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Matson focuses on graduate students’
contributions, needs
It has been a year now since Steve Matson took over as dean
of the Graduate School – enough time for friends and colleagues to ask
him if he likes the job.
The answer, Matson said, is unequivocally yes. “I have been
challenged, which is a positive thing, and I have learned that I like
essentially all elements of the job.”
A member of the faculty since 1983 and a former chair of the
biology department, Matson (who is pictured above) is widely respected for his work in the field of
genetics and molecular biology.
He now oversees more than 8,000 graduate students in the
University’s 66 doctoral and 100 masters programs. Matson said one of his most
delightful discoveries is the consistency in excellence.
“I have learned over the past year how good we really are –
and how good we are everywhere,” Matson said.
His predecessor, Linda Dykstra, teamed with former
University trustee Rusty Carter to shine a light on the needs of graduate
students and the vital role they play in driving the University’s research.
Part of his job, Matson said, is to continue to advocate for
graduate students and explain their importance to both the University’s
teaching and research missions.
“Many people believe graduate students are here to implement
the research agenda of a faculty member, and while it may start that way it
doesn’t finish that way,” Matson said.
“In that vein, being a graduate student is not unlike an
apprenticeship where you are learning from the master, if you will, the craft
or trade. Over time, not only do you absorb everything the master has to teach,
but you begin to have your own set of ideas, and then ultimately, you become
the teacher.”
Financial challenges
When he took over as dean in July 2008, Matson had no way of
knowing that the country was on the cusp of the largest economic downturn since
the Great Depression – a financial situation that sent budget cuts
rippling through the University.
He is grateful that the Graduate School has been able to
absorb the cuts in state funding without laying off employees – and just
as importantly to Matson – without “balancing the budget on the backs of
our students.”
Two key factors have given the Graduate School some needed
help, and Matson is thankful for both: The number of donors to the Graduate
School has significantly increased this past year, and Chancellor Holden Thorp
established a $2 million grant for a new program called Chancellors Fellows.
The first cohort of 10 or 11 student fellows will arrive on
campus this fall and another 10 or 11 students will arrive in fall 2010,
Matson said.
Each Chancellor’s Fellow is guaranteed five years of
financial support in the form of stipends and tuition assistance. As part of
the program, first-year graduate students will be freed from teaching duties to
begin work on their doctoral degrees.
Matson would like to see all first-year graduate students
have that same opportunity – something for which the school now lacks
the resources.
Another financial challenge, Matson said, was erasing the
significant deficit in the tuition remission budget he inherited.
Tuition remission is funding for out-of-state graduate
students that pays the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition. It
is a major recruitment tool to attract the most talented students from all 50
states and around the world, he said.
With the support of the Office of the
Provost and the Budget Committee, which allocates discretionary funding to meet
University priorities, Matson was able to lift tuition remissions out of the
red.
He instituted a structural change in the fund distribution
beginning this fall. Instead of offering tuition remission to all qualified
students whose departments request it, each department will receive a set
amount of money to offer its students. Matson hopes this allocation system is
temporary and that the Graduate School will be able to support all tuition
remission requests when the economic climate improves and resources increase.
Feeling connected
Matson also is focusing on helping graduate students
overcome the sense of isolation they all too often feel, both within the
graduate community and the broader University community.
The Graduate Student Center, which opened about two years
ago, is one place they can go for social activities and professional
development activities.
Similarly, several years ago the Office of Undergraduate
Research started a program called Graduate Research Consultants to build a
bridge between graduate students and undergraduates. The graduate student
consultants work in the classroom to help undergraduates with their research
projects.
Another long-standing program, the Royster Society of
Fellows, was launched in 1996 as the graduate-level equivalent of the
Morehead-Cain Scholars program for undergraduates. Named in honor of Thomas S.
Royster Jr. and Caroline H. Royster, the program is designed to broaden
students’ intellectual horizons and develop their leadership skills through
discussions with other fellows, presentations and outreach.
Thanks to the Roysters’ ongoing generosity, Matson said, the
Graduate School has created a Royster professorship, the school’s first chaired
professorship. This faculty member will serve as the Royster fellows’ director
and provide leadership and mentoring for this interdisciplinary group of
graduate students, now numbering more than 100 fellows each year.
Matson has not given up his role as a biology professor
despite his wife’s good-natured complaints about not seeing him much during the
past year because of his two full-time jobs. But Matson sees keeping his old
job as a requirement for being able to do his new one well.
“Research is what I was trained to do and is something I
would really miss if I wasn’t doing it,” Matson said. “But beyond that, I think
it helps make me a credible administrator – somebody who actually knows
what graduate education is all about.” |
