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Program updates

I am happy to share that our graduate certificate in sustainability was approved by the Government of Alberta last week. This program is an example of the interdisciplinary education programming that the colleges are mandated to provide for the ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½, and we are excited to launch the program with the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies and the Office of Online and Continuing Education in the next academic year. I want to thank our founding faculties ALES and Science for their support of this project, Bob Summers, academic director of the Sustainability Council, for his leadership and Lobo Cruz, associate dean (education), for his efforts moving this forward.

We have several other program proposals in the works, and I look forward to sharing more information and updates as they become available.  

Graduate administration

Beginning in September, the CNAS Office of Education will provide comprehensive administrative support for graduate admissions and awards to all faculties and departments. This support will be provided for all programs, including certificates, course- and thesis-based masters and PhDs. The work will be performed by a team of five program coordinators. This team of specialists will ensure that processes function well to support the academic decisions made in the department and that any delays in admissions or awards processing that currently exist are mitigated. Each department will have a specific contact who will work closely with associate deans, staff and professors to ensure that their needs are being met efficiently and effectively. The CNAS program coordinators have been providing support in these areas over the last 18 months for all departments in ALES and the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Physics.  

The CNAS graduate administration team will initially be focused on working closely with departments and faculties to ensure we provide active and timely support for the academic decisions related to admissions and maximize the process efficiencies that the new admissions system (Slate) provides. We are committed to sending admissions offers to qualified applicants more quickly than current practice allows to  better match competitor institutions. They will be meeting with each department over the next several weeks to ensure that current processes are understood so that we can best support your needs. We will also be preparing an FAQ. For more information, please connect with your faculty associate dean (graduate), or reach out to , director of the Office of Education.

Research administration

This summer, the CNAS Office of Research is excited to be launching a formal proposal review process supported by a dedicated team. This initiative has been developed after extensive consultation and leveraging years of successful experience from our colleagues in ALES. Our goal is to offer robust support to researchers by ensuring proposals are comprehensive and meet sponsor requirements, ultimately streamlining the submission process and reducing downstream processing times. The team will be instrumental in identifying common issues early, working collaboratively with the faculty research teams, the research partner network, institutional reviewers and funding agencies to ensure researchers have all the necessary information when preparing applications. We anticipate the team will be fully in place in July, ready to begin working with researchers in August. Look for upcoming FAQs, which will include updated timelines and clearly defined service level expectations. For more information, please reach out to director of the Office of Research.