Improving graduate education
The Graduate School has launched a major initiative to identify and implement the most effective practices to help students complete their PhD degrees. Data collected and analyzed over the course of last year show that some departments are consistently more successful than others in helping students complete their dissertations in a timely way and embark on satisfying careers. Improving outcomes was the top priority of Dean Thomas Pollard’s first year.
One of the most striking differences among programs is the percentage of students who graduate with a PhD, ranging from 90 percent to barely 40 percent. The study confirmed that while academic programs use a variety of excellent approaches, none takes advantage of all of the best mentoring practices. These include providing clear and complete information about program requirements and expectations, early exposure to independent research, careful monitoring of student progress, and regular formal and informal meetings for students to discuss their ongoing research with faculty and fellow students. Beginning this year, all programs will be urged to adopt these practices.
New dean at the Graduate School
Carl Hashimoto ’86PhD (MB&B), professor and DGS of cell biology at Yale, joined the Graduate School as assistant dean on September 1. In that capacity, he will help implement the initiative to improve graduate education (see above) and work with the Gruber Foundation at Yale, a program dedicated to the advancement of science and support of young scientists. Dean Hashimoto’s research investigates cellular and developmental processes that are regulated by proteolysis. He was a recipient of the Established Investigator Award from the American Heart Association and a Junior Faculty Research Award from the American Cancer Society.
Shakespeare and Verdi
A new book by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Garry Wills ’61PhD (classics), released in October, examines the writing and staging of Verdi’s three Shakespearean operas:Macbeth, Otello, and Falstaff. In Verdi’s Shakespeare: Men of the Theater (Viking, 2011), Wills considers both London’s Globe Theater and Milan’s La Scala and explains how Verdi, who spoke no English, could produce these operas. Wills’s earlier book, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America, won both the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction and the National Book Circle Critics Award. A professor of history emeritus at Northwestern University, Wills was awarded the Graduate School’s Wilbur Cross Medal in 1989.
loading
Print
Email