You will wear a number of different hats as graduate program coordinator. The biggest misconception among the faculty is that your job is to sit around "advising students." Even though the person in this role has traditionally been called the "Graduate Advisor," you will be amazed how little time you spend advising.  For this reason, I have avoided the title Graduate Advisor, and have consistently used only the official university title, "Graduate Program Coordinator."

The job breaks down roughly into four categories, in no particular order:

1. Admissions
2. TA assignments
3. Curriculum and program planning
4. Student advising and performance evaluation

• For admissions, Julie Martinson and Linda Adkins handle the paperwork of organizing applicant files, and the Graduate Admissions Committee gives them preliminary ratings.
• For TA assignments and personnel matters, Judith Arms, the Lead TA, and the TA advisory committee handle TA training, orientation, mentoring, and problem solving.  Brooke Miller is an enormous help with TA assignments and front-line communication with the TAs.
• For items 3 and 4, there's the Graduate Program Committee.

Typically, the department chair stays out of the details of running the graduate program.  Most chairs will be happy (some more than others) to offer their opinions on policy issues if you ask them, but otherwise you and the committee have free reign, at least up to the point where the department has to vote on program requirements and other significant policy changes.  In many aspects of the job, it's up to you to decide to what extent you want to involve other people and/or committees in the decision-making process.  In some arenas, you may choose to keep a lot of control yourself; in others, you may prefer to seek the advice and participation of others.  For example, my predecessors always asked the Graduate Program Committee to make the final decision on which graduate courses were offered each year and who taught them.  But I felt that this ended up being mostly a rubber-stamp meeting, and I decided it was a more efficient use of everyone's time for me to simply make the assignments myself, in consultation with Brooke, the chair, and the undergraduate program coordinator.  You may decide differently.

Before getting into the details of the various parts of the job, here is some general advice about where to get help:

• Ask your predecessors for advice on anything. Feel free to ignore it, but there is a wealth of information out there. The key people most recently in your position are Jim Morrow, Ron Irving, Dave Collingwood, and Jack Lee.
• Brooke Miller is incredibly knowledgeable about university and Grad School requirements, about everything having to do with registration, and about scheduling courses and TAs.  She also knows quite a few of the grad students, both as students and as TAs, and she is often the first one to know about problems.  She's a star, and it would be very hard for the GPC to function without her.
• The Graduate School's Web site contains an ever-growing wealth of information.  Of particular importance are the Graduate School Memoranda (detailed statements of Grad School policies), the Fellowships and Assistantships page (info about TAships) and the Graduate Education Statistics, all linked from the Grad School home page.
• The Student Guide section of the UW Web site has links to important information such as the academic calendar, degree programs and requirements, the UW course catalog, registration insttructions, and course drop policies.  Much of this information is in the UW General Catalog, but the online version is often quicker to use and more up to date.
• Here are the Grad School administrators that I have found most helpful: Associate Dean Betty Feetham on policy issues, especially regarding TAs; Mary Fetterly on issues regarding international students; Jean Whitcomb and Dianne Zimmer on anything having to do with fellowships; Joan Abe (admissions director) on graduate admissions policy issues; and Dean Marsha Landolt about the larger policy issues.  Feel free to call or e-mail them if you have questions that Brooke or your predecessors can't answer.
• As will be apparent, you'll work closely with the staff in the Student Services Office. Brooke is the manager of that staff, so you can coordinate things through her. However, Brooke is not your personal secretary. If you need clerical work done, it's best to tell Brooke what the work is and let her coordinate who is going to do it and when.  Over time, I worked out some standard arrangements with her about who should do what - for example, Julie handled most of my correspondence with grad students and applicants (sometimes delegating it to Linda).  It would be a good idea for you to sit down with Brooke as early as possible, and work out an understanding with her about who should be responsible for what.
• All documents that pertain to the graduate program are in the Unix directory /usr/local/math/Grads (referred to simply as "Grads" below), except those that are publicly available on the Web, which are in /usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs/Grads.

Admissions

Marketing

Due to a combination of factors, we have to compete very hard to get good math grad students these days.  These factors include competition from a booming high-tech industry, a nationwide decline in the number of students interested in going to grad school in the 1990s, our low TA salaries compared to the high cost of living in Seattle, and our relatively low national ranking compared to our main competitors.  (Our NRC rank is 26 among all math departments, while our main competitors are UCLA (ranked 12), Wisconsin, (13), and Minnesota (14).)  Because of these factors, it is crucial that we market our program effectively.  This means making sure we are highly visible to students looking for math grad programs (which means chiefly on the Web), and putting our best face forward to those who are trying to decide where to apply and where to go.

Our current marketing materials consist of two parts: a one-page color flyer, and the Graduate Program Web site.

The color flyer is a Microsoft Word document that contains a pretty picture of the UW campus and a brief, hopefully enticing, description of the highlights of our program.  It is sent out to every student that requests application materials on paper, as well as to a long list of undergraduate math departments that are likely to have students who might apply here.  This document should be updated each summer.  Before you begin updating, let Linda Adkins know your plans, so she won't request a big batch of reprints of the old version just before you modify it.

The original is a Word document, Grads/Admissions/Applications/mathflyer.doc; once you've updated it, it needs to be converted to PDF and uploaded to the math department FTP site, /usr/local/ftp/pub/grads/mathflyer.pdf.  (There are various ways to convert Word files to PDF; it's probably best to ask the computing staff for assistance if you haven't done it before.  I can help if
you get stuck.)  Once you've moved the new PDF file to the FTP site, ask Linda Adkins to request new printed copies from Publications Services.  Our contact there is Steven Varga <svarga@u.washington.edu>; he just needs to be told the FTP location (ftp://ftp.math.washington.edu/pub/grads/mathflyer.pdf), the printing process (Docucolor), the number of copies we need (the price goes down if you order at least 250 at a time), and the paper (32# Hammermill legal).

Early in the fall, you should ask Linda to send the flyer to the list of university math departments (she can just use the same list as last year, or you can look through her list and add/delete departments as you see fit).  Also, give her instructions for which applicants should receive copies of the flyer (generally, I asked her to include it in any application packet that was sent out via snail mail).  Whenever she runs out of copies, she knows how to request more from Pub Services.

