Home Faculty and Staff Promising Practices for Graduate Program Orientation Promising Practices for Graduate Program Orientation New student orientation is an essential step in acclimating graduate students to the university environment. Provide students with a graduate student handbook that offers a detailed roadmap of program requirements, expectations and responsibilities. Include checklists, timelines, milestones, and options for subfields. The handbook should serve as a reliable, detailed reference for any orientation to the degree program. Make it available online and accessible on the department’s website. Provide an introduction to graduate school and orientation to your program. Use varied programming to explore in depth the facets that are central to their early years in the graduate program. Host first year cohort lunches or meetings early in the fall semester for more personalized introductions to faculty and staff, and their roles in the department. Stage the orientation for first-year students at intervals throughout the first year. This allows you to present what they need to know in the order they are likely to need it. Arrange for each incoming student to meet with the graduate chair or faculty advisor in late August and early September in order to plan the first two years of coursework. Invite all current students to participate in both formal and informal orientation events. This allows new students the opportunity to both hear the perspective of current students and to ask questions about their experiences. Familiarize new students with the norms of the discipline through a professionalization seminar. This allows them to explore the nature of graduate education in the field and responsibilities involved. Offer introductory seminars or workshops that roll out the fundamentals of the field. This is especially useful for students who have changed disciplines or been out of school for some time. Encourage new students to get early research experience in the summer preceding matriculation. Encourage department faculty to extend this offer if they have a suitable project. Encourage students to attend Rackham’s Fall Welcome and Information Fair events. At these events, new students will hear from University and student leaders about elements of student success, receive information about resources from Rackham Graduate School, get introduced to multiple campus and community organizations, and meet other new students from a variety of disciplines. Remind students to engage with the resources and programs in Rackham’s Grad School 101 Canvas orientation class. Grad School 101 supports student success, provides access to workshops and programs tailored to first year graduate students, and allows students to connect with Rackham Graduate School resources. Please note that all of Rackham’s first year graduate students are added to the portal.
