Good afternoon all!
One of the favorite weeks of the year for our grad studies team is here! It’s Graduate and Professional Student Appreciation Week, and I’m writing today to ask you to help us celebrate our grad students and all they bring to the school through their research, teaching, service, and more. They are an important, dedicated part of our community, and we want to let them know we don’t take them for granted. I encourage each of you to take some time this week to communicate to your students, advisees, research collaborators, and student employees who are graduate students how much they mean to you, and to our school and university. You may do this in any way you see fit, but we’ve set up three specific ways to help you express your appreciation:
- Using this downloadable template (or your own design), you can add a slide to a lecture you’re giving this week. Our slide lets you customize the heading and fill in your own reasons for appreciating our grad students.
- Send a message to our residential master’s students and/or Ph.D. students through two Kudoboards we’ve created for them and plan to share with them Friday. (We’ve asked faculty for the online master’s program separately to contribute to a Kudoboard for MADC students. If you want to send a note to that group but didn’t receive or can’t find that request, ask Ann and Casey for it at mjgrad@unc.edu.) You can record or upload a video, add a photo, search for a GIF, or just write a note to the students. Here are the links to contribute your message, by the end of the day Thursday, April 4:
- Come to one of our gatherings in the third-floor grad lounge to celebrate the students. We’ll have treats for students, drawings for prizes, and time to mingle and show the students they’re valued. Here’s our schedule (in addition to several university-wide events):
- Monday, April 1: Drinks and snacks in grad lounge (all day)
- Tuesday, April 2, 3 p.m.: Insomnia Cookies
- Wednesday, April 3, noon: Pizza
- Thursday, April 4, 2:30 p.m.: Locopops and coloring for stress relief with Carolyn Ebeling
Thank you all for your support for our students and for considering giving them a little bit of extra appreciation this week!
Best,
Lucinda
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Lucinda L. Austin, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research