The following listing of responsibilities is the result of discussions by the UCF Graduate Council and others to identify those activities that will enable our graduate programs to flourish. Included in this discussion is a graduate calendar for the coordination of graduate activities, which should be helpful to new programs and program directors. Although many of these have been discussed before in earlier sections, this provides a compilation of all of the duties and tasks that program directors have told us that they perform.

Graduate program directors are responsible for coordinating activities within departments in support of graduate programs, graduate students, certificate students, and post-baccalaureate students. They cannot do their jobs without the help and support of the college dean, the college associate dean that is the liaison for graduate affairs, the department chair, the faculty in the department, and the UCF College of Graduate Studies. Outlined in this section are the major responsibilities of the program director, subdivided into categories.

Supervision and Leadership of Program

• Supervising and coordinating programs, including program administration and guidance to office staff, including chairing the Graduate Committee of the program
• Training office staff, faculty, and their successors to perform functions in support of graduate education
• Communicating with the department chair to plan budgets necessary to perform graduate program activities
• Coordinating work, space, and assignments for graduate students
• Reviewing graduate student assistants (and adjuncts, if applicable)
• Serving as liaison between department, college, and university with respect to graduate education
• Establishing policies for Contract and Grant (C&G) monies to be used in support of graduate education
• Comparing comparable programs from other schools with UCF to determine quality practices
• Providing academic oversight of program

Course and Program Development

• Leading the development of new programs, tracks or new certificate programs that fit the mission of the program and university and have necessary resources to operate effectively
• Creating a 3-year course schedule of graduate courses and posting them on the program website
• Revising courses, including adding new courses and deleting old ones
• Recommending policy, curriculum, and program changes
• Updating the program website, the student handbook, brochures and other marketing materials, graduate catalog and GraduateSchools.com
• Assessing academic graduate programs per Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) guidelines
• Assisting with accreditation and state-required reviews of programs

Recruiting and Admissions

Recruiting is done by the faculty in the program, and the program director assists the faculty in providing information and timely responses to inquiries

• Marketing and recruiting for the graduate program
• Meeting each spring to review admits and financial support for prospective next year students as to quality and quantity of offers made
• Organizing your faculty to participate in the Graduate Fair, trips to professional meetings where they can do recruiting, making personal phone calls to highly qualified applicants or admits
• Handling inquiries and communicating with prospective students
• Organizing applications, creating admissions files (these can be electronic), reviewing application files (these are electronic), making admissions decisions, and communicating those decisions to applicants, students, colleges, and the university using G-WIS
• Preparing letters and other communications with students
• Providing advisement for new students and those without an adviser
• Organizing and holding orientations, chat discussions, graduate fairs, and open houses for new students. A once per year pizza party is highly recommended for undergraduate students in your department and elsewhere to discuss graduate education
• Obtaining and maintaining data for inquiries and admissions, such as number of applicants and GPA and GRE (or GMAT) of applicants
• Planning enrollment changes in the program to coincide with graduate course scheduling, space allocation, and instructional coverage

Records and Maintenance

• Maintaining student records, ensuring that programs of study are formally completed, committees are formed, and timely submission of transfer hours and course substitutions are made so that students can move through the program smoothly. Transfer hours should be handled as soon as possible after the student enters the program.
• Reviewing progress of graduate students and coordinating procedures for those who meet milestones, including monitoring changes in student status each term
• Coordinating procedures as students approach graduation. Ideally, faculty advisors should review student audits the semester before the anticipated graduation to ensure that students have met all requirements. For those students just placed on academic probation, program directors will assist students and faculty in preparing a Conditional Retention Plan
• Seeing that a faculty adviser is engaged to work with the graduate student association
• Coordinating Comprehensive, Qualifying, and Candidacy Exams
• Providing general advice to graduate students and seeing that they are assigned a permanent adviser as quickly as possible. Also, assisting students in changing advisers if that is needed.
• Handling petitions and appeals for graduate students
• Constructing programs of study for graduate students as soon as possible after the student enters the program
• Obtaining and maintaining data on the progress of graduate students each term
• Following up on students who are not making good academic progress
• Following up on students who graduate

Student Financial Support

• Selecting students in early spring (late February to early March or earlier is best) for graduate assistantships and handling associated paperwork as early as possible, but preferably in time to make an offer to new students in March of each year
• Identifying students for tuition waivers
• Identifying those to nominate for fellowships by mid-January, at the latest
• Reviewing GTA teaching evaluations each semester to ensure that graduate assistants are doing well
• Ensuring all graduate assistant contracts are completed and processed before July 1 (for continuing students) and August 1 (for new students) for fall semester, and one month prior to the beginning of the semester for spring or summer semesters. The use of annual contracts should reduce the paperwork involved in graduate assistant contracts to once (all semesters) or twice (fall and spring, then summer) each year
• Ensuring that all graduate teaching assistants attend the GTA orientation taught by FCTL (more information on this is in the Graduate Teaching Assitantship section
• Ensuring the 18 hour rule form is signed for all graduate assistants who will be instructors of record

Other Responsibilities

• Serving as point of contact for special programs
• Preparing annual reports and effectiveness contracts for the program to the department, college, university, including documenting the independent learning experiences of the students
• Appointing someone to coordinate internships, practica, service-learning or job shadowing, if applicable
• Conducting surveys of students, graduates, and/or employers as necessary to assess the quality of student learning

Supervising and Coordinating the Program

To ensure a smooth-running program, program directors should be thoroughly familiar with the scheduling of administrative responsibilities. The best way to do this is to keep records of all completed and ongoing tasks and use these records to plan progress throughout the year. Careful record keeping will facilitate meeting the same deadlines when they arise the next year. The Graduate Tasks in this Guide will assist with the planning and scheduling of duties.

