Announcements

TAs – English Proficiency Policy

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The Graduate School and UCAELI have collaborated to provide you the following information that will help you ensure your TAs are ready and able to begin teaching in Fall 2021.

 

First, please be aware that TGS and UCAELI do not reach out to TAs directly with information about International TA Orientation or guidance on how to provide proof of English proficiency in order to hold a TA. The reason for that is we don’t know which students fall into the category of international TAs who will have instructional contact duties—only the hiring departments have that information, which means we rely on you to share this information with your students. Below, please find information to help you determine which of your TAs may need to take additional steps in order to teach this Fall along with some language you can share with them. We hope providing this summary for you makes this process easier for you this year!

 

Who needs to provide proof of English proficiency to be a TA?

Prospective Teaching Assistants for whom English is not a primary language must pass an oral English proficiency test regardless of citizenship or visa status. A primary language is defined as a language used to communicate since childhood. Even if English proficiency was waived for purposes of admission, TAs must still provide proof of English proficiency. Information on UConn’s English Proficiency Policy for TA’s and Testing Procedures can be found here.

 

How can I tell if a graduate student to whom we plan to give instructional contact TA duties needs to provide proof of English proficiency? Where can I find an applicant’s official test of English scores?

  1. Log into the Slate reader: https://connect.grad.uconn.edu/manage/reader/
  2. Click on “Applications”
  3. Click on “Search” and type in the applicant’s name, click on the “Display Copy” icon.
  4. Once the application is open, click on the “Test Score” tab to display test results.

Please note: Only review test scores that are “Verified” and not “Self-Reported”. “Self-Reported” are not considered official scores.

  1. For current students, please check the GA Hire Level Report. Students with an approval flag “C” need to provide proof of English proficiency to have instructional contact duties.

 

How can I tell if a graduate student to whom we plan to give instructional contact TA duties received a waiver for their Test of English in their Graduate Application?

Log into the Slate reader: https://connect.grad.uconn.edu/manage/reader/

  1. Click on “Applications”
  2. Click on “Search” and type in the applicant’s name, click on the “Display Copy” icon.
  3. Once the application is open, click on the “Reader Review” tab and review the “Initial Graduate Audit” form. If the applicant has received a waiver, the waiver reason will be provided.

 

How can I tell if a graduate student to whom we plan to give instructional contact TA duties who received a waiver for their Test of English needs additional testing/review with the ITA office?

  1. You can check in “Student Groups” in Student Admin. If the student has a student group called “ENGL” with a comment that they are cleared to teach, then the student is all set. If you don’t see the “ENGL” student group there, then you should contact UCAELI and the student to let them know that the student needs a Waiver Interview. Waiver Interviews are scheduled once a month and the registration can be found on the ITA website. The student and/or the department must complete the Waiver Interview registration form in order for the Waiver Interview to be scheduled. Results are usually available within 1-2 days following the interview.
  2. You can check the GA Hire Level Report. Students with an approval flag “C” do not have the “ENGL” student group described above on their record.

 

How can a TA provide proof of English proficiency? 

There are three main ways:

  1. With a passing TOEFL or IELTS Speaking score
  2. With “passing” or “conditionally passing” the Waiver Interview or UCAELI Proficiency Assessment
  3. By “passing” or “conditionally passing” the Microteaching Test (offered June, August, and January for first time test takers and in November and April for students who have been screened at least once by UCAELI).

 

Students who receive a “pass” or “conditional pass” for any of these screenings are cleared to teach and may be offered a teaching assignment. UCAELI will add the ENGL student group to their record in Student Admin with a comment indicating the student has been cleared to teach and the date they were cleared. Students with a conditional pass have reached the English Proficiency requirements for teaching at UConn. However, they must successfully complete the recommended language support course during the semester immediately following the test. If a department knows and has confirmed that a student’s primary language is English and believes the student does not need to be screened, the department should contact UCAELI. If a student has experience providing instructional contact TA duties at a higher education institution they attended previously, the department should contact UCAELI.

 

Who needs to attend ITA Orientation? 

ITA Orientation is intended for international TAs who have never taught in the United States. International TAs with teaching experience from another university in the United States are welcome to attend, but their attendance is not required. ITA Orientation for Fall 2021 will take place on Monday, August 9. Registration will be available one month prior to orientation. Please check the ITA website, www.ita.uconn.edu, for more information.

 

What should I communicate to my incoming TAs? 

The International Teaching Assistant (ITA) services, under the direction of UCAELI, are designed to support students in English language learning for their role as a classroom or laboratory instructor at UConn. All ITAs must meet UConn’s English Language Proficiency Requirement before they begin their teaching assignments. The ITA website, www.ita.uconn.edu, contains important information about UConn’s English Proficiency Policy, registration for language screenings, and ITA Orientation. You should make sure that you have registered for the ITA Orientation and have taken all of the necessary steps to be cleared to teach at UConn. The next deadline to register for proficiency screenings/testing is May 31, 2021.

