Jeffery Gibeling assumed the post of Dean of Graduate Studies last fall, taking over from Cristina González, who was appointed a senior adviser to Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef.
Gibeling believes that choosing a university for graduate work is a complex process that needs to be "streamlined" and "responsive" in finding ways to financially support students. In the big picture, he says, "graduate education is vital to the health of California’s economy" and to the country’s as well.
An 18-year local resident, Gibeling holds a faculty appointment in the chemical engineering and materials science department, where he still runs his lab. He and his wife, Marsha, live in west Davis. His son is a second-year UC Berkeley electrical engineering and computer science student. "It’s heartwarming that he’s started asking me questions about graduate school," says Gibeling, who recently took some time to talk to Dateline about his hopes and expectations for Graduate Studies.
What are your main objectives and priorities as dean of Graduate Studies?
Graduate student financial support is always a key issue. In fact, with the economy the way it is, we expect more Californians to be applying to graduate school with less money available to fund them. We will need to push even harder for more student support money. I see my role as an intermediary between, on the one hand, the programs and faculty, and, on the other, the administration and by extension the Office of the President, the UC Board of Regents and the state.
While the campus has placed a high priority on funding graduate education, we also need to explore opportunities for greater external funding. The recent Report of the Commission on the Growth and Support of Graduate Education brought many of these important issues to the attention of the Regents and the rest of the university.
My objective is to maintain awareness of the importance of increasing financial support for graduate students so that we are positioned to succeed when the economy is more robust. We also need to make sure that we use the available funds to recruit an academically talented and diverse group of students to our campus.
What are the key issues facing Graduate Studies this year?
I’d like to streamline our processes for applications, admissions and distribution of student support funds, and make sure these processes are responsive to the needs of the faculty and staff in the graduate programs. Recruiting talented graduate students has become extremely competitive, and handling the processes well makes a real difference in our chances for success. We are also gearing up to interact more closely with postdoctoral scholars on the campus; this is a new area of responsibility but this group of colleagues deserves our assistance.
In the long run?
We’re looking at making the campus a more attractive academic environment for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. That means providing the services, housing and spaces so these individuals make UC Davis their first choice. I’d like to rethink the ways that we provide administrative support for our graduate groups. This dynamic model of delivering graduate education is a hallmark of the campus, and we need to make sure that we provide the infrastructure to support the academic strengths of our faculty.
What can be done to encourage a more effective Graduate Studies program?
UC Davis provides a unique multidisciplinary environment for teaching and research. From its inception, our campus has been characterized by active and productive collaboration across administrative units. This unique atmosphere is embodied in our many graduate groups, which bring together faculty from different schools and colleges to offer graduate programs in fields of mutual interest.
The campus also provides a uniquely broad array of academic and professional programs. This breadth, together with the many opportunities for multidisciplinary collaboration, positions UC Davis to educate students who will become leaders in solving many of society’s most pressing problems. We must ensure that we take full advantage of these opportunities by having the right mix of graduate programs with strong commitments from the other deans and the faculty.
How does your background give you a unique or helpful perspective to lead Graduate Studies?
It all started when I checked the "Graduate Council" box on the annual call for volunteers from the Academic Senate Committee on Committees more than a decade ago. I spent nearly five years on the Graduate Council, including over one year as its chair. I then served as executive associate dean of Graduate Studies. During that period, when a former dean of Graduate Studies left to become a chancellor of another campus, I served as "de facto" dean and had substantial responsibility for the daily business of Graduate Studies.
For the past three years I’ve served as chair of the Academic Senate, which oversees all aspects of academic life at UC Davis, and of which the Graduate Council is a standing committee. I also have been a faculty member in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science for 18 years. Along the way, I chaired my department’s Graduate Affairs committee and I chaired the Biomed-ical Engineering Graduate Group. While all of these experiences are important, what’s more important is that they reflect my abiding commitment to the importance of graduate education at UC Davis.
What attracted you to the post of dean of Graduate Studies?
Well, the dean’s office is much bigger than that of the Senate Chair... No, seriously, I believe that graduate education holds the key to the future of the campus. Excellent graduate students are vital to the success and productivity of a research university not only because of the contributions they make directly, but also because the very best faculty are attracted to campuses that have the most talented graduate students. As Dean, I am in a position to facilitate an environment where this vision becomes a reality.
How do you think Graduate Studies can best contribute to the campus community?
We are here to help engage students in progressively more advanced levels of research as well as to foster a culturally and intellectually diverse environment at UC Davis. Graduate students serve as teaching assistants in undergraduate classes where they make real contributions to the academic experiences of undergraduates. They also serve as research assistants, working with faculty to discover new knowledge and become future leaders in their chosen academic fields. Through these important contributions, graduate students provide a vital link between the teaching and research missions of a research university like UC Davis.
How well do you think it is positioned currently to do that?
Staffing levels and the budget are much better than they were, say, 10 years ago, but we also have many more applicants and many more enrolled students than we used to have. We are expected to increase the total number of graduate students from about 3,500 to about 4,500 by 2010. In some respects we are well positioned, but I think the impacts of Tidal Wave II for graduate education are more in the realm of speculation at this point. Nobody is really sure how many in today’s growing undergraduate population will go on to seek a graduate education.
What do you see as our graduate programs’ key contributions to the state, the nation and the world, especially in the context of current trends and issues?
California is a leader in many areas of technology and must continue to be at the vanguard of these fields if we are to hold our economic position with respect to the nation and the world. Graduate education is vital to the health of California’s economy. Not all of our graduate programs focus on technology, of course, but a research university is an essential ingredient in the economic success of the state, which then impacts the economy of the country.
Outside work, what do you do to unwind?
I ride my bike between 60 and 100 miles per week depending on the season. I usually head out toward Winters and the hills in Napa and Solano Counties. Even though I’ve ridden some of the same roads hundreds of times over the years, cycling is a wonderful way for me to keep both my body and mind healthy. My goal each year is to make sure that riding Foxy’s Fall Century is easier than the previous year.
I also taught a graduate course during fall quarter and still run my lab; and while this isn’t exactly unwinding, these activities help me keep a perspective on what the campus and graduate education are all about.