The future of graduate education

The Joint Administration-Academic Senate Special Task Force on Graduate Education is continuing its outreach, asking for feedback by e-mail through Dec. 31. The address is graduateeducationtaskforce@ucdavis.edu.

The task force, established by Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter in partnership with the chair and executive committee of the Academic Senate, is charged with conducting “a broad stock-taking of the various ways our institution supports graduate education, in all its forms.”

This is not a standard review of either the Graduate Studies unit or of UC Davis’ many graduate and professional degree programs. Rather, the task force is engaging in “a visioning process that aims to articulate what we want graduate education at UC Davis to be or become as we approach 2020. The charge is to answer the question “what” much more than “how.”

More information

Earlier coverage: “Envisioning graduate education of the future,” Dateline UC Davis (Oct. 14, 2011)

Searching for the next UC provost

UC Davis will have two representatives on the advisory committee that will help with the national search for the UC system’s next provost, the university’s highest-ranking academic officer.

Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi and Mark Rashid, a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, are among the advisory committee’s membership of 15 chancellors, faculty, administrators staff and students, as appointed by President Mark G. Yudof.

A national search firm, Storbeck/Pimentel & Associates, will assist the committee in identifying candidates to succeed Lawrence Pitts. He announced in September that he would retire from his post as provost and executive vice president of Academic Affairs in spring 2012.

The committee is expected to conduct its work in time for Yudof to submit his recommended nominee to the Board of Regents no later than its May meeting.

Read the complete news release.

Gradebook2 upgrade scheduled

Information and Educational Technology, capping a year of improvements to Gradebook2, plans to install another upgrade to the grading tool for 2011 after fall quarter ends.

Version 1.7, scheduled to be installed Friday, Dec. 16, will include a more informative final grade submission status; additional gradebook settings for the export and import processes; and improvements to the student view, along with several other fixes. Gradebook2’s overall look and feel will not change.

The decision to proceed is tentative until the SmartSite team finishes its final analysis on Dec. 6. If it proceeds, the installation will start during the usual monthly maintenance window at 10 p.m. Friday, Dec. 16, and end no later than 8 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 17. SmartSite will be unavailable during that time. The decision to proceed or not will be posted as a message on the SmartSite home page.

IET, guided by faculty requests, will continue to add feature improvements and fixes to Gradebook2 during 2012. Working in stages lets the SmartSite team focus on each change in turn, and minimizes the disruption to faculty, students and staff.

Questions or comments should be sent by e-mail to smartsite-help@ucdavis.edu.

— Information and Educational Technology

Give a gift of warmth

UC Davis Extension is supporting the News10 Coats for Kids drive by placing collection boxes in three facilities:

• Research Park office — 1333 Research Park Drive, Davis
• DaVinci Court office-classrooms — 1632 DaVinci Court, Davis
• Sutter Square Galleria classrooms — 2901 K St., Sacramento

Brent Martin, director of the Online Learning and Education Group at UC Davis Extension, said: "You can help somebody in need of a little extra warmth this winter just by cleaning out your closets."

The News10 drive seeks gently used children- and adult-sized coats; no need to clean them if you do not have time — Swansons cleaners takes care of this as a co-sponsor.

The collection boxes in the UC Davis Extension facilities will be available until 3 p.m. Friday, Dec. 9.

Mail Services collects 1,488 pounds of food

Mail Services lugged almost three-quarters of a ton of a food, in addition to letters and interoffice envelopes the first half of November — collecting 1,488 pounds of canned and dry goods for Yolo and Sacramento county food banks.

“We here at Mail Services appreciate the generosity of those who donated to help those in our communities less fortunate this year,” said Jen Carmichael, general manager.

Mail Services has been organizing the holiday food drive for six years now. Here are the results for 2011:

• Davis campus — 871 pounds, donated to the Food Bank of Yolo County
• Sacramento campus — 617 pounds, donated to Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services