A Note from Allison Sekuler, Associate Vice-President and Dean, Graduate Studies

To McMaster’s Graduate and Postdoctoral communities:

Make a difference in the future of graduate education and postdoctoral training at McMaster.

Earlier this year, President Patrick Deane issued his letter to the community, Forward with Integrity. In that letter, President Deane identified key priorities on which the University should focus in the coming decade. Since that time, students, staff, and faculty have engaged in a number of discussions about those key priorities, and a formal Advisory Group, and four task forces were struck to help provide suggestions for moving Forward with Integrity forward.

Last week, the task forces – Student Experience, Community Engagement, Research, and Internationalization – each released their position papers, focusing on the challenges and goals, recommendations on how to achieve those goals, and potential benefits to the McMaster community.

Now, President Deane and the Advisory Committee are looking for feedback on the position papers.

Now is YOUR chance to have a say in the future of McMaster. It’s important for our McMaster graduate students and PDF’s to read the reports, and offer their opinions on the ideas presented.

To read the Task Force Position Papers, and provide feedback on the reports, please visit »

You can provide feedback via email or through an online system.

Your voices matter, so make your voices count!

Sincerely,

Allison Sekuler

The results have been finalized in this year's Graduate Students Association election.

Elected to this year's GSA Council:

• President Jessica Merolli
• VP Internal Frances Lasowski
• VP Finance Yvonne Chen
• VP Services Stephen Hanson
• VP Communication Diana Glennie

Elected to this year's GSA Faculty Representative Council:

• Business: Jennifer Miele
• Health Science: Alicja Puchta
• Engineering: Michelle Fernandes and Niel Van Engelen

A byelection will be held in September to fill the remaining vacant positions.

After months of hands-on research, it’s time to pull it all together and create a masterpiece – that work of written perfection that catapults one into the stratosphere of academic greatness. However, the pressure of penning the thesis can be so overwhelming that students may struggle from the very beginning.

At the Waikato University in Hamilton, New Zealand, several initiatives have been introduced to improve the student experience, including Thesis Writing Circles and the innovative “talking to think; thinking to write” program for doctoral students.

Dr. Marcia Johnson, Director of Student Learning at the University of Waikato, will discuss collaborative and cross-disciplinary doctoral writing initiatives at a Visiting Scholar Luncheon on April 30. This is a great opportunity for McMaster PhD students and doctoral supervisors to hear more and discuss these initiatives over a light lunch in Celebration Hall (Kenneth Taylor Hall) from Noon to 2 pm. Read more »

This event is sponsored by The Centre for Leadership in Learning and the School of Graduate Studies. 

For more information, contact Dr. Catherine Swanson, swanson@mcmaster.ca 

Register now at: cll.mcmaster.ca/events.