Alumni Updates

Darshan M. Karwat

Rackham Alumni Blogger: If You Want People to Talk to You, Wear a Michigan T-shirt

November 15, 2012 | By Darshan M. Karwat, '12 Ph.D., Rackham Alum

I just