IMPORTANT UPDATE 5/6/16: DUE TO WEATHER CONDITIONS, THE COOKOUT WILL BE HELD TOMORROW, SATURDAY, MAY 7, AT THE UMBC CAMPUS, COMMONS BUILDING, 2ND FLOOR, GAME ROOM.

You are invited to come, bring your friends, family, and anyone who supports your journey through graduate school. This event is free. Graduate students from all schools within the University System of Maryland (USM) are invited!

Here is a list, if your school is listed, you are invited! http://www.usmd.edu/institutions/

Alumni, faculty, and staff are invited.

Friends and family members of students who have participated in PROMISE are invited. 

If you are from another school, e.g., Howard, Hopkins, GW, and have come to a PROMISE event in the past such as SSI, you are also invited to participate.

Please register below.

Register for the PROMISE Friends and Family Cookout and Celebration of Graduates:

If you are graduating from a USM institution with an M.S. or Ph.D., please send an email to promisestaff@gmail.com with your name, school, department, and degree, by 9 AM, Friday, April 29, 2016, so that we can recognize you at the event.

Date & Time: 

• Saturday, May 7, 2016
• 1:00 – 4:00 PM (Honoring Graduates at 3 PM)

Location UPDATE 5/6/16:

UMBC Campus

1000 Hilltop Circle

Baltimore, MD 21250

Commons Building, 2nd Floor

Game Room

Directions:

PDF | Google Maps

Parking:

Parking is free on weekends. The permits are not enforced. The nearest parking lot is the Commons Drive Garage. PDF | Google Maps

This event provides food, fun, connections, and networking. Come join the PROMISE Cookout!

YM

Congratulations to the Graduate School at UMES, and their Graduate Student Association for their plans to hold UMES’ first, independent, PROMISE Workshop, as part of their Graduate Student Week. Kudos to the team at UMES!

This week, PROMISE is visiting schools around Maryland for meetings and workshops. The key feature will be the PROMISE annual workshop, “When Faculty Say ‘X’ …”

Description of the lecture:

Understanding professors’ expectations shouldn’t be a mystery. However, sometimes, there are disconnects between what a faculty member wants a student to produce for a project, and how the student interprets the instructions. In many cases, the expectations of faculty are clearly articulated, either in written or oral format. However, in other cases, there are situations where a faculty member’s feedback or outcomes from discussions regarding progress may not be as clear because they involve aspects of non-verbal communication such as eye contact, gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, and eye contact.

Addressing the Needs of Graduate Students

We draw particular attention to the needs of graduate students for our “When Faculty Say X” success seminar series. Graduate students have several forms of faculty interaction that have their own sets of nuances. For graduate students, the faculty member is a teacher, a mentor, an advisor, and a future colleague. There are several phases through which one must pass to navigate the transitions. During coursework, there is the phase where one follows the syllabus, turns in the homework, and takes the exam. During the qualifying exam and proposal stages, it can be difficult for a student to determine what they are supposed to know on the journey toward building expertise in a discipline or particular area of research. In addition to becoming a contributor to the field, a professor may have a methodology that must be employed by all in her lab, or a set of theories which need to be used set the foundation for all work that comes out of the research group. There may be bibliographies that one must reference, techniques that must be mastered, and simple “unwritten rules” that must be followed. Some of the rules may include attending every group meeting and each departmental colloquium. Other rules may extend to writing, i.e., explicit use of a citation style, paragraph structure, or drafting process.

The PROMISE AGEP launched the “When Faculty Say X …” series to answer some of these burning questions. The facilitator will be Dr. Renetta G. Tull, Associate Vice Provost for Graduate Student Development and Postdoctoral Affairs at UMBC, and Director of the University System of Maryland’s National Science Foundation’s PROMISE: Maryland’s Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP). Dr. Tull will present a series of scenarios that graduate students have experienced, along with responses from STEM faculty from the USM and other schools around the nation. Time will be set aside for students’ real-time Q&A, which is often the most important part of the program.

This week:

Monday, April 4, 2016 – Salisbury

Students are invited to read the responses that were shared at an earlier event.

Answers from the virtual event in 2015

Tuesday, April 5, 2016, 11 AM – UMES

Location: Suite 3046, the new Engineering and Aviation Building

PDF link on UMES’ website:

https://www.umes.edu/cms300uploadedFiles/new_Dr.Tull_flyer.pdf

Thursday, April 7, 2016, 3 PM – Bowie State

Bowie State:

Thursday,  Apr 7, 2016 3pm – 4pm (EDT)
14000 Jericho Park Rd., Bowie, MD 20715,

Center for Business and Graduate Studies (CBGS), Room 3201

Friday, April 8, 2016, 12 Noon – Towson

12:00 Noon

Graduate Student Lounge (Room 205)

Psychology Building

Closest Parking: Towsontown Garage (on Towsontown Blvd and University Ave)

Any member of the PROMISE community (student, staff, postdoc, faculty) is welcome to attend any of the events.

• Civility, sub-cultures, and online discourse
• Uses and effects of mobile communication technologies
• Digital distribution and industry disruptionData mining of social networksEmerging technologies’ effects on users
• Video games and virtual worldsDigital communication and public health