 

If you have any questions, please contact us using the email addresses below:

Jeannie Slayton: Jeannie.Slayton@uconn.edu

Ana Colón: ana.s.colon@uconn.edu

 

For assistance with finding verified scores in your applications in Slate, please contact gradadmissions@uconn.edu or meg.drakos@uconn.edu. For grad payroll overrides, please reach out to megan.petsa@uconn.edu. To learn more about this, consider attending the Timely Topics session, Graduate Payroll Processes, on May 26 (register here).

 

As a reminder, there are several different orientations offered by UConn that graduate students may want or be required to attend and more information can be found here.

 

Best,

 

Ana Colón, UCAELI

Meg Drakos, The Graduate School

Megan Petsa, The Graduate School

Jeannie Slayton, Global Affairs

 

PostDoc SEED Award 2021 Announcement

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Dear Postdoc community and faculty/staff who work with Postdocs,

The Graduate School is delighted to announce this year’s Seed Award Competition. All details can be found in the attached PDF. The deadline is June 14th 2021. One big change to this year’s process is that instead of funding one project at $2000 and two at $1000, we will be funding three projects at $2000.

Please feel free to forward this message to faculty that work with postdocs. This competition is a great opportunity for P.I’s to support postdocs in furthering their grant writing and research communication skills.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have questions,

Stuart

stuart.duncan@uconn.edu
Stuart P. Duncan PhD DMA
Director of Fellowships, Outreach, and Programming
The Graduate School, University of Connecticut
Pronouns (He/Him & They/Them)

Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship and Conference Participation Awards

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Sent on behalf of Kent Holsinger, Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Dean of The Graduate School, to Directors of Graduate Studies and Department Admins.

***

Colleagues,

At this time of year, The Graduate School typically shares information about how to apply for doctoral travel funds and the doctoral dissertation fellowship. I am writing to let you know that the timing of the application cycles for both of these awards has changed.

 

Conference Participation Award (formerly the Doctoral Student Travel Award)

The Graduate School is committed to helping graduate students achieve their academic, professional, and personal goals during their time at the University of Connecticut. In support of this goal, The Graduate School offers a $750 Conference Participation Award to support students’ ability to present their research at national or international meetings and conferences, including both in-person and virtual events. Applications will be accepted from June 1-June 30, 2021 and, if awarded, the funds will be paid through the student’s Fall 2021 fee bill. The eligibility criteria for this award can be found here.

 

Summer Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship

The Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship is transitioning from a bi-annual award to a summer fellowship. The Summer Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship is a one-time $2,000 fellowship and is intended to support the successful completion of the dissertation. Applications for this award will be accepted in February 2022.

As part of this transition, a limited submission cycle will occur in July 2021. This application period will only be open to applicants who will graduate by May 2022. The eligibility criteria for this award can be found here.

 

Kent E. Holsinger
Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor
Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Dean of The Graduate School

Template for Annual Reviews for Doctoral Students

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As part of an ongoing effort to foster good graduate student mentoring and facilitate communication between graduate advisors and advisees, The Graduate School has developed a template for annual reviews for doctoral (and potentially other) students.  The purpose is to provide a tool that programs can use to: (1) allow students to report and reflect on their progress and accomplishments during the previous year and plan their activities and efforts for the coming year, and (2) aid major advisors in providing their graduate students with feedback on their progress to date and plans.   The template is attached, along with examples of similar forms currently being used by some departments (English, Marine Sciences, and Psychology).  The template draws from examples such as these, and incorporates feedback received from the Graduate Faculty Council and the Executive Committee.

Importantly, the template is designed to be customizable.  We anticipate that programs will modify it — adding, changing, or deleting items – to suit the specific needs of their programs.  Although use of this or any form is purely voluntary (i.e., there is no Graduate School requirement that annual reviews of this sort be conducted), we strongly urge programs to institute a process based on some version of a tool like this.

We are distributing this template now so that programs that want to do so can use it this academic year.  However, we view this as a “living document” that we will be revising as we receive feedback on it.  In addition, we will be developing guidance/tips on implementations suggestions and strategies that we will be posting on the TGS website, along with the template itself, over the coming months.

Download Template

If you have any questions or suggestions regarding the template itself or its use, please reach out to us at kent.holsinger@uconn.edu or Kathleen.segerson@uconn.edu.

Kent E. Holsinger
Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor
Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Dean of The Graduate School

Kathleen Segerson
Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor
Associate Dean of The Graduate School

 

Strategic Plan Seeking Public Comment

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Research, scholarship, and creative activity are vitally important to the University of Connecticut, and excellence in these areas rests on a foundation of excellence in graduate and postdoctoral education. As the home for graduate and postdoctoral education at UConn, The Graduate School supports a thriving community of graduate students and postdoctoral scholars and oversees graduate programs in every academic discipline.

