Create, Experience, and Thrive Directions for Graduate Education at the University of Lethbridge 2018 - 2020
MISSION Our graduate students, their accomplishments, and their future embody our identity as a comprehensive academic and research institute. Our core mission is rooted in our commitment to them. •
Create: we will empower our graduate students with the education to create new knowledge, and to elevate and advance the boundaries of scholarship, research, and creative activity.
•
Experience: we will prepare our graduate students with experiential learning, and the skill sets that are necessary to solve the complex problems of today and the future.
•
Thrive: we will support our graduate students in mentorship, collaboration, and training so they may thrive through a lifetime of personal, academic and career success.
OBJECTIVES Driven by our mission of commitment to our students, the University of Lethbridge will continue to develop, expand, and enhance graduate education through the dedicated and directed pursuit of four objectives.
OBJECTIVE 1:
OBJECTIVE 2:
STRATEGIC GROWTH AND DIVERSIFICATION
VIBRANT GRADUATE STUDENT CULTURE
We will grow and diversify our graduate
We will cultivate a campus culture where graduate
programs, and our graduate student population,
students across all programs can be connected
in a manner that clearly reflects the university’s
and their accomplishments can be celebrated.
strategic academic and research priorities,
This requires ongoing commitment and support
and in ways that operationalize our university’s
for meaningful graduate student symposia,
ardent commitment to academic quality and
conferences, and other student-driven initiatives
research excellence. Graduate growth and
that respond thoughtfully to the work and the
diversification will be connected to a clear and
social needs of a diverse student population,
consensual understanding of university capacity
including Indigenous and International graduate
in all of its dimensions, including availability of
students. It also requires a comprehensive
faculty supervisors, spaces for graduate student
commitment to inclusion, such that the presence
research and creative activity, funds for graduate
and concerns of graduate students are seamlessly
student financial support, resources for graduate
woven into all broader university initiatives to
marketing and recruitment, and services to
improve campus life.
support the graduate student lifecycle and experience.
OBJECTIVE 3:
OBJECTIVE 4:
COMPREHENSIVE EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE We will create opportunities for a comprehensive
SUPPORTIVE ORGANIZATIONAL ENVIRONMENT
graduate experience, beyond the boundaries
We will sustain and continuously improve an
of academic programs. To that end, we will
organizational environment that is efficient,
cultivate the values of liberal education through
effective, respectful, and which supports an
increased opportunities for experiential learning
exemplary graduate experience for students,
and transdisciplinary scholarship at the graduate
their supervisors, and university staff. We will
level. We will honour the recommendations
continue to audit and improve policies, as well as
of the report of the Truth and Reconciliation
digitize and automate all processes, related to the
Commission through the Indigenization of selected
graduate student lifecycle. We will continue to
graduate programs, curricula, assistantships,
critically assess and optimize the organizational
and culminating activities. We will provide
relationships between the School of Graduate
a continuously supportive graduate student
Studies and other academic, service, and
experience, through a commitment to ongoing
administrative units on campus. We will maintain a
orientation, from inquiry through to convocation
commitment to the quality assurance, and ongoing
and beyond.
enhancement, of all graduate programs at the University of Lethbridge.
ACTION As a Comprehensive Academic and Research
and mission as a comprehensive university. The
Institute in the Province of Alberta, the academic
Academic Plan likewise highlights the priority of
and research portfolios at the University
exemplary research experiences for graduate
of Lethbridge are mutually supportive and
students across the disciplines, the importance of
fundamentally interconnected. Thus, the
academic quality in our graduate programs, and a
University of Lethbridge Academic Plan and the
commitment to cultivate an enriching and multi-
University of Lethbridge Strategic Research Plan
faceted graduate experience for our students.
together form a strategic overlay to inform and support our Directions for Graduate Education.
Supported by this broader strategic overlay,
The Strategic Research Plan highlights the
our Directions for Graduate Education are
importance of excellence in graduate student
operationalized through the School of Graduate
research, creative activity, and professional training
Studies Academic Unit Plan. To that end, the
as foundational aspects of our core function
School of Graduate Studies Academic Unit Plan
shall annually identify, update, and articulate specific operational initiatives, projects, and programs which clearly and directly advance our Directions for Graduate Education and the four strategic objectives: 1) Strategic growth and diversification; 2) Vibrant graduate student culture; 3) Comprehensive graduate experience; and 4) Supportive organizational environment. The School of Graduate Studies Academic Unit Plan shall also identify metrics and report on outcomes required for assessing progress and success in achieving these strategic objectives.