Graduate Education Week 2008

In 2006, Missouri Governor Matt Blunt signed a proclamation declaring that the state would designate a week every April to celebrate the accomplishments of graduate students and raising awareness of the benefits of an advanced degree. This year’s Graduate Education Week will take place from April 14–19 and Mizzou is hosting a variety of events to mark the joyous occasion:

Getting into Graduate School: the Basics & Getting into Graduate School: Making Your Application Stand Out

Tell all of your friends who aren’t in grad school to attend these two events, held on April 14 and 15 in Memorial Union S304 and Memorial Union N222/223, respectively. These seminars will help prospective graduate students to better understand the benefits of an advanced degree and how to get into graduate school.

Graduate School Open House

Come see where all the behind-the-scenes graduate school action takes place on April 17 from 3-4:30 p.m. in 210 Jesse. Learn who’s really responsible for tuition waivers and graduate student insurance—it can’t hurt, right?

Adventures in Education

This fun event, held from 9 a.m.–2 p.m. on Saturday in Jesse Hall, includes interactive exhibits put on by graduate students that engage kids in the exciting world of advanced education. Exhibits this year include Colors of Chemistry, where kids can make their own slime, African Masks & Fabric Printing and What Happens When Cells Freeze? There will also be FREE tiger stripe ice cream!

Other events on campus

In addition to the Graduate School’s Adventures in Education Fair, there are other (non Graduate Education Week-related) events across campus on Saturday, April 19. The School of Veterinary Medicine will also be holding an open house that includes a petting zoo, the Budweiser Clydesdales and a scavenger hunt. Additionally, there will also be a Physics & Chemistry Open House that will include fun experiments for kids, demonstrations of science equipment and recipes for cooking with chemistry!

The Graduate School encourages you to get involved with Graduate Education Week, if only to give yourself a pat on the back for contributing some great research to the world of advanced education!

Share your research with kids

Think you know your research inside and out? Try presenting it to grade-schoolers! The Graduate School is looking for grad students to present their work in a fun, hands-on way to children in grades 2-6 at Adventures in Education on Saturday, April 19. This family-focused event at Jesse Hall is a part of our week-long celebration of Graduate Education Week April 14-19.

Please contact us at gradwebeditor@missouri.edu if you are interested in presenting or providing help with the event.

Social Networking for Biomedical Scientists

Maybe you have a Facebook or MySpace page, and maybe you don't. They can be fun distractions, but there not really good at helping you get work done. For those of you in the biomedical and life sciences fields, there is a new social networking site called biomedexperts.com . You many not be able to play Oregon Trail, but you can find other scientists with similar research interests. And while not quite as fun as MySpace or Facebook, it could most definitely help you advance your research career.

The colors of graduation

Graduation time grows near. I've been to every Graduate School commencement for the last 5 years, so I'm pretty well schooled in the ins and outs of graduating. This article on the colors of graduation was news to me, though. Everybody has to wear a funny outfit at graduation, but this article explains why some funny outfits are one color, and others another color.

For those of you attending this year's graduate school commencement (congratulations, by the way), I'll be the one standing at the back of the room pointing which way you should walk. It's a very important job, you know. I guess your job is important as well - show up in your funny outfit and smile a lot.

myZou Wish List

We may be in the middle of the fall semester, but enrollment for Spring 2008 has already begun. While you’re waiting (with baited breath, I’m sure) for your designated enrollment date, you might want to consider completing your “wish list” in myZou. Rather than searching around for classes the day of, you can go into myZou as you hear about a class you would like to take and add that to your wish list. Just sign into myZou, click on “Self Service,” “Enrollment,” and “Wish List.&rdquo After selecting Spring Semester 2008, you can search for classes (using at least two search criteria) and select them to add to your wish list. Try it out to for yourself to see whether the wish list smooths out your registration process.

Forming a Committee for Your Thesis or Dissertation

Veterans of the thesis and dissertation process will tell you that wisely choosing the faculty members who sit on your committee can make the experience much less painful.

The Graduate School section of About.com gives useful advice for finding a great adviser, and an article called “The Care and Feeding of Your Dissertation or Thesis Committee” (PDF) from the University of California Santa Barbara covers how to form a committee effectively around that person.

Also be sure to check out the Graduate School’s Thesis and Dissertation Guidelines to avoid a common pitfall — having to resubmit your work because of formatting errors.

Quick Guide to Changes at Mizzou

As you’re surely aware of by now, Mizzou is undergoing numerous changes at the moment. Here is a quick guide of the most significant changes, what they mean and what action you might need to take as a result of these changes.

myZou

Almost all of the changes coming about this year are due to Mizzou's new system, myZou. While I won’t debate the system’s merits and shortcomings here, I will let you know how to use the system more easily.

If you’re signing onto myZou for the first time, you’ll need to accept the UM e-consent policy, available on the left-hand side of the screen. Every time you sign on subsequently, you’ll need to click the “self-service” button to the left to see the variety of tasks you can perform in myZou, including viewing of your grades, schedule and MU bill. Be aware that myZou prompts you to re-enter your pawprint and password after a period of inactivity.