The Graduate Program Web site is the primary source of information about the Graduate Program, both for prospective applicants and for current students.  A few years ago, I decided to do away with the printed Graduate Program Handbook and the information packet for applicants, in favor of letting the Web site be the official source of information, so as to decrease the amount of duplicate information that has to be maintained.  Since there are still applicants who don't have Web access (particularly those in China), I always prepare a packet of selected printouts from Web pages to be sent to those applicants (see below).

Each summer, you should make a systematic effort to go through every page on the Graduate Program Web site, and update as needed.  In particular, this is a good time to check all the links to make sure they still work, and still point to current versions of the relevant pages.  Throughout the rest of the year, it is a good idea to check random pages occasionally, to catch problems as they arise.

Preparing Application Materials

During the summer, around the same time you update the Web site and the color flyer, you should check over all of our application forms to see if any of them need updating.  The current versions are available in PDF format on the Web, and the originals (some Word files and some Tex) are in the directory Grads/Admissions/Applications.   We tell all prospective applicants that the Web is the preferred way to obtain application materials.  However, many applicants will contact us by e-mail or snail-mail, and some (especially those in China) will not have any access to the Web, so you need to prepare information to be sent out by e-mail and paper as well.  In addition to all the materials available on the Web, I prepared the following materials:

• E-mail message titled "Application Instructions," containing a pointer to the Web site and a summary of the essential information on the Web.  For most applicants, this is the only thing we send them directly until we send them the result of our admissions decision.
• E-mail message titled "Application forms are being sent," which is essentially identical to the message above, except that instead of telling them to look on the Web, it says that we are sending applications forms by regular mail.  This goes to students who have specifically requested application materials on paper, usually because they do not have Web access.  (I usually also have this sent to everyone in China, since they typically do not have Web access.)
• "Small packet," containing only the color flyer, a one-page instruction sheet called "How to Apply," and a one-page PEP (Preliminary Evaluation Process) instruction sheet for international applicants.  This goes only to those who contact us by snail-mail and do not include an e-mail address.
• "Large packet," containing everything that's in the small packet plus a full set of application forms and printed versions of selected pages from the Web site.  This goes to those who tell us they do not have Web access.

Determining Openings

Before you can figure out how many offers to make, you have to figure out how many open positions you are likely to have during the coming year.  The spreadsheet Grads/Spreads/openings2000.xls shows the basic calculation; you should make a copy of this and modify it appropriately for 2001.

In all the calculations involving open positions, you will see three kinds of funded positions: TA (Teaching Assistant), SA (Staff Assistant, also called GSA for Graduate Staff Assistant), and RA (Research Assistant).  RA positions are funded either by faculty grants or by departmental sources (such as endowed fellowship funds), and are treated separately.  TA positions are supposed to involve actual teaching, with SA positions reserved for non-teaching jobs.  We typically use the SA positions for the following: Lead TA, two computer TAs (in addition to one 3-quarter position funded by MSCC), Study Center tutors, and 400/500-level graders.  All international TAs who are placed in grader positions because they failed the SPEAK test should be in SA positions; other graders can be SA or TA depending on your resources and how much student contact they are expected to have.  In general, try to assign TA positions to those who will be standing in front of a classroom (including problem sessions) and SAs to those who will not; but it's not always possible to observe this distinction rigidly.  You can always shuffle funds between quarters as needed.  You can also talk with Donna about transferring funds between SA and TA lines, but this is a hassle and it's probably not worth it unless there's a gross imbalance between the number of funded SA positions and the number of SA-type jobs to be done.

The input to the "openings" spreadsheet consists of the following data.

• The total number of TA and SA quarters we will be allocated next year.  (For many years, this has been 159 TA positions plus 42 SA positions.  Beginning in 2001, the TA number will be increased by 21: 2 new permanent 3-quarter positions to help us cover enrollment increases, and 5 temporary 3-quarter positions for the calculus class-size reduction.)  Early each fall, you should talk with the chair and decide whether to request a change in this allocation for the coming year.  Sometime later in the fall or early in the winter, the actual allocation will be sent to the department; I usually got a copy from Donna.
• The expected need for TAs and SAs in each of the three quarters.  Use the spreadsheet Grads/Spreads/tajobs2000.xls as a template, and work closely with Brooke to arrive at these figures.  This will be particularly tricky for 2001-2002, because of the calculus class-size reduction, and because it's not clear to what extent the recent enrollment increases in entry-level math courses will carry over into next year.  Make sure the total number of TA+SA quarters matches the total allocation.
• The anticipated RA quarters supported by faculty grants next year.  The spreadsheet ra2000.xls (which you should update for 2001) will help with this.  You'll need to check with Donna each quarter or so to find out who has RA money in their grants, and how much they have remaining; then you'll need to talk with the individual PIs to arrive at a plan for using the funds that will work for the PI, the students, and the department.  Because the number of available TA and SA jobs is much lower in the spring, I always try to cram as much RA support as possible into spring quarter.  But this is not always optimal for the PIs, and in the end it is they who have the final say on how and when their RA money gets used.  Since new grants are not awarded until late in the spring, you really can only guess at how many RA quarters will be available in the coming year.  One simple way to do this is just assume the number will be the same as the preceding year.  You can also ask Donna early in the winter quarter how many people have applied for new grants with RA funding.
• The number of fellowship quarters to be awarded in the coming year.  (You don't have to worry about cash supplements such as Microsoft Scholar Awards or Academic Excellence Awards at this point, just the awards that provide a quarter or more of non-teaching support, like the McFarlan or VIGRE fellowships.)  Typically, we have 12 quarters of VIGRE support (two academic quarters for each of 6 students), not counting summers; but during 1999-2000 we had two extra fellows.  You'll need to coordinate with the VIGRE PIs (Loyce Adams, Randy Leveque, and Anne Greenbaum) to decide how many VIGRE grants to award for the coming year.  In addition to VIGRE, in 1999-2000 we awarded two 3-quarter McFarlan fellowships, but the McFarlan grant is unlikely to have enough money left in it for more than one next year.  Also you might want to use the new Hewitt endowment to fund some fellowship quarters.  The decisions on how to use fellowship money are ultimately up to the Graduate Program Committee, but you have to make some estimates at the beginning of the admissions process.  Check with Donna to find out how much cash is in each fellowship account, and how much is likely to be credited to it over the next year.
• The number of returning students expected to be supported during each quarter.  This is the trickiest part to estimate, because you have to make your admissions decisions in February and March, whereas renewal decisions are not made until May.  Therefore, you'll have to make an educated guess on these numbers.   You can figure that Master's students will probably be here for exactly two years (unless you have reason to believe that they may finish or drop out after the first year, or will apply successfully to transfer to the PhD program).  In the fall, you ask PhD advisors to fill out questionnaires indicating who's likely to graduate in the coming year; you should probably figure that these estimates are overly optimistic on the average, and estimate that maybe 75% of the ones expected to graduate actually will do so.  In January, you should solicit students' plans for the coming year.  Then keep updating your estimates throughout the admissions season, based on your best guess as to who's likely to have their support renewed, who's likely to graduate, who's likely to drop out, and who's likely to go on leave.
• The number of Applied Math students we expect to hire during the coming year.  This number needs to be negotiated with the AMath GPC.  It's a tricky negotiation, because they won't know how many students they need to support until after their admission process is completed.  Our long-term commitment to AMath is 8,8,5 (i.e., we hire 8 AMath TAs in the fall, 8 in winter, and 5 in spring).  But in recent years we've increased that number substantially, to 12,12,9 in 1999-2000.  The increase is temporary, however, and needs to be renegotiated each year.  You should work out all the other numbers, and see how the expected entering class size compares to those in recent years, and then make a proposal to AMath.  If you have lots of openings, you can probably offer them a high number again.  If your number of openings is unusually small for some reason, you'll probably want to take back some of the temporary positions we've given them in recent years.  Also, there's a delicate issue here regarding international TAs: Like Math students, most international AMath students do not take the TSE before applying, so they have to pass the SPEAK test before they can be put in a TA job; but unlike Math students, we are not committed to supporting AMath students who don't pass the SPEAK test.  In recent years, the AMath department has been radically overoptimistic about which of their students are likely to pass the SPEAK test, with the consequence that we've been left in the lurch when several of their students failed it.  You might want to adopt a different policy, such as not agreeing to hire anyone until after they've passed the SPEAK test or the TSE.  If you do decide on such a change in policy, you should reach an understanding with AMath before admissions season, so they can make their admissions decisions with this policy in mind.