Over the past eight months staff of The Graduate School have developed a strategic plan that outlines our vision for the future of The Graduate School. The Executive Committee of The Graduate School, which consists of nine members of the graduate faculty, provided extensive comments on the plan as it was being developed.

We invite comments from all members of the UConn community on the draft of the strategic plan you find here. Comments received before 10 May will play a vital role in making final revisions before we adopt the plan in June.

Thank you for taking the time to share your insights.

grad.uconn.edu/strategic-plan

Coronavirus Relief Emergency Funding for Students

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The Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSAA) was approved by Congress and includes support for higher education, including emergency grants for students facing expenses due to COVID-19.

The grants must be used for any component of the student’s cost of attendance or for emergency costs that arise due to coronavirus, such as tuition, food, housing, health care (including mental health care) or child care.

The funds are available to both U.S. citizens and eligible non-citizens. To confirm eligibility, students will have to submit a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to UConn.

The emergency funding will be awarded through financial aid and disbursing directly to students via their student account.  The grant will be passed through PeopleSoft and will not be applied to or used to offset any charge, debt, tuition, fees, or other balance in a student account, nor will it be encumbered in any manner by UConn.

For students enrolled in direct deposit, they will have access to the funds in approximately three business days from the date of disbursement. For those not enrolled in direct deposit, the Office of the Bursar will issue a check.

The application is available at the Office of Financial Aid’s website. Learn more about the CRRSAA Emergency funding and apply. If you have additional concerns or needs, let us know at the gradschool@uconn.edu or meet with members of our Graduate Student and Postdoctoral Affairs team.

Guidance for departments concerning GAs abroad in Fall 2021

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Colleagues,

I am writing to provide some guidance concerning GA appointments for Fall 2021. You may recall that our contract with graduate assistants require that incoming students be notified of appointments by April 1st and that continuing students be notified by June 15th. The contract includes a provision recognizing that in “exceptional circumstances” notification may come later than these dates. In making decisions about GA offers for next fall, please keep in mind that the University made a one-time exception to allow a limited number of GAs to work from outside the US during 2020/2021 because of the exceptional hardship associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. I anticipate that the University will require all GAs to be in the United States to hold an appointment in Fall 2021 and beyond. Please keep this in mind when making GA appointments for Fall 2021.

Kent Holsinger  

Apply for Graduation

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Greetings Graduate Students,

Are you graduating this semester?  Did you know you must apply for graduation online via your Student Administration account?  Did you know the deadline was by the end of the 4th week of the semester?

If you missed the deadline, please apply ASAP in order to not impact the conferral of your degree.  Summer candidates are asked to apply no later than March 25th to ensure their information makes the Commencement publication.

Click the following link for more information about Commencement.

Additional important dates and deadlines can be viewed on the Academic Calendar page.  Friday, April 23rd is the last day to submit paperwork for a master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation to qualify for a Spring 2021 conferral date.

Visit Degree Audit’s website for directions and more information about applying for graduation, submitting required paperwork, and uploading your thesis or dissertation.  Consult your major advisor about what documentation needs to be submitted to The Registrar’s Office as a requirement for your degree.

All students are advised to review their transcript to ensure that it coincides with their plan of study. Any missing grades, documents, or discrepancies between a student’s plan of study and transcript can result in a delay of degree conferral or cancellation of degree candidacy.

UConn Health Graduate students can get information at the following link – UConn Health Commencement

Feel free to contact The Degree Audit office at degreeaudit@uconn.edu if you have additional questions.

BIPOC Student Support Report Seeking Public Comment

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Hello graduate faculty and staff,

Following the national incidents of racism and racial injustice in Summer 2020, The Graduate School has been reflecting, researching, and discussing how we can better serve our Black, Indigenous, and/or Person of Color (BIPOC) graduate students at the University of Connecticut. This process, undertaken with the assistance of our partners, graduate faculty and staff, graduate student organizations, and graduate students, has resulted in a report. The report outlines our process, our findings, and, most importantly, our priorities we will be working to address with the purpose of improving the experiences of BIPOC graduate students at UConn. 

To ensure these priorities represent the needs and desires of the graduate community at UConn, we are asking for feedback from our community members. Our report and feedback form will be available on our webpage until Friday, March 26th. We will then adjust our priorities based upon the feedback we receive and communicate the final priorities with the graduate community. We welcome feedback from all graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, faculty, staff, and alumni regardless of racial identity. 

grad.uconn.edu/bipoc_report_feedback/

If you have any questions, please reach out to Shay Hopley at shalyn.hopley@uconn.edu. 

