Dear Faculty and Staff,

As some of you may know, Cindy Forehand, Dean of the Graduate College, will be retiring at the end of the fiscal year. Dean Forehand is an important member of the academic leadership team and has served as our graduate dean since 2013.

Under Dean Forehand’s leadership, total graduate student enrollment has increased by more than 25%, including a 38% increase in international graduate students and a 186% increase in graduate students of color, and nearly 30 graduate programs and certificates have been added to our curriculum. Graduate assistantship doctoral and master’s stipends have increased 29% and 15% respectively, and coverage of the student health insurance premium increased from 75% to 100%.

Additional accomplishments include increasing the graduate research assistantship tuition scholarship to the level of that for the graduate teaching assistantship, increasing their benefits to include parental leave, normalizing benefits across postdoctoral fellows and associates, setting standard postdoctoral salaries across the institution, and increasing their benefits, as well, to include parental leave. Dean Forehand has brought a student-centered approach to everything she does, has been a tireless advocate for excellence in graduate education, and has promoted interdisciplinary and innovative forms of scholarship, research, and curricula.

I am reluctant to contemplate the loss of our wonderful colleague, but I’m enormously grateful for Dean Forehand’s outstanding service and wish her the best. I’m delighted that we’ll have the opportunity to celebrate her many accomplishments and contributions in the spring, and that we’ll have the benefit of her experience and expertise throughout the year. Plans for this leadership transition are underway and will be shared with campus in the coming weeks.

Sincerely,

Patty Prelock
Provost and Senior Vice President