Recruitment Awards:

Before you start making offers, you should also be aware of exactly what recruitment awards you have available.  You will probably have the following awards to offer during 2001:

• Two new Microsoft Scholar awards (4 years x $5000).  In addition to funding for six of these awards next year (4 continuing plus 2 new), we have an additional $5,000 sitting around because we only made one new award in 1999.  This could be used to cover ourselves in case more than two of these awards are accepted.  The agreement with Microsoft is that they will give us two new awards each year, ramping up until we reach a steady state of eight MS scholars at a time (which should happen beginning in 2002-2003).
• Some number of new ARCS awards (3 years x $5000).  (We asked for three.)
• Six Graduate School Merit Awards (1 year x $5000), funded from the Graduate School Fund for Excellence and Innovation (GSFEI).  The Grad School solicits applications for these funds in the fall, and you should be informed about how much you're awarded by the end of Autumn quarter.
• Some number of VIGRE fellowships (3 years of  2 academic + 1 summer quarter of support).  The total number depends on how many current VIGRE fellows are expected to continue next year and how many we are authorized by the VIGRE PIs to award.  The basic assumption in the VIGRE grant proposal was that each participating department would have six at a time; but Stat has never been able to use its share, so you might want to negotiate with the VIGRE steering committee for extra awards for Math if you feel you can use them.
• A GOP (Graduate Opportunity Program) fellowship, if we are awarded one.  The GOMAP program will probably ask you for a "Diversity Plan" in the early part of winter quarter; this serves as an application for a GOP fellowship.
• Anything else?

Evaluating Applications

Early in January, you should give instructions to everyone who will be involved in the admissions process.

The Student Services staff (mainly Julie and Linda), should prepare a file for each applicant, with a checklist on the inside front cover to record which materials have arrived.  (You might want to look over the checklist each year to see if it should be modified.)   Once files begin to be complete, Julie should record the essential biographical data in the admissions spreadsheet (Grads/Spreads/applicants2001.html, created each year using the previous year's spreadsheet as a template), and assign each file to two readers on the admissions committee.  Typically, Julie puts the files in a rack in C-36, and notifies the readers when they have files to look at, so the files never leave C-36.  After each file has been read and evaluated by two readers, Julie will pass it on to you for a final rating.

The Admissions Committee should be given written instructions about how to evaluate applications.  In recent years, we've been using a rating scale of 0.0-4.0, the detailed meaning of which is explained in the instructions.  The aim is for you to divide all the applications (PhD and Master's) into four categories:

• Those who will get offers of admission and support right away -- the first round (3.0-4.0).
• Those who will be given encouragement through an offer of admission, but who will be told we don't know yet about support -- the waiting list (2.0-2.9).
• Those who will be given mild encouragement by being told they're good enough for support and worthy of admission if they are interested in coming without support (1.0-1.9). We don't want to turn away the students in this category, for two reasons: we may need them if lots of people ahead of them say no, and we wouldn't mind having them if they want to come without support. (Indeed, having a couple of these people helps to create a "waiting list" of people to be hired if TA jobs become vacant.)
• Those who will not be admitted (0.0-0.9).

Admitting Students

Starting as early in February as possible, you should contact the top applicants on the list.  What I usually did was to write an official offer letter (templates can be found in Grads/Admissions/Templates/) to each person, and then send an e-mail telling them they were getting an offer, with the text of the offer letter appended.  This process is very labor-intensive, because you have to tailor the letters to each individual, depending on exactly what recruiting awards they are getting.  It is also a good idea to ask a faculty member with similar interests to personally contact each of the top applicants.  If you have the time and energy, following up with a phone call makes even more of an impression.

After the top group get their offers, you have to decide how far down the list to draw the first-round cutoff.  An overall rating of 3.0 is a rough guide, but more important is deciding how many people should get first-round offers.  Look at the statistics from previous years, and aim to get as many good applicants into the first-round pool as possible.  High-quality applicants are much more likely to come to UW if they get first-round offers than if they are offered support later from the waiting list.  As I said before, don't worry too much about overcommitting.

