NEW FOCUS: Gumport will advocate for grad students.

Courtesy Patricia Gumport

Education professor Patricia Gumport has been named vice provost for graduate education, effective January 1.

The position was created based on the recent report of the Commission on Graduate Education (Farm Report, January/February), which suggested that a new vice provost be appointed to focus on and advocate for graduate student issues, just as the vice provost for undergraduate education looks after that population on campus.

As Gumport, MA ’82, MA ’86, PhD ’87, prepares to take up her new post, two items are at the top of her agenda: increasing graduate student diversity and fostering interdisciplinary work. With respect to diversity, “different parts of the University need to work together to identify some effective strategies and some best practices, because within some of the schools there are already successful initiatives under way,” she says. “We can learn from each other.”