Schedule of Courses

When planning out your course schedule for the upcoming semester, you probably use the schedule of courses (SOC). The SOC is no longer available in hard copy anywhere, so you’ll have to do your planning online, also through myZou. The MU Registrar's Web site also directs you to myZou for the SOC. Something I’ve observed as a graduate business student is that certain business courses are not, in fact, found under “Business Administration”, but are rather located under emphasis areas, such as “Finance” or “Management.” I am, regrettably, unfamiliar with other graduate programs, but if your program is similarly organized around various emphasis areas, you may try to search for classes under those areas. I would also put forth that your adviser is more valuable than ever at this time in helping clarify which classes are available and which will satisfy various credits for your particular degree program.

Student ID Cards

All student ID cards will be replaced in August this year. Beginning August 8, your current ID card will no longer work, so you’ll need to pick up your new student ID (not in the ID card office in the Bookstore) in Stotler Lounge, the main area in Memorial Union. You’ll need to bring an ID with you to pick up the card. It’s not entirely clear whether you’ll have to take a new picture and/or pay for the new ID, but it appears that you won’t have to do either. Consequently, you’ll also be getting a new ID number that replaces your old, six-digit number, though it’s also unclear what use this new ID number has.

Thus concludes the quick guide to current changes at Mizzou―I hope it is somewhat helpful. Good luck navigating your way through the new system!

A Fair(y) Use Tale (NOT a Disney movie)

Bucknell University’s Assistant Professor Eric Faden has created a video explaining fair use copyright issues using a cheeky collection of Disney clips. It includes some great information for anyone writing a thesis or dissertation. Enjoy!

How to Land an Assistantship or Fellowship

I see assistantships and fellowships as the ultimate windfall. Maybe it's because I love my own assistantship, but it's also nice to receive a tuition waiver and a stipend. It's the ideal situation. So how do you get in on the deal? I'll tell you—but first let me give you a little background.

Definition of Assistantships and Fellowships

Both assistantships and fellowships are appointments given to graduate students for the purpose of professional development and financial assistance. An appointment might consist of teaching, research, or assisting in an array of activities on campus. Students who work 10–20 hours per week (.25 and .50 full time employees, or FTE) at a qualifying assistantship or fellowship receive a tuition fee waiver, and students also receive a stipend for their work.

How to Land an Assistantship or Fellowship

Academic programs generally hand out assistantships to incoming students based on the students' qualifications and availability of positions. However, all is not lost if you're not offered a position upon entering grad school. HireMizzouGrads.com is a good place to search for available assistantships. Asking around is a good idea, too: let your career services, program office staff and faculty know you're looking for an appointment and they'll likely have you in mind if something comes up. I found my assistantship through a journalism alumni list serve (my undergraduate degree is from the J-School), so don't forget to put the word out in your professional networking groups as well.

How to Keep an Assistantship or Fellowship

Of course, it's not a matter of finding a position and cruising on through with a fee waiver until you graduate. There are requirements regarding minimum GPA, academic progress, and a maximum number of semesters you may receive a tuition waiver. Visit the Graduate School Catalog to learn about specific stipulations, as well as benefits, that apply to assistantships and fellowships.

Make Microsoft Word Less Annoying

As thesis and dissertation submission time draws near, it's time to learn how to finally wrangle Microsoft Word into a more usable beast. Take note of the fabulous tips courtesy of the geniuses over at Lifehacker.com, including this gem:

Word just loves to hyperlink e-mail addresses and URLs. Sure, this might come in handy from time to time, but mostly it's just distracting. To remove all the links from an individual document, select all the text by pressing Ctrl-A, then press Ctrl-Shift-F9.

Make Microsoft Word Less Annoying

So You Want to Work in Academia?

According to a Preparing Future Faculty Manual, approximately 50 percent of doctoral graduates pursue academic careers. However, many studies show that doctoral students could be better prepared to compete for and secure a job in academia. This is exactly why Preparing Future Faculty was created: to equip doctoral students with the tools they need to be superior faculty. PFF was established by the Council of Graduate Schools, the Association of American Colleges and Universities, the Pew Charitable Trust and the National Science Foundation in 1993, and a PFF initiative began on the Mizzou campus in 2001. The program helps doctoral students explore different faculty roles, improve their teaching skills and establish a network of professional colleagues, among other things.

So if you're a doctoral or post-doctoral student who has any interest in working in academia, why not get involved with PFF here at Mizzou? Designated PFF Fellows attend monthly seminar meetings during the course of one academic year, develop a portfolio, attend two or more career seminars per semester and visit two or more partner institutions. All of these activities help you develop professionally and give you the opportunity to explore different academic career options. Mizzou's Academic Job Searches Weg page also provides helpful links to articles, Web sites and books related to academic job searches. Or, you can read about the national PFF organization and explore some of their resources as well.

Think you don't have to worry about your intellectual property?

We've all heard the horror stories about faculty taking credit for graduate student work - okay, I have. Looks like some students at Carleton University in Ottawa are doing something about it. They've launched an initiative to educate grad students about how to safeguard their intellectual property while making sure they get credit for their work.

Probably not something on your radar right now, but with copyright issues becoming more common, frequent dissemination of research over the internet and the commercialization of research, maybe it should be...

New season, new format

Welcome to Praxis: a blog for Mizzou grad students, published by the Graduate School. We’ve decided to try something new with Praxis — instead of creating a new issue of the online newsletter once a semester, as we’ve done in the past, we are switching to a blog format that will enable us to create quicker posts more frequently. We hope you enjoy the new format. We’re excited to keep giving you news and tips that will help you navigate the grad school experience at Mizzou.