You should probably offer 11-month TA jobs (9 academic months plus 2 summer months) to all PhD admits and 9-month jobs to Master's students.  In the old days, only the top PhD applicants were offered 11-month positions.  But in recent years, we've needed all the TAs available in the summer, so a couple of years ago I started making 11-month offers to all PhD students, and 9-month offers to Master's students.  In 2000, I even went so far as to make 11-month offers to everyone, but it now appears that I went too far -- although the total number of summer positions is sufficient to support everyone, many of the available jobs are teaching one's own section of a course, which can only be assigned to advanced students.   It's a good idea to check with Brooke to find out what she expects the summer support picture to look like.  In any case, all international applicants should be offered 11-month positions, because they need to be able to demonstrate a certain level of income in order to get a visa.

Because of the spoken English requirement, international applicants have to be treated separately.  What I have done recently is to try to guess which international applicants are not likely to have a problem with the SPEAK test (those with a score of 55 or more on the TSE; applicants from English-speaking countries, India, or Germany; and those who have spent a year or more in an English-speaking country or at an English-speaking institution).  These applicants I handled just like the US ones.  The others I put in a separate pool, and tried to have no more than 5 or 6 offers outstanding to this pool at any given time.  (5 is about the maximum number of non-English speakers we can accommodate in 400-level grading jobs.)  We typically get a much higher yield from this pool than from the US applicants, so you have to be quite conservative about making offers to them.

By about the end of February, you should have finished with the first-round offers.  Once you've done that, you should try to send a letter to every applicant telling them where they stand.  Then the waiting game begins.  Throughout the month of March, do your best to keep tabs on the people who have first-round offers, and try to gauge which of them are seriously thinking of coming here.  You'll learn that many of these students have multiple offers, often from much better schools.  You'll want to encourage the top applicants to come visit, and offer to pay their airfare (the GSFEI gives us some funds for this purpose, and you can also draw on departmental funds that are earmarked for grad student travel - check with Donna.)  Linda Adkins has been making the arrangements for students who visit - you should talk with her in advance to figure out the logistics.

Anyone who doesn't respond to your email offer of support is very likely to turn us down.  You'll also want to try to find out who in the second group may be keen to come here rather than attending another university that has made an offer of support.   It's a good idea to keep in touch with AMath throughout this time, to find out if their admissions process is going the way they expected it to.

This process intensifies in early April, in a crazed national version of musical chairs that arises from the universally accepted deadline of April 15 by which students must choose which offers to accept. As soon as you are reasonably sure that the yield from your first-round offers is going to leave you short of your admissions target, you should start making offers to people on the waiting list, a few at a time.  After about March 20, these people start making commitments to other places, and after about April 7 getting anyone to say yes is a long shot (unless they've told you that UW is their first choice and they are planning to hold out for us).  When the music stops, we have our new entering class for the next year.

Once the April 15 deadline has passed (it's probably good to wait a week or so, because sometimes a few decisions get made after the deadline), go ahead and prepare confirmation letters to go out to everyone who's been admitted.  Again, there are templates for this in Grads/Admissions/Templates.  These letters must include a copy of the department's official "Guidelines for TA and RA Appointments," and of the University's Executive Order  28, which is the official university document describing TA employment.  (Be sure you get the newest version of the executive order--the Grad School was in the process of revising it during fall 2000.)  At this point, the admissions process is essentially over, and what remains is mainly random correspondence with the incoming class, much of which can be handled by Julie and Linda.  There may be an applicant or two who would like admission without financial aid (the deadline for which is July 1), and on rare occasions there may even be a strong applicant for admission with support.  You're free to admit them if you still have positions to fill.  You'll also want to start coordinating the TA orientation and training with the TA coordinator; see TA Assignments below.

After the admissions process is completed, it's traditional to report to the faculty about the results.

TA Assignments

However you choose to divide the responsibilities, it is essential that both you and the TA coordinator keep in constant close communication about all aspects of running the TA pool.  As soon as you've completed the admissions process, you should give her a list of newly admitted TAs, so she can begin contacting them about orientation and TA training.  She will keep you apprised of any problems that arise and what is being done about them.  She can provide invaluable help in deciding on TA assignments, because she has lots of information about how TAs have been evaluated, and can help decide who should be assigned to teach their own sections, for example.

The biggest job you have to do is to assign each supported student to a particular job every quarter.  This is a highly intricate juggling act, because each quarter there are three independent numbers that all have to be made precisely equal to each other:

• People:  the number of students to whom you have offered support,
• Money:  the number of support quarters for which you have funding, and
• Jobs:  the number of TA jobs and other supported positions that need to be filled.

The spreadsheet Grads/Spreads/appts1999-2000.xls (which you should update for 2000-2001) is your key tool in balancing all of these figures.   Be sure to keep on top of this spreadsheet year-round, and send updated copies to Brooke, Donna, and the TA coordinator on a regular basis.  In one sense, this is an accounting issue and Donna will periodically be asking about the status of things. You will catch her making mistakes and she will catch you making mistakes. It is one instance where independent analysis of the accounting does pay off in the end; but you will probably sweat some the first time you hear you are over committed by 2 TA's one quarter (which amounts to more than $15K in real terms).

Here are some tools you can use to help make the numbers match up:

• Keep a TA waiting list of people you might be able to hire to fill TA jobs.  This can include math students admitted without support; additional AMath students that the AMath department would like you to support but you are not committed to; former math grad students who have transferred to other departments; and grad students that you hire from other departments (see below).
• Move TA positions from quarter to quarter.  There's limited flexibility for doing this, but usually you can move a couple of positions around and still get all the jobs done that need to be done.
• Use RA quarters to balance the numbers.  RA quarters are maximally flexible - they can be moved around between quarters (including summer quarter) or even between years (provided the grant isn't going to expire or a no-cost extension is available).
• If you run out of TAs, look for qualified undergrads to hire for low-level jobs.  The Undergraduate Program Coordinator can be a big help here.  Recently, we've hired undergrads for the two honors calculus courses as a matter of policy (splitting the funding for one TA position between them), and on occasion we've also hired undergrads to assist in the calculus computer lab courses (187/387).
• Juggle the number of people grading 400- and 500-level courses.  For example, if you have extra people and extra money to support them, you can assign graders to courses that ordinarily wouldn't have them.  If you run out of people, you can often assign one TA to grade two small 400-level courses, or even convince a faculty member to do without a grader in a small course.
• Work with Brooke to decide when it might be advisable to open new sections of undergraduate courses, or to cancel existing ones with low enrollment.
• Negotiate with the VIGRE PIs for more VIGRE quarters, or to put off some quarters to a later year.
• Negotiate with the chair to convert recapture money to support TAs, or TA money to support lecturers.
• Negotiate with AMath to support more or fewer of their students.
• Assign TAs to non-standard jobs, such as helping to develop computer technology to support entry-level courses, or putting worksheets on the Web.
• Juggle the number of grad students assigned to the Study Center.  The ideal is something like 8 in fall, 7 in winter, 6 in spring (or more if you have the resources); but these numbers are somewhat flexible.  Be sure to consult with the Study Center Director before making changes.