Sincerely,

The Graduate School Team

Important Information: Spring 2021 Enrollment

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As the Spring semester gets closer, we wanted to provide some context on enrollment. The information below is relevant to both new and returning students. Please review carefully and reach out with any questions you may have. If you have not done so already, please be sure to enroll in classes prior to the start of the semester, which begins January 19.

Continuous enrollment is a requirement of all graduate programs. Students who will not be registering in coursework or research credits must register for a zero credit continuous registration course to maintain their active student status. Continuous registration courses include GRAD 5997, GRAD 5998, and GRAD 6998, as well as GRAD 5999 (Thesis Preparation) and GRAD 6999 (Dissertation Preparation). Full descriptions of the continuous registration courses can be found here. Enrollment in these sections should be determined before the first day of classes. There are financial implications when changing from being enrolled in credits to no credits as of the first day of classes. Changes from credits to a zero-credit placeholder cannot be made after the first day of classes.

Students who wish to cancel enrollment prior to the start of the semester or who attend class and then decide to withdraw from all their courses should notify The Graduate School (TGS) by completing an online Voluntary Separation Notification Form as soon as possible. The add/drop period that extends through the 10th day of classes (February 1, 2021) is only available to students who plan to be enrolled in credited coursework throughout the semester. A student who wishes to go down to zero credits or withdraw from their program completely will need assistance from The Graduate School and will be subject to the university refund schedule which will apply based on the date the student notifies TGS of the intent to withdraw via the online Voluntary Separation Notification process, not when they last attended classes. More information on voluntary separation can be found here.

Students who do not register for classes by the 10th day are automatically discontinued from their program. If the student then wishes to be enrolled after Day 10, the student will need to request reinstatement to their program, which is not guaranteed and incurs a $65 fee. Students should also be aware that classes with insufficient enrollment will be cancelled and will then be unavailable even if the student is reinstated.

Fee bills for graduate students are due January 15, 2021. Information about the UConn Payment Plan can be found here and information on Graduate Assistant Payroll Deductions can be found here.

The decision to enroll in research credits in a given semester should be made in conjunction with the student’s advisor. Doctoral students should register for GRAD 6950. Plan A Master’s students should register for GRAD 5950. All sections will show “Staff” (or similar) as the instructor. Through an automatic process later in the semester, students will be moved to a grade roster associated with their major advisor. Permission numbers are not needed for students to register for these research courses. If you attempt to register and receive an error, contact registrar@uconn.edu for assistance. Be sure to include your 7-digit student ID in all correspondence.

Additional Registration Information for Graduate Assistants:
Graduate Assistants (GAs) are required to be enrolled as full-time students (6 or more credits), as noted in their offer letter and The Graduate Catalog. Employment as a GA is a result of student status, therefore GAs are expected to be registered for a minimum of 6 credits before the start date of their spring semester employment (January 7, 2021). GAs who have not completed their registration for a minimum of six credits by their start date are not fulfilling one of the contingencies of employment and may be subject to termination from their assistantship. (GAs employed solely at UConn Health should follow the registration deadlines set by UCH.)

Please note, the tuition waiver will not post to a GA’s fee bill until the GA is registered for at least 6 credits. Therefore, if a student is not fully registered in a timely fashion, this can result in a Bursar hold on the student’s account that blocks enrollment and other services, as well as incur late fees.

The decision to enroll in research credits in a given semester should be made in conjunction with the student’s advisor. Doctoral students should register for GRAD 6950. Plan A Master’s students should register for GRAD 5950. GAs should NOT register for GRAD 6960 (Full-Time Doctoral Research) or GRAD 5960 (Full-Time Master’s Research). GRAD 6960 and 5960 are only 3 credits and will prevent the tuition waiver from populating if it is the only course the GA is registered for, as well as create duplicate fee charges.

Additional Registration Information for Provost’s Professional Interns:
Students who are employed as Provost’s Professional Interns are required to be enrolled in six or more credits, as noted in their offer letter. Employment as a Provost’s Professional Intern is a result of student status, therefore Provost’s Professional Interns are expected to be registered for a minimum of 6 credits before the start date of their spring semester employment (January 7, 2021). Provost’s Professional Interns receive a tuition scholarship for the duration of their appointment. Registration prior to the deadline allows The Graduate School to accurately process this tuition scholarship in a timely manner, avoiding late fees and holds on the student’s account that block enrollment and other services.

While Provost’s Professional Interns are eligible for a tuition scholarship upon meeting the six credit registration threshold, in order to be reported as a full-time student, Provost’s Professional Interns must be registered for nine credits. This may be an important consideration for international students or those with student loans in deferment.

If you are experiencing difficulty registering, or have any questions, please feel free to reach out to The Graduate School for assistance. Please include your 7-digit student ID number in all correspondence.

To register now, please click here.