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[n22much]

I have spent my career thus far in small private schools (enrollment under 4000).  I am one of 5 candidates being considered for a new dean's position for Graduate Studies at another similar institution.

I have not worked at a school with such a position.  We have had deans of schools (Education, Business, Liberal Arts, etc.) but not a Graduate dean. 

I need your help!  What does a Dean of Graduate Studies do?  And how would such a position work along side the deans of the various schools?

Thanks! 

[systeme_d_]

At my former employer (a state U), the Dean of the Graduate School was in charge of the office that processed admissions for every department in every college, and was responsible for budget management and policy decisions.  In other words, the Dean of the Grad School evaluated, eliminated, and expanded graduate programs by virtue of her/his power of the purse.

The Dean of the Grad School was a member of the Council of Academic Deans (which means s/he was theoretically an equal to the other deans of colleges), and the chair of the Graduate Council (which was mostly comprised of chairs of grad programs who were elected or appointed to serve on council).  The Dean of the Grad School reported to the Provost.

[dogvomit]

I have spent my career thus far in small private schools (enrollment under 4000).  I am one of 5 candidates being considered for a new dean's position for Graduate Studies at another similar institution.

I have not worked at a school with such a position.  We have had deans of schools (Education, Business, Liberal Arts, etc.) but not a Graduate dean. 

I need your help!  What does a Dean of Graduate Studies do?  And how would such a position work along side the deans of the various schools?

Thanks! 

If you don't know, good luck.

[oatmeal]

OP--Is this a serious post? You are a finalist for a position but you have no idea what the position entails? What did you write in your cover letter?

[dale1]

Our graduate dean is essentially a courier of ideas and programs between campuses and committees.  S/he will work with campus deans to formulate policy that all can (barely) agree with and staff can (barely) implement coherently.

The graduate school is, keep in mind, a net revenue sink, not a net revenue generator.  So it's not nearly as high prestige at many campuses as a dean in medicine or law might be.  At our metropolitan university, it certainly is not.

[kohelet]

I'm confused about this myself and curious to see some explanation (but, of course, I'm not a candidate for this position).  I don't understand why graduate programs wouldn't just stay in their chains-of-command within their respective colleges.  But, then, they do, sort of.  But sort of not.  It seems to cause lots of "unity of command" problems. 

Our own graduate program director reports to both our department chair (who reports to the dean of our college) and to the graduate dean directly.  My college dean is extremely passive (about everything, but including graduate programs), but in other colleges, the deans are really aggressive about developing graduate programs.  Why the graduate dean, then?

There must be good reasons for the graduate school/graduate dean position, but I can't speculate what they might be.

[dale1]

kohelet:

As I tried to indicate above, graduate deans are responsible for a number of things, including program coordination, policy review, and often graduate non-degree or "try it out" programs. They also often run initiatives to diversify the pool of applicants for graduate study, so they might hire someone who is in charge of diverse student recruitment or retention initiatives.  Purdue University has such a system.