1. After the admissions process and the spring renewal meeting are complete, decide how many extra TAs you need to hire, if any.  Even if you don't anticipate needing any extra TAs, it's probably a good idea to interview candidates so you can form a TA waiting list.  There is a Web page called Mathematics Teaching Assistantships, linked from the department home page, that describes the job requirements and the process of applying.  Make sure this page is up-to-date.  Also, as soon as possible after April 15, if you're planning on inrterviewing candidates, prepare an e-mail announcement of available positions, referring to the Web page, to be mailed out to all graduate program coordinators and assistants.  Brooke can help with this mailing.  As the applications come in, Linda Adkins will put together files for them just as she does with applicants to the graduate program.  Right after the application deadline (typically May 22), you and the TA coordinator should look through the applications and decide which, if any, of the applicants you'd like to interview.  If you decide to hire any of them, they need to get official offer letters (including Executive Order 28 and the department guidelines for TA/RA appointments), just like math grad students.  Make sure that everyone who may be hired as a TA at any time during the upcoming year, and has not gone through TA training, is set to participate in TA training in September.
2. At the same time, ask the AMath GPC to send over the files of every AMath student they would like us to hire as a TA, and who has not already been through TA training.  Go through these files with the TA coordinator, to decide which ones are acceptable.  Basically, we just want to make sure they have an adequate math background (at least through Math 424), that their spoken English will be adequate (including passing the SPEAK test or the TSE), and that there's nothing in the record that suggests they would be a poor risk as a TA.
3. Before the middle of each quarter, ask Brooke for a copy of the time schedule for the upcoming quarter.  (Planning for summer quarter is different; see Summer Quarter, below.)  This will show you how many sections of each course are being planned.  You'll want to check the number of TAs needed for each job against the projections you made in Grads/Spreads/tajobs2001.xls, and make adujstments as necessary.  Any time changes are made to the time schedule, you'll have to work closely with Brooke and the department chair - Brooke knows about student demand and scheduling issues; the chair is in charge of faculty resources; and you're in charge of TA resources.  The Undergraduate Program Coordinator may also get involved in such decisions.
4. Around the same time, check with the AMath GPC to find out which AMath students they would like you to hire for the coming quarter.
5. Around the middle of the quarter, prepare a TA preference sheet listing all of the jobs that might be available the next quarter.  (Preference sheets for Fall go out in spring; for all other quarters, they go out during the immediately preceding quarter. )  I generally listed everything on this list, even if I thought it was already taken (such as 500-level grading jobs with graders assigned for the whole year), because sometimes plans change and it's useful to know who's interested in what.  Ask Brooke to send the preference sheets to all students who might be hired as TAs, SAs, or RAs the next quarter, including AMath students.   I usually gave Brooke a list.  In the spring, don't send preference sheets to newly-admitted students.
6. Once the preference sheets have been returned, you can start making assignments.  After admissions, this is the most time-consuming aspect of the job.  Start with the positions for which you have the fewest volunteers (or fewest qualified volunteers) - typically this includes the jobs teaching one's own section of a course (especially 102), the precalc TA jobs (111, 112, 120), the grading jobs, the computer jobs, and some of the odd jobs such as 107, 170, 411/12, 444/5.  Also, in some recent quarters, the number of volunteers for the Study Center has been lower than the number of positions to be filled.  For most of the jobs other than the standard TA jobs, you'll want to consult with the appropriate faculty or staff (the Study Center Director, the MSCC director for the computer jobs, Ginger Warfield for 102, the instructors of other courses) before making the assignments.  When doing fall assignments, consult with the TA coordinator about choosing mentors.  After most of the hard jobs are filled, putting people into standard TA slots usually goes quickly.  At the end, you'll probably be left with one or two jobs that are devilishly hard to fill, and might require making some promises of special consideration in later quarters.
7. Once you have a reasonably complete set of assignments for the coming quarter, record them in the appointments spreadsheet and on Brooke's time schedule, and pass everything on to Brooke, with copies to Donna and the TA coordinator.  At this point, Brooke can take over, making small adjustments as necessary to accommodate scheduling changes or other problems.  If the need arises for any major changes, she'll consult with you.
8. After you know which students are going to be teaching their own sections, work with the TA Coordinator to make sure that those who need faculty supervisors have them.  Here's the current policy: The first and second time that a grad student teaches a course he/she has not taught before, he or she must be assigned a faculty supervisor and enroll in Math 597 for credit.  This means, for example, that if a student teaches 307 twice and then 102, she would need a supervisor for the first 307 and then for 102.  Of course, you are free to insist that they work with a supervisor additional times if you think they need it.  You and the TA coordinator should decide who would be an appropriate supervisor for each course being taught by a TA (preferably someone who's teaching the same course during the quarter, and whose schedule permits visiting the TA's section).  Then tell the TAs whom they will be working with.

Summer Quarter

You have some choice about how to handle summer quarter. The GPC job comes with an extra half-month salary in June and another in September. In addition, if you wish, you can be paid from the summer school budget up to 50% for two months, whatever you feel is appropriate. Alternatively, you can adopt a common practice of the department chair and have a past graduate advisor take on acting duties for all or part of the summer, for example if you have grant support and want to spend the summer doing research. It all depends how much you want to detach yourself from the job.

Traditionally, Brooke Miller does the summer quarter TA assignments.  This could be considered part of your job, but she's good at it, and I saw it as a welcome relief .

