Over the last decade, there have been substantial changes in the demands placed on DGS’s, and on graduate programs as a whole. Changes in the composition and expectations of our graduate student body, as well as the pandemic and graduate student unionization have increased the demands on DGS’s time and energy. In the humanities and social science departments the recent reduction in teaching loads have made it harder to recruit DGS’s because there is no longer a clear incentive to take the position. What follows here is a set of recommendations to lighten the administrative burden placed on DGS’s so that the faculty support for the graduate programs may be shared more equitably.

• Recognize the contributions of the DGS through the service component of the annual evaluation of faculty for salary increases
• Develop a special seminar or workshop offered by the DGS that incorporates some of the responsibilities for administering the graduate program and for advising the graduate students, including orientation in the graduate program, introduction to the discipline, professional development, etc. (smaller programs may wish to develop such a course that is offered on a rotating basis by a set of cognate departments as part of a two- or three- year cycle)
• Absolve DGS’s of other service and advising responsibilities, including advising first- and second-year undergraduates and departmental concentrators
• Provide DGS’s with preferential course assignments, teaching schedules, and TA support
• Create a separate graduate admissions and graduate recruitment coordinator positions
• Assign students faculty advisors at the time of admission who will be responsible for writing recommendations, drafting annual evaluations, and providing day-to-day advising
• Require individual course performance reports from all graduate seminar instructors and preliminary examiners and dissertation advisors that provide material for the annual evaluation letters of students submitted to the Graduate School
• Assign to staff members all data entry to the GSIM system
• Adhere to the expectations set forth in the job description that is attached to the annual appointment letter received by the DGS from the Dean of the Faculty