AY 2022-2023 Accomplishments
- 140 Pitt graduate students received national or international fellowships and awards.
- Approved 13 new graduate and professional programs.
- Saw 1.6% full-time equivalent (FTE) increase in graduate enrollment (Spring 2023 vs. Spring 2022).
- Sponsored events and programs for more than 4,000 graduate and professional students.
- Launched Graduate Global Ties, a peer mentoring program for international graduate students with more than 500 participants.
- Designed new professional competencies program, Graduate Career Foundations, launched Fall 2023.
- Designed new and expanded K. Leroy Irvis program to be launched Fall 2023.
- Expanded of Pitt2Pitt Scholarship program for all Pitt graduating seniors and alumni.
- Participated in an educational trip to India with U.S. Commercial Services to learn about Indian students' interest in U.S. graduate and professional programs.
- Launched centralized dashboards for graduate admissions, PhD time to degree, graduate funding, financial aid (with Office of the Provost Data Analytics team).
- Participated in the Racial Equity Consciousness Institute.
- Created Summer Milestone Study course.
Accomplishments over the Past Three Years
We are committed to supporting Pitt graduate and professional students holistically, not only providing them with excellent classroom and academic experiences but also supporting their endeavors and life outside of academics, including wellness, leadership, and community involvement.
Working with and listening to our graduate and professional students, we’ve implemented a number of improvements in recent years, including:
- Stipend increases: We increased minimum stipends 22% over the past two years and all stipends by 8.25% or more.
- Parental accommodation: We extended the graduate student parental accommodation policy from six to eight weeks; students with teaching assistant, teaching fellow, graduate student assistant, or graduate student researcher (TA/TF/GSA/GSR) appointments receive their full stipend for these eight weeks.
- Stipend advance: We developed a process so that new graduate students with appointments can receive stipend advances before their first September distribution.
- GSR policy: We clarified that graduate student researchers (GSRs) should not have research duties during University holidays and added a required number of break days per year for GSRs.
- Direct payment of health insurance for predoctoral fellows and trainees: In response to student and graduate program requests, we created a process through which the University pays for predoctoral fellows’ and trainees’ individual medical insurance directly.
- COVID funding: More than $4.5 million in additional funding was distributed to graduate students whose progress was affected by the pandemic.
- Ombudspersons: The graduate student and postdoc ombudsperson program was expanded to all 14 Pitt schools that offer graduate and professional programs.
- Additional staffing: Created additional roles dedicated to supporting graduate students, including the areas of professional development and diversity, equity and inclusion. These new Graduate Studies team members have already implemented new programs for graduate students such as summer micro-internships, an expanded Irvis Fellowship program, professional development workshops, and international student mentoring.