Your job is to tell her who should get summer TA jobs.  You'll want to check with her early in spring quarter to find out how many summer TA positions will be available.  It's also a good idea to ask her how many of those will be teaching their own sections of courses, since these positions can only go to more advanced students (post-prelim PhD students, or particularly strong Master's students near the end of their programs).

There are several variables that go into deciding who gets summer support:

• Who was guaranteed summer support with their initial offer?  Some students are offered 11-month positions (3 academic quarters plus one 2-month summer quarter), and some are only offered 9-month positions with no guarantee of summer support.  You can check the spreadsheet Grads/Spreads/current-students.xls to see what each person was offered.
• Who wants summer support?  In the student plans questionnaire that you send out in January, students told you whether they wanted summer support or not.  You might want to follow up on this in the spring, because many people's plans change.
• How advanced is the student?  In general, if there are more students wanting support than there are jobs, I would tend to favor more advanced students.
• How is the student doing academically?  If, after applying the above criteria, there are still more students who want support than can be supported, you'll have to make some hard decisions.  Basically, the support should go to students whose academic standing is the strongest.
• Who should get summer RAs?  This is something you'll have to work out with the PIs, after checking with Donna to find out how much RA support each grant has available.  This could involve some tricky decisions: For example, since summer quarters are only 2 months long instead of 3, a grant might have enough left to support a student in the summer but not during an academic quarter.  You also might decide to move some RA money between the academic year and the summer in order to balance the TA numbers, as described above.  And, of course, a PI might have something to say about it, for example if they are planning to go to a summer conference and want to support the student as an RA and take him/her along.

Curriculum and Program Planning

• All five core courses every year,
• The basic Optimization sequence 514/5/6 every year,
• 509 and 517 in alternate years,
• The Probability sequence 521/2/3 when it's our turn (we alternate teaching it with Stat),
• The Numerical Analysis sequence 594/5/6 when it's our turn (we alternatie with AMath),
• All other full-year graduate courses every other year.

Once the preference sheets have been returned, you can set about assigning people to courses.  The target is fifteen 500-level courses per quarter: 5 core courses, 5 "intermediate-level" courses (including Optimization, Numerical Analysis, Probability, and all of the alternate-year courses), and 5 advanced topics courses.  Luckily, in recent years the number of requests to teach graduate courses has been roughly equal to the number of courses to be taught, but this might not always be the case.  In any event, you will have to do some negotiating and arm-twisting, for example, if nobody volunteers to teach one of the core courses or some course that is supposed to be offered this coming year, or if two or more people strongly want to teach the same course.

Some of these decisions will depend on who is teaching certain 400-level courses or other things, so you'll need to work closely with the Undergraduate Program Coordinator (who is responsible for the 400-level assignments) and Brooke (who does the lower-level assignments).  Sometimes the chair also gets involved.  (Until recently, the Graduate Program Coordinator was also responsible for assigning people to teach 400-level courses, but this has now been officially transferred to the Undergraduate Program Coordinator.)

Traditionally, the Graduate Program Committee has been asked to vote on the final course assignments.  But, as I mentioned before, I found this to be a rubber-stamp operation, and discontinued it in the interest of decreasing the number of committee meetings people had to be subjected to.  You might want to revive it.

Once the assignments have been made, you'll need to see that the new 400/500-level course schedules get posted on the Web, and ask the 500-level instructors for course descriptions to be posted there.  A couple of years ago, I started asking instructors for descriptions of all 500-level courses, not just special topics courses, because it's useful for students to see things like prerequisites, textbooks, homework, and grading policies.  Some instructors don't come through with descriptions, but most do.  Once the course information is posted on the Web, you can ask Brooke to print copies and post them on the downstairs bulletin board.  Near the end of each quarter, you'll need to remind faculty members who have not submitted descriptions for upcoming grad courses to do so.

Recommended Programs of Study: Because PhD students have so many options, it's important that they have good information about recommended programs for all the different areas in which they might want to concentrate.  You should ensure that the Recommended Programs of Study are updated at least once a year - I always sent an e-mail request to faculty in August or September asking them to look at the recommended programs on the Web and tell me if they wanted any changes made.  Be sure to involve new faculty members in this discussion, and ask them if they'd like their names added to any of the existing recommended programs.  Also, now that the computer programming option has been added, you should encourage people to add recommendations about which language/computer requirements to fulfill, if they haven't already.

Graduate Program Curriculum: You oversee the Master's and PhD degree programs. In this capacity, you may choose to initiate discussions in the Graduate Program Committee or among faculty regarding possible changes to degree requirements or to the graduate curriculum.  The only issue that is currently pending resolution is the question of whether to require the Current Problems Seminar.  Other than that, some policy issues that you might want to have the committee talk about are:

• Prelims: There are always a number of faculty members who are unhappy with the way the prelim system is working, so it's probably not a bad idea to revisit the discussion of prelims every five years or so.
• Computer requirement:  It would probably be a good idea to revisit this next year, just to see how it's working and to think about whether the guidelines need changing.

If you want to start a new discussion on a major issue, autumn quarter is probably the best time to do so, both because you'll have the whole year to think about it and because autumn is the time when you're least tied up with time-consuming jobs like admissions and renewals.

Student Advising and Performance Evaluation

Assigning advisors

During the summer, you should look over the application files of all the incoming students, and decide on a preliminary advisor for each one.  Ordinarily, I assigned advisors based on common mathematical interest, but occasionally I used other criteria such as previous contact with a particular faculty member.  You should also update the "Handbook for instructors and advisors of first-year graduate students" if necessary.  Send a note to each advisor you've chosen, together with a copy of the handbook, telling them the name of the student they're being asked to advise, and asking them to let you know if they'd prefer not to be the advisor of this student.  Include a copy of the handbook with this memo.

Also, send a copy of the handbook to each core course instructor (if they're not also getting it as a first-year advisor).

New Student Orientation

Your first real contact with new students (aside from whatever contact you had with them during the admissions process) is at the new student orientation in the fall.  Most of the work for orientation is handled by the TA Coordinator and the Lead TA, but you will have a couple hours to give a talk at the opening meeting during orientation week.  Depending on when the Jewish High Holidays fall, this will either be the Monday before the first week of classes or the preceding Friday.  You should check with the TA Coordinator to schedule this before you start sending offer letters to newly-admitted students, so you can tell them when they need to arrive.

