardship as a result of the pandemic. For those students, we will look to provide relief through financial aid.

Finally, the term associated with an I-20/DS2019 is determined by the federal government. Nevertheless, the University is working closely with federal officials to minimize hardships that are especially severe for our international students.

We thank you for writing us to share your concerns and those of your fellow graduate students. Graduate students are the lifeblood of a great university, and UConn is fortunate to have you and your colleagues among us.

Sincerely yours,

Thomas Katsouleas
John Elliott
Kent Holsinger

Response to Concerns

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Last week President Katsouleas, Interim Provost Elliot, and Dean Holsinger received an email from a group of graduate students with a link to an open letter created by UConn graduate students calling for additional responses to the COVID-19 crises. More than 400 members of the UConn community (graduate students, undergraduate students, postdocs, faculty, and staff) signed the letter.

It has been a challenging time for the University and all its members, and graduate students have played a critical role in supporting the key mission elements, including successfully transitioning to online classes, supporting faculty, and students and carrying out critical research. President Katsouleas, Interim Provost Elliott, and Dean Holsinger directly responded to students who raised concerns in the open letter. You can read the response at grad.uconn.edu/coronavirus/response-to-concerns.

Town Hall Recording

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Last week, The Graduate School held an online Q&A session. With 7 panelists and over 300 folks joining us from across the University, we discussed a variety of topics including the suspension of on-campus research; graduation / commencement ceremonies, submitting signatures and paperwork electronically, pass/fail for graduate students, working remotely with a GAship, international students returning in the fall, and many other topics. The video is closed captioned and a transcript is also viewable beneath the video.

View Graduate School Townhall Recording (April 9, 2020)

Note that in the Townhall, Dean Holsinger refers to an upcoming discussion of pass/fail grading. Since the Townhall, the Graduate Faculty Council voted to approve a measure which is detailed in our April 14, 2020 announcement available below.

Announcement Regarding Options for Course Conversions by Graduate Students

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In an effort to address concerns that have been raised regarding the challenges faced by graduate students during the pandemic, the Graduate Faculty Council recently approved a motion to temporarily allow any graduate student to convert a course taken in Spring 2020 from “graded” to either “pass/fail” or “withdraw-audit”, with approval of the student’s major advisor and/or program director.  This option is available to all graduate students in a degree or certificate program under the jurisdiction of The Graduate School. The deadline for conversion of courses is May 22, 2020.  Students can, but need not, wait until after receiving their grade to decide whether to seek a conversion. However, once a course is converted, it cannot be converted back to a letter-graded course.

For graduate students, a passing grade in a course converted to P/F is defined as an overall grade of C- or higher.  A course for which the student has a P grade can, with approval of the major advisor (or, if appropriate, the program director), be included on the student’s graduate Plan of Study or Advisement Report.  Courses that have been converted to Audit will appear on the student’s transcript as “WAU”.  A course that has been converted to Audit cannot be used on a graduate Plan of Study or Advisement Report.

Any student wishing to convert a class to P/F or Audit  should email their major advisor and/or program director requesting the conversion, indicating in the email the course number (including subject area), their Peoplesoft ID, and the requested conversion.  If the major advisor and/or program director approves, they should forward the student’s request, indicating approval of the request, to the Registrar’s Office (registrar@uconn.edu) and copy the student on the approval email.  The request should be sent by the student to the major advisor and/or program director no later than Monday, May 18, 2020. The approval email must then be sent from the major advisor’s and/or program director’s UConn email address to the Registrar’s Office by Friday, May 22, 2020.  Extensions of the deadline (due to extenuating circumstances) will be allowed only with the approval of The Graduate School.

Town Hall Announcement

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To our graduate students,

We know that shifting to online classes, teaching, and research has created new and unforeseen challenges for our graduate student community. On our FAQ page, we have addressed many of the concerns we have heard about; however, we want to be able to offer you the opportunity to ask questions directly to staff from The Graduate School and our partners at the Registrar’s Office and The Office of International Student & Scholar Services.

On Thursday 9th of April at 1:15pm, we will be hosting a live webinar. The link to join has been emailed to you.

During the webinar, you will be able to ask questions using the Q&A chat feature and will see video feeds from each of our panelists. Moderated by staff at The Graduate School, the panel will feature Dean Kent Holsinger, Assistant Dean Karen Bresciano, Megan Petsa, Meg Drakos, Jennifer King, and other colleagues. We encourage you to submit questions ahead of time using the link at the bottom our FAQ page.

We hope that you will join us for this Q&A session, but even if you are unable to, we will be updating the FAQ with answers to the questions posed.

If you require an accommodation for this event, please email stuart.duncan@uconn.edu.

Stay safe and healthy,

The Graduate School