The Graduate Office: General Information

History

The Graduate Office was founded in 2019 to meet the growing need for oversight of University-wide guidelines pertaining to graduate study. Its initial mandate is to provide support for students in Ph.D. programs across the university as well as master’s students in the Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences and to oversee standards for admission, degree progress, and degree completion for these programs. In 2017, the Provost’s Task Force on Scholarly Research and Creative Impact recommended creation of a graduate office as essential to meeting the goal set out in SMU’s Strategic Plan, Launching SMU’s Second Century, of advancing SMU’s standing among pre-eminent national universities. In 2018, the Associate Vice President for Research and Dean of Graduate Studies convened a Graduate School Task Force to recommend appropriate roles and responsibilities for a graduate office at SMU. As a first step, the Task Force recommended establishing a Graduate Council to establish policies and procedures that would govern the Graduate Office’s administrative functions, support for graduate students, and interactions with schools, departments, and other university offices and to continue to serve as the Graduate Office’s chief committee for review of graduate curriculum changes and the awarding of fellowships. In the spring semester of 2019, the Provost established this Graduate Council. With its initial policies and procedures approved by the Graduate Council, the Graduate Office was formally established in the summer of 2019.