Celebrating 50 Years of Excellence!

Dear WAGS members,

This year’s Annual WAGS conference will be held in Denver, Colorado the 2nd weekend of March 2008.  This is a significant event in that we will be celebrating 50 years of working to improve graduate education. By coincidence WAGS was formed at a meeting of several graduate deans that was held in Denver 50 years ago at the Brown Palace Hotel – the very same hotel of our annual meeting this coming March.

The overall theme of our 50 year celebration is a focus on Diversity and Inclusiveness within our graduate programs.  It is likely that all of us have a commitment to this agenda. However, while such a commitment is crucial, it is not enough.  As stated in the CGS series on inclusiveness, successful inclusive graduate programs also have an active game-plan.  Inclusiveness means not only opening the door to talented students from groups historically underrepresented in graduate education, but also providing those students with the support and resources to walk through the door.  As important as its commitment to providing access to traditionally underrepresented students is a graduate program’s ability to follow through on that commitment.  Inclusiveness requires sensitivity to issues of access and fairness.  In addition, it requires the labor-intensive practices of recruiting and retaining students, as well as ensuring that they graduate. 

Our annual meeting will consist of presentations focused on best practices related to recruitment, preparing students for graduate school, reducing barriers, building community, and creating leaders who can work with all groups. These presentations will be alternated with interactive sessions to give us all an opportunity to interact with and to share our own approaches with each other.  Our hope is that we will all gain new strategies that contribute to our game-plans for enhancing Diversity and Inclusiveness on our campuses!

I hope to see all of you in March.

Sincerely,

Jim Moran
WAGS President