I usually gave a handout including

• A welcome letter showing the student's advisor's name;
• A description of program information that can be found on the Web;
• Registration instructions;
• A description of the Current Problems Seminar;
• The department's official policy statement on concerns about instruction; and
• A blank Quarterly Plan.

• The importance of regularly using e-mail (which is used for getting official departmental info to them, because they don't have phones) and the Web (which is the authoritative source for graduate program policies).
• How to plan their program and decide what courses to take.
• How to register, including a bit more information about the registration requirements.
• Some advice about taking courses, including advice about forming study groups, not putting off homework, talking with their instructors, how much work to expect, and not getting discouraged if they find they're not picking things up as quickly as they did in college.
• The meaning of our grading scale for grad courses.
• 400-level alternatives for our core graduate courses.
• A "typical" 5 or 6-year schedule for PhD students, and a "typical" 2-year schedule for Master's students.
• Options for speeding up (get a course pass & finish prelims after year 1) or slowing down (take one 400-level course the first year) the typical PhD schedule.

One of the central aspects of your job, and the one that strikes the most fear and awe into the hearts of the grad students, is coordinating the prelim system.  Here's a detailed description of what you have to do.

1. Scheduling prelims:  Prelims are traditionally scheduled for 9:30-1:30 Mon-Fri, starting on the Monday before Autumn classes begin, in the order Algebra, Real, Complex, Manifolds, Linear.  You should decide on the schedule around the beginning of spring quarter, so you can tell potential prelim authors and newly admitted students when the exams will be.  You also need to check with the TA coordinator, to make sure you're aware of the orientation schedule, and check with Brooke to reserve C-36 for the prelims.  You should send the schedule out to current grad students before the end of spring quarter.
2. Assigning examiners:  Early in spring quarter, choose two people to write and grade each preliminary exam.  The spreadsheet Grads/Spreads/prelim-authors.xls shows everyone who's written a prelim since 1986 (organized by year on the first worksheet, and by name on the second).  On that spreadsheet, you'll also find some suggestions about whom I thought you might ask to write prelims in 2001.  I've generally tried to call on people no more often than once every 4 years, but sometimes that was impossible and I had to ask some people again after only 3 years.  You should send an e-mail request to each potential author, asking if they'd be willing, and giving them a deadline to reply.
3. Assigning prelim prep instructors:  Brooke usually decides who will run the prelim prep seminars over the summer (because she is in charge of summer teaching assignments in general), but it might be a good idea to touch base with her during spring quarter in case she's thinking of hiring someone for a prelim prep seminar whom you're also thinking of asking to write a prelim.  Once the instructors have been decided, you might want to send them some suggestions about running the seminar and copies of old prelims.
4. Giving instructions to the examiners: After you have all 10 authors lined up, send each one a memo confirming their prelim date and giving them detailed instructions.  (A template is in Grads/Prelims/confirm.tex.)  Also, sometime around the end of August, you should follow up with an e-mail reminding them of the deadlines and giving them instructions for computing and reporting the grades.  Make sure you know the answers to these questions:
• Which author will be available to answer questions? Each year, questions come up. These can often be filtered through Brooke or you and are often typos. The author need not be in building, but does need to be available by phone.
• Which author will pick up the exams?  Linda or Brooke can hand these off.
• Which author will report the results to you?  This is very important. The sooner you get data, the sooner you can piece together a picture of the difficult cases.
• Which author will attend the prelim meeting?
5. Scheduling the Fall prelim meeting: As soon as you know who the new Graduate Program Committee members are going to be, arrange a room for the fall prelim meeting and send an announcement to the committee members.  (I always scheduled it for the afternoon following the September department meeting.)  Follow up with an e-mail reminder in early September.
6. Administering prelims:  Around September 1, you need to make sure all the five prelims are ready or nearly ready. These need to be in Brooke's hands, so she can duplicate them. Also, make sure Brooke knows who will hand out and collect the exams.  I always let the office staff (usually Linda Adkins) do this, and tried to stop in during the exams just to wish the students good luck; but you might choose to administer the exams yourself.  You should at least be reachable by phone, in case anything goes wrong.
7. Collecting results:  Tell the examiners that they need to send their results to you within a couple of days after prelims end (I gave them a deadline of noon Monday following prelim week).  You'll have only a couple of days to review the status of each exam-taker and place their performance in context.  This sometimes requires looking back at instructors' reports for the preceding year, or contacting instructors or advisors to get more information.  You should then prepare a spreadsheet for the committee, showing each student's past prelim results, all applicable 3.8 course passes, tentative results of this year's prelims, and some comments about whatever decisions have to be made.  A template is in Grads/Spreads/prelim2000.xls.
8. The Fall Prelim Meeting: With the committee, you go over each prelim-taker's exam performance and decide what to do.  You should come prepared with copies of your prelims spreadsheet, and the files of all students who are taking their last shot at prelims (which will include copies of the prelim and renewal letters that they received last year).  Know the difficult cases ahead of time; steer the committee toward those and fly by the clear-cut cases.  At the end of this meeting, the committee should also decide on any departmental awards to be given on the basis of performance in prelims and last year's courses.
9. Reporting results:  After the meeting, you have to write letters to all exam-takers describing their performance and commenting on the implications.  Copies should go to advisors.  There are no "standard" templates for these letters, since they're all individualized to a certain extent.  What I did was to look through the preceding year's letters (in Grads/Prelims/2000/) and pick out a few "typical" ones (e.g., you passed all your prelims, you didn't pass them all but you're making normal progress, you didn't pass but you get the MS thesis option, you didn't pass and we want you to finish with an MS, etc.) and modify them for each individual.  This needs to be done quickly, because students' fall course decisions often depend on prelim results.  I tried to ensure that letters were in all exam-takers' mailboxes by about noon Friday at the latest.  (You should also send letters to anyone who is now finished with prelims on the basis of a course pass the preceding year, even if they didn't take prelims this fall.)
10. Meeting with exam-takers:  It is a good idea to meet with any third-year students who didn't finish prelims, to clarify any sensitive issues, to help them think about what to do next, and if appropriate to make sure they understand the requirements for a Master's degree.  My predecessors also used to meet with every student who just completed prelims, to help them think about where to go next and to avoid some of the problems of "limbo."  I let this practice fall by the wayside, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to revive it.
11. Reviewing exams: If a student wants to dispute (or just to better understand) a prelim grade, they have a right to look over their prelim with a faculty member of their choice.  (Of course, they're not supposed to know who the examiners were.)  Ask the student to choose a faculty member, then arrange to send the exam paper to that faculty member (not directly to the student).  After the faculty member has discussed the exam with the student, there are several possible courses of action:
• If the faculty member convinces the student that the exam was graded correctly (which happens in the vast majority of cases), then just report this outcome to the examiners; nothing else needs to be done.
• If the faculty member agrees with the student that the exam was graded incorrectly, he/she should consult privately with the examiners and try to convince them.
• If the faculty member convinces the examiners that there was a grading error, the examiners should report a revised grade to you.  If it's clear whether this should change a failing grade to a passing grade or not, and it's clear what effect this will have on the student's status, you can just report the outcome to the committee and write a new letter to the student reporting on the changed results.  If not, read on.
• If the student disagrees with the faculty member or the faculty member disagrees with the examiners about the grading of the exam, the matter will have to be resolved by the Graduate Program Committee.  I never had to deal with such a situation, so I can't give you any advice about how to handle it. Good luck.
12. Informing the department of results: Since the prelim results are typically decided just after the September department meeting, I usually did this by posting the results on the faculty-only Web site and sending out an e-mail notice to faculty telling them where to look.  By the October meeting nobody cares anymore; the focus is on tenure cases.

