Office of Graduate Education Assessment Plan

Executive Summary

1. Mission: The Mission of the University Office of Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Affairs is to promote graduate education broadly at the University towards attracting students poised to make an impact upon the world, provide a high quality educational and research experience, and foster supportive training environments such that our graduate students and postdoctoral scholars can learn, discover, heal, and create.
2. Program Goals: At the completion of their graduate program at the University of Rochester, all graduates will have demonstrated the ability to:
   1. Select and defend important problem or topic for study
   2. Demonstrate mastery of relevant knowledge in the field
   3. Apply rigorous methods of the discipline
   4. Produce a valuable product and accurately appraise its importance
   5. Communicate effectively in academic writing
   6. Effectively defend the work when questioned.
3. Data Collection Tools and Approaches: Formative evaluations of individual students are conducted by each degree granting program or school as appropriate to the scholarly discipline, in the form of course grades, annual reviews, and other feedback. All PhD programs include a qualifying exam as part of that process. Summative evaluations on the individual level include the final oral defense of the dissertation, which is judged as passed or failed by a supervising committee chaired by a faculty member from outside the student’s program. Summative data also are collected in two post-defense surveys: Each faculty member of each final oral defense committee completes a confidential evaluation of the rigor of the defense process and of the candidate’s degree of achievement of the University’s PhD Learning Outcomes listed above. Each graduate completes an exit survey on satisfaction with a number of aspects of the PhD program just completed. Using data from these 2 surveys and the UR student information system, periodic analyses are conducted at the program, school and University levels of time to degree completion, completion rates, students’ defense performance and satisfaction, and other metrics.
4. Use of the Evidence: The school and University data above are collected continually and analyzed and reported at least annually in aggregated and de-identified form. Results are reported to the University Council on Graduate Education and leaders of graduate programs to inform program improvements.
5. Assessing the Process: Tools for evaluation and frequency and mode of reporting are discussed by the University Council of Graduate Education annually and when questions arise.