Chairing the Graduate Program Committee

Each program should have its own graduate committee that considers graduate student applications, appeals, and petitions, plans for program development, marketing and recruiting, determines course development, and performs other planning for the program. This committee can be very helpful to the graduate program director, who normally functions as its chair.

The graduate committee should meet regularly in the department, at least once per semester. Additional meetings may be needed when application deadlines are approaching and when it is time to review the Graduate Catalog and recruiting materials. How often the committee meets is very much a function of how much help program directors expect from colleagues in making program decisions. In any case, schedule the meetings so they take place early enough in the term to allow timely admissions decisions. During the spring meeting, the committee can develop new course offerings for the following fall. Submitting Course Action Request forms on time ensures that the courses receive a course number far enough in advance for inclusion in the following year's Graduate Catalog.

Students who have submitted appeals or petitions of an existing program, college, or university policy should be invited to present their case in front of the graduate program committee during the semester of their appeal or petition.

Training Office Staff, Faculty, and Their Successors

Training is a very important aspect of the program director's responsibilities. A training manual of functions along with their timelines can be a very useful resource to provide to office staff and future program directors as well as to program graduate committees. Keep a notebook listing each activity performed along with some indication of when it should be done. This record will be useful the next year in scheduling important functions. It is also a good idea to cross-train individuals in the department, particularly staff, so that if someone should be on vacation or leave the university, the program can continue to function smoothly.

Include these important functions in the notebook:

• Planning the budget for graduate activities
• Planning recruiting activities (schedules, arrangements, assignments, and costs)
• Coordinating work, space, and assignments for graduate students
• Scheduling graduate courses for the next five years
• Reviewing graduate assistants
• Handling appeals
• Handling inquiries and applications
• Providing information about departmental policies and how new policies are adopted in the department
• Highlighting how graduate materials and catalog descriptions are created and handled
• Developing marketing materials

Program directors and staff should be able to look up student information in the PeopleSoft panels and G-WIS system located in the GradInfo website at www.gradinfo.ucf.edu. PeopleSoft and G-WIS are particularly useful when you get questions during telephone conversations and need to respond quickly to a student question regarding applications for admissions.

Planning the Budget for Graduate Program Activities

In order to plan the budget needed for supporting graduate program activities, first determine those activities requiring funding; then look at other possible needs that might be supported should funds permit. Among other items, these requirements will probably head the list:

• Graduate student stipend support
• Tuition support
• Website development and maintenance
• Communication development and direct mail
• Recruitment expenses
• Travel
• Special events, such as orientations
• Office supplies
• Staff support

This list is not exhaustive. A record of the items in the funding request is useful for future planning. Even if the funds are not available this year for particular items, the "wish list" may prove handy next year for budget discussions with the chair. Determine with the chair how many students will be paid from Education and General (E&G), Contracts and Grants (C&G), and other funds; and determine how much will be needed for various other expenses. Discussions with the department chair should occur in the early spring term by February for funding the following academic year.

Coordinating Work, Space, and Assignments for Graduate Students

Plans for new graduate assistants should be made during the spring term before the fall when they will start employment. Continuing graduate assistants should be consulted about their availability and encouraged to enroll in summer and fall classes during spring so that their assignments can be planned as well. Consult the department chair about the projected budget so that the number of assistants can be determined for funding.

Drawing up a list of new and continuing graduate assistants is a useful planning strategy, so that work, space, assignments, budget, and tuition waivers can be projected. Before planning assistantship assignments, find out from the faculty what work requirements they will have for research assistants during the next year.

Once graduate assistant assignments are made, the next step is to plan for graduate assistant offices, laboratories, or other spaces. It is helpful to keep accurate and numbered office-space drawings, in order to plan for space utilization. Plan for computer facilities that graduate students may need in order to perform their work functions. Teaching assistants will also need space where they can meet with students.

The initial tuition allocation is made in February prior to the next fall term, so planning ahead is possible. It is advisable to tell students in the spring what their waivers will be for the following school year, so they can plan ahead too. The new waiver screens become operational in the summer term, so summer, fall, and spring waivers can be entered at the beginning of the summer of that year.

Also, because of the changes in IRS employment rules for international students, it is important to notify international students in your admission letter of those items that they need to provide before they can be placed on the employment rolls. They should be told to bring these items with them when they arrive at UCF. This information is best placed in their letter of acceptance.

