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Transformative Graduate Education at Virginia TechBuilding a Graduate CommunityGraduate education is identified as one of the four strategic goal domains in the Virginia Tech strategic plan. During fall 2002, we established the Graduate School mission as a commitment to providing a rich learning environment that attracts and retains outstanding graduate students. These students work closely with outstanding faculty to advance knowledge and understanding that enables us to address the complex issue of today's society and tomorrow's future. We focus our efforts on the following goals: * Maintain and enhance a vibrant intellectual culture of graduate education * Promote a supportive environment for graduate education at Virginia Tech * Promote innovative graduate programs for citizens of the 21st century * Facilitate commitment to academic excellence * Increase visibility of graduate education throughout the commonwealth * Improve efficiency and effectiveness of Graduate School operations Our efforts and initiatives will focus on re-envisioning doctoral education, encouraging and embracing interdisciplinary education and scholarship, sustaining master's programs and professional development opportunities, and enhancing the preparation of the next generation of scholars, scientists, professionals, and the future professoriate. Our initiatives will be framed in the context of the two guidelines: "the commonwealth is our campus" and "achieving excellence through diversity." As we move toward becoming a top 30-research university, we must be cognizant that to do so we must also become a university for the 21st century. A 21st century university must be learner-centered, affordable, interactive and collaborative, diverse, intelligent, and adaptive (Duderstatdt, 2000). This will require an examination of current programs, policies and procedures, as well as thoughtful reflection about the future. Our challenge is great. But we have accepted the challenge, and the Graduate School at Virginia Tech will assume a leadership role in institutionalizing change and helping to transform the institution into a university for the 21st century. Vice Provost of Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate School Citizen Scholar ExperiencesCitizen Scholar Experiences are innovative opportunities for Virginia Tech graduate students to apply the principles and theories of their academic pursuit within a field-based practicum. Unlike undergraduate service learning experiences, a Citizen Scholar experience is a direct application of the graduate educational pursuit to a real-world situation, in which the Citizen Scholar is immersed for a specific and purposeful result or outcome. An initial instance of Citizen Scholar Experiences is planned for the VT STARS youth development program.Graduate Education Development InstituteShelli Fowler is project director of the Graduate Education Development Initiative (GEDI) a new initiative launching several pilot projects this fall in collaboration with the Graduate School. Dr. Fowler outlines GEDI's purpose and a few of the activities planned below:I am excited to have the opportunity to work closely with several of the LT faculty and staff as we build GEDI, an institute that will work to address contemporary career and professional development issues for the future professoriate and future professionals as part of their graduate education experience at Virginia Tech. I am currently working to develop a pilot GEDI course for the fall 2003 semester, Teaching and Learning in Contemporary Contexts. This pilot course will give graduate students additional opportunities to examine and explore pedagogical praxis and to create an EPortfolio to document their process and to house the products of their own professional development. For more information about GEDI's pilot projects, please contact Shelli at sbfowler@vt.edu.
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