(Aug. 24, 2018) – UTSA Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Kimberly Andrews Espy and Interim Vice Provost for Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate School Can Saygin recently announced several organizational changes.
“Because graduate programming plays such a critical role in UTSA’s strategic vision, it was important to ensure the structure and functions of the Graduate School align closely with those institutional goals,” said Espy. “Most important, this direction was needed both to support our goal of increasing graduate enrollment and to better enable our students to thrive academically and professionally.”
As part of the restructuring, the Graduate School is being reorganized into three operational units: Graduate Strategic Enrollment, Professional Development, and Academic Services. Notably, Graduate Strategic Enrollment combines the graduate recruitment and admissions functions into one area. Kristine Benne, who previously served as assistant dean and director of graduate recruitment and student engagement, will oversee that area as assistant dean and director of graduate strategic enrollment.
“These changes are intended to streamline administrative processes within the school and also to prepare for the university’s adoption of a new budget model, which will better support management of graduate programs and facilitate accountability at the academic college level,” said Saygin. “Additionally, an external review helped to validate this direction to re-envision the Graduate School as a service organization.”
A number of personnel changes have been made as part of the Graduate School restructuring. UTSA faculty members Gerald Juhnke, Mariela Rodriguez and Janakiram Seshu, who each hold part-time positions as associate deans in the Graduate School, will resume their faculty roles full-time effective December 31, 2018. These associate dean positions within the Graduate School are being eliminated from the school’s administrative structure.
“We are enormously grateful to Drs. Juhnke, Rodriguez and Seshu for their administrative service but even more so for their steadfast dedication to UTSA’s graduate students,” said Espy. “Their talents as instructors, scholars and mentors are most critically needed in their home departments where they can work more directly with those students and have the greatest impact for the university.”
Additionally, several graduate school staff members will join other units within Academic Affairs in order to strengthen these areas that are vital to the success of several institutional initiatives:
The UTSA Graduate School offers more than 120 doctoral and master’s degree programs and certificates. Most recently, UTSA began a new Ph.D. program in civil engineering this fall. More than 4,200 graduate students are enrolled across seven colleges and the Graduate School.
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The University of Texas at San Antonio, a Hispanic Serving Institution situated in a global city that has been a crossroads of peoples and cultures for centuries, values diversity and inclusion in all aspects of university life. As an institution expressly founded to advance the education of Mexican Americans and other underserved communities, our university is committed to ending generations of discrimination and inequity. UTSA, a premier public research university, fosters academic excellence through a community of dialogue, discovery and innovation that embraces the uniqueness of each voice.
