GradNews Bulletin
Volume 5,
Issue 7: August 31, 2005
In this issue:
Graduate Health Insurance Requirements and Premiums
Thesis/Dissertation Approval Information
Natural Resources Graduate Student Association Meets September 1
Upcoming Workshops from the Office of Teaching Effectiveness and Innovation
APPLICATION FOR GRADUATION AND DIPLOMA ORDER FORM (GS4) NOW FILLABLE ONLINE; GRADUATION DEADLINES APPROACHING
Effective immediately, all students must file their GS4 forms online at
www.clemson.edu/gradweb
(login required; use your student User ID and password).
Students planning to graduate in December 2005 must file the GS4 on or before September 13, 2005.
If you are planning to graduate in May or August 2006, please see a list of important deadlines at
www.grad.clemson.edu/Deadlines.html.
If you have questions about graduation, or you're not certain what is required of you for graduation, please contact Eartha White at 656-5339 (students whose last names begin with A - L) or Maria McCoy at 656-5341 (students whose last names begin with M - Z).
GRADUATE HEALTH INSURANCE REQUIREMENTS AND PREMIUMS
The deadline to obtain a waiver for the health insurance requirement is
September 6!
Beginning in the fall of 2005, Clemson University will require all full-time (9 hours or more), on-campus graduate students to have health insurance coverage. All international graduate students are required to have health insurance (a continuation of the past policy for this group of students). This new policy will be administered by Redfern Health Center. All full time, on-campus students will be enrolled in the university plan unless they present evidence of alternative coverage to RHC's Office of Student Insurance, Room 105 no later than Sept. 6, 2005. A waiver form will is available at
RHC's Web site.
Students who are covered by their parent's, spouse's or employee health insurance will, in general, find those policies to be sufficient to meet this condition, but must submit the waiver form nonetheless. Insurance plans that restrict enrollment based on national origin such as those sold only to international students will not be accepted for waiver.
Final approval has been received to offer a subsidy to Graduate Assistants enrolling in the Student Insurance Plan. This subsidy, in the amount of $125 per semester, is available only to graduate students receiving an assistantship, who enroll in the Student Insurance Plan. Enrollment in the Student Insurance Plan must occur during the 31 days immediately following the start of Fall or Spring semester classes (the "open enrollment" periods), except under certain circumstances.
The rates given below are for the student only; coverage is available for spouses and dependent children of enrolled students at additional cost.
- Fall 2005 (August 15, 2005 – January 5, 2006): Regular Student Premium -- $360; Graduate Assistants receive a $125 subsidy, making their final cost $235;
- For Spring and Summer 2006 (January 6, 2006 – August 15, 2006): Regular Student Premium -- $500; Graduate Assistants receive a $125 subsidy, making their final cost $375.
THESIS/DISSERTATION APPROVAL INFORMATION
The Manuscript Review Office is temporarily located in Martin Hall E-202. It will eventually be moved to the first floor of Martin Hall – watch the GradNews Bulletin for notice of the next move. We have designed a Microsoft Word template that most of you will be able use for your thesis/dissertation approval page. We strongly encourage you to use this template to avoid making the most common errors on the approval page. You can get a copy of the template at http://www.grad.clemson.edu/forms/word/ApprovalPage.doc. Please remember that you must allow at least two full business days for each review of your manuscript. If you leave campus before your manuscript is reviewed and signed, you must allow much more time, and handle all of the administrative requirements (binding fees, committee signatures, manuscript review, manuscript pickup, duplication, delivery to the library) yourself or have someone you know handle them. The manuscript review staff cannot complete those tasks for you.
NATURAL RESOURCES GRADUATE STUDENT ASSOCIATION MEETS SEPTEMBER 1
Are you a Master’s or Ph.D. student majoring in the sciences? Does your research have ties to natural resource issues? Do you want to meet students in the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources and find out about current projects and upcoming research? Are you interested in an organization that helps you network with students from departments in the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences? The Natural Resources Graduate Student Association (NRGSA) is for you! NRGSA is having its first meeting of the 2005-2006 school year to discuss new membership enrollment, upcoming conferences and symposiums, fundraising ideas and social events. Find out how a $5.00 membership fee can qualify you for travel awards, field trips, and a 30% discount on the cool Longleaf Pine t-shirt. Meeting is Thursday, September 1st in Lehotsky Hall, room 113 at 5:00pm. Visit the NRGSA Web site at
http://people.clemson.edu/%7Enrgsa/index.html to learn more about the association, or contact NRGSA President Sarah Lauerman, Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, 117 Lehotsky Hall, 656-1853, sarahl@clemson.edu.
UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM THE OFFICE OF TEACHING EFFECTIVENESS AND INNOVATION
To register for any of these upcoming workshops, visit either http://ets.clemson.edu/faculty or http://dprod6.clemson.edu/clereg/CourseListingUpcoming.asp, log in using your Employee User ID, and click on the workshop(s) in which you wish to enroll (visit the same site to drop a course in which you previously enrolled). Your enrollment with be confirmed automatically. All of the workshops listed below are currently posted on this Web site.
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Writing a Teaching Philosophy, conducted by Linda B. Nilson, OTEI Director. Dates are Friday, September 2, 9:30 - 11:30 a.m. AND Wednesday, September 14, 1:30-3:30 p.m., both offerings in 438 Brackett Hall (computer lab). Enrollment limit: 12 each offering.
A statement of your teaching philosophy has become a common, often required addition to job-application dossiers. Even if it is not required, it's always a wise idea to include one because it adds credible evidence of your teaching effectiveness. It gives you the opportunity to explain why you teach the way you do and to counterbalance problematic students ratings. If you have ever tried to write such a statement, you know how difficult it can be -- mainly because you're not sure what you're expected to say. In this workshop you will learn the conventions that have evolved and five different models for writing these statements. In addition, you will draft the substance of your teaching philosophy -- which is why this workshop is held in a faculty computer lab -- and will receive feedback on your work.
WORKSHOP PREPARATION: To make this workshop truly productive within the brief two-hour time slot, you are asked to do some advance preparation:- Read eight examples of teaching philosophy in a PDF file that registrants will be emailed shortly before the workshop; and
- Take three cost-free teaching inventories on the web, each requiring 10-20 minutes of your time: the Teaching Goals Inventory at http://www.uiowa.edu/~centeach/tgi, the Grasha-Reichman Teaching Style Inventory at http://longleaf.net/teachingstyle.html, and the Teaching Perspectives Inventory (TPI) at http://www.one45.com/teachingperspectives/. All these inventories will tabulate your results in seconds and will give you valuable insights into your professional self. Please bring printouts of your results to the workshop.
- Teaching Your Students How to Read Academic Material, conducted by Linda B. Nilson, OTEI Director. Dates are Tuesday, September 6, 10:00 - 11:00 a.m. AND Wednesday, September 7, 10:00 - 11:00 a.m., both in 234 Brackett Hall (Political Science Conference Room). Enrollment limit: 16 each offering. Many students become discouraged when they face academic readings. They don't know how to identify what is important or how to process the content, so even when they do the readings, they can't discuss or retain them. You will find out about three methods in the college-teaching literature that help students learn to read textbooks and point-of-view non-fiction (books, journal articles, and essays) for genuine comprehension and retention. By the end of this one-hour workshop, you will be able to implement these methods in your classes as homework assignments and/or in-class activities.
- Fast but Fair Methods to Grade Writing (and More), conducted by Linda B. Nilson, OTEI Director. Dates are Tuesday, September 20, 1:30 - 3:30 p.m. AND Wednesday, September 21, 9:00 - 11:00 a.m., both in E-305 Martin Hall. Enrollment limit: 16 each offering. If you grade exam essays, writing assignments, and projects using a grading key, you are probably taking more time than you have to. By developing rubrics and using one of two holistic grading methods, you can radically reduce your grading time. In fact, a chemistry professor who published a journal article on using one holistic method slashed his report-grading time by 80%. In this workshop you will learn how to grade student writing assignments, essay tests, and projects more quickly and efficiently, without sacrificing fairness and objectively, than you can using traditional (analytical, atomistic) methods. You may even be able to add more writing assignments and essay tests in your courses.
- How to Get Your Students to Do the Readings, conducted by Linda B. Nilson, OTEI Director. Date is Thursday, September 22, 9:30-11:30 a.m., in E-305 Martin Hall. Enrollment limit: 16. If your students don't always do the readings you assign and often come to class unprepared, you are not alone. College-level instructors across the country grapple with this problem on a daily basis. In response, some instructors and faculty developers have devised new incentives, sanctions, and assignments to motivate students to do the readings by the class period they're due. In this workshop you'll learn dozens of effective strategies for homework and in-class activities, most of which require little or no grading.