Twice each year, the Graduate Program Committee decides which students should receive departmental academic awards.  (The TA awards are in the hands of the TA advisory committee, so you don't have to worry about those.)

Fall Awards:  Typically, at the fall prelim meeting, second- and third-year PhD students are given awards based on superior performance in core courses and prelims.  The funding comes from the following sources: the Faculty Endowment, the Grad Support Fund, the Hewitt fund, the Allendoerfer fund, the McFarlan fund, and the Birnbaum fund (if there's anything left of it).  You should check with Donna before the meeting to find out how much cash is in each of these funds.  Because of the way the funding has worked out, starting in fall 2000 we packaged these as "Academic Excellence Awards," with a $1000 stipend attached to each, and a certificate and the student's name on a wall plaque.  (Note that the McFarlan fund has to be used for full-year fellowships, however.)  Last year's certificates are MS word files in Grads/Prelims/2000/; you can arrange with Lisa Spencer to have them printed on nice parchment paper and placed in diploma folders.

Spring Awards: At the spring renewal meeting, more advanced PhD students are given awards based on research performance and/or potential.  Once we found out that the McFarlan fund could be used only for full-year fellowships, we started awarding full-year McFarlan fellowships at the spring meeting, and reserving all the other funds for the fall Academic Excellence awards.  Recently, I've started sending out an e-mail announcement to all faculty members asking for nominations for these awards, to try to make the process a bit more fair.

Awards Ceremony: In 2000, we started an "annual tradition" of having an awards ceremony for the grad students in mid to late October.  You'll have to schedule it, invite people, and have Donna arrange for catering.  Make sure the TA advisory committee has decided on the TA awards before the ceremony.  At the ceremony, you should announce all grad student awards that have been bestowed since last year's ceremony.

Ongoing Academic Monitoring

On an ongoing basis, you should try to keep on top of student performance.  Here are some of the things I did for this purpose:

• Talk to the core graduate course instructors on a regular basis about how the course is going in general, and about how individual students are doing.
• Solicit detailed end-of-quarter reports from core instructors.  (I did this by e-mail.)
• Solicit evaluations once or twice a year from advisors of post-prelim students about the performance of these students and when they're expected to graduate.  There's a form for this purpose.
• Talk to faculty on an on-going basis about their impressions of students in courses, about the progress of thesis students, etc.
• Talk to students about their progress, either when they have occasion to come with questions, or in certain cases where there appears to be a problem and you want to address it.
• Solicit information from students in early January about their plans for the coming summer and the next academic year. In particular, this will help you estimate how many new students to admit, and you can use the summer information to tell Brooke who should get summer support.  There's a form for this purpose.
• Send out registration instructions to each student near the end of every quarter, along with a blank Quarterly Plan form to be filled out by the student and signed by the advisor.  You can teach Linda Adkins what to look for in these forms, so she can alert you if any look like they need your attention.

The Spring Renewal Meeting

The culmination of all of these evaluative processes is the decision made each spring about support for each graduate student the following year. You'll want to schedule the meeting sometime in early May, after the admissions season is all finished.  During the preceding few months, you've been making educated guesses about which students will want to return next year; before this meeting you should try to pin down any remaining ambiguities if possible.   You should also solicit last-minute information from instructors about any students whose performance has been iffy.  Then you'll formulate a plan, taking into account student performance and availability of support. Use the spreadsheet Grads/Spreads/renewal2000.xls as a template (I actually created this anew each year using the "openings" spreadsheet as a starting point). Bring this info to the Graduate Program Commitee, along with the files of any students whose renewal is in question.  After the meeting, you have to write a letter to every single graduate student in the program, describing the support decision, the terms of renewal, and any other matters that are relevant. This evaluation process, together with the careful writing of the letters at the end of it, is probably your most important single job.

Besides renewals, there are two other agenda items for this meeting:

• Spring academic awards (see above).
• Applications from Master's students to transfer to the PhD program, and from unsupported students to become fully supported.

Data Storage

Part of the job of the GPC is to supervise the collection and storage of data about graduate students.  I tried to centralize most of this data in several Excel spreadsheets, and to work out a system for making key information available to faculty members via the Web.  I'll explain more about this when we meet.

Advising

You actually advise graduate students, but (as noted) it's perhaps surprising how small a part of the job this is. Much of the advising occurs in crisis situations, in which you may be required to deal with delicate personal issues. In one case, for instance, my predecessor found himself consulting regularly with a student's therapist and putting many hours of time and care into a thorny situation.

Crisis Management

Crises can arise in just about every category above. As any administrator must realize sooner or later, effective organization allows one to absorb all but the rarest of crises into the routine. A graduate student may quit in mid-quarter, but a good personnel plan has built into it the means to handle this. An administrator is always planning, always making changes. An administrator never sleeps. It's a helluva job.