Reviewing Graduate Student Assistants

Before the beginning of each semester, program directors should review the graduate student assistants in their program. This review should address their performance as teaching or research assistants as well as academic performance and progress towards degree. The review may be an appointment consisting of an informal discussion with the student about their work and comments or suggestions for future work. It is desirable to give students the opportunity to discuss questions and concerns they may have about their work as a graduate student assistant. The review may also include a checklist or review form that the program director has developed for this purpose. Faculty advisers and/or advisory committees may also play a vital role in this review process.

Planning for Enrollment

The program director is responsible for reporting on inquiries, applications, admissions, and enrollment into their program on a regular basis to their chairs, faculty, college graduate directors, and the College of Graduate Studies. Information is available concerning inquiries to programs on the GradInfo website, www.gradinfo.ucf.edu. Passwords can be obtained from the College of Gradate Studies for entry to this website. The inquiry report can be downloaded into Excel for use in mailing letters to prospective students using mail merging.

Application and admission information can be obtained from G-WIS for all applicants to the programs. This should be checked weekly to ensure students receive a timely admission decision. College of Graduate Studies produces a report showing the program target and the number of applications and admissions needed for the target enrollment. The program's target numbers should be reviewed weekly along with the report of the numbers of applications and admissions to date. This report is on the GradInfo website under the Graduate Studies Statistics report.

Programs are also responsible for establishing their target enrollment each year in cooperation with the college and university.

Evaluating Exit Interviews of Graduate Students

All graduate students who leave a program should be interviewed (either by written survey or orally) and their responses recorded upon graduation or during drop-outs. Graduate program directors should ascertain reasons for the leaving and satisfaction with the program and report this to the college and Graduate Studies as part of the annual report every year.

Recruiting Planning

The program director, along with the department chair, should develop and refine their program recruiting plan. The plan should consider resources, activities, costs and timetables for the year based upon projected and desired target audience and enrollment targets. The program director should review assignments of faculty and staff to recruiting events for the year with the department chair, and ensure that the events have taken place. The program director should arrange for staff to enter all inquiries into PeopleSoft and to follow up with personal communication whenever possible to each inquirer. A segmented communication plan is an effective way to recruit students.

The program director should arrange for faculty and current graduate students or alums to follow up with phone calls to prospective students. Prospective students should be invited to campus to meet with faculty and current students. Any opportunity to "interview" prospective students is useful in "pre-qualifying" applicants.

Improving and Maintaining Retention

A national survey published by the Chronicle of Higher Education, June 29, 2001, provides ideas for retaining graduate students in their program of study.

• Keep website materials up to date. Provide an awareness of culture and requirements of graduate education, faculty information including resumes and publications, titles of PhD dissertations, attrition rates, cost of living, and job placement of former graduates
• Make sure a list of alums and faculty are available to talk with applicants
• Encourage applicant visits to campus with tours
• Conduct exit interviews of everyone who leaves
• Require goal statements as part of the admissions process to get a good idea of the student's expectations
• Expect all students who are not Graduate Research Assistants to teach, even fellowship students
• Provide student graduate teaching awards
• Provide decent financial support and health care coverage
• Provide good faculty advising
• Provide professional development for students – travel to present, seminar series, professional organization information
• Make sure orientations, social events, and lounge area are provided for graduate students
• Set up a shadowing program of graduate students by own undergraduate students

Preparing the Annual Report

Program directors are asked once a year to prepare an annual report on their program activities. This report consists of:

• Inquiry, application, and admissions data for the following fall semester
• Enrollment and graduation data for previous year
• Acceptance rate for the following fall semester for students receiving fellowships
• For those who declined fellowships, what are their reasons?
• Average years to graduate of the year’s graduates (summer, fall, spring)
• Exception to admissions requirements or financial support
• GPA/GRE of entering fall class
• U.S. and international employees
• Job placements from previous year (summer, fall, spring)

Serving As Liaison with Department, College, and University with Respect to Graduate Education

Program directors serve as an important conduit connecting the department to the college and university in communicating information about graduate education at UCF. These administrative offices as well as department faculty depend on program directors to keep them informed of activities, changes, and needs in the graduate program. Creating faculty and graduate-student e-mail lists (listservs) is a handy way to forward information about fellowships, policy changes, and other information to those in the department who can act to improve graduate education. Many departments have a short newsletter that is circulated to faculty and graduate students. Others have brown-bag lunches with graduate students to discuss mutual interests.

Social events hosted by program faculty for graduate students once per semester are an effective retention tool, including orientations, seminars, lunches, and invited speakers. Program directors should establish and coordinate these events on behalf of the faculty.

Establishing Policies for Contract and Grant (C&G) Monies to Be Used in Support of Graduate Education

Contract and Grant (C&G) monies should be used to support graduate students in the form of assistantships and tuition where possible. It is recommended that all research proposals, where it is appropriate, include provisions for graduate student assistantship and tuition support. Funding agencies expect this support to be included in proposals and reviewers evaluate student support as part of this criteria.

Serving As Point of Contact for Special Programs

Program directors may be asked to perform as contact person or liaison for special activities (such as orientations, workshops, and off-campus programs) and for special fellowship programs. They may also be asked to serve on various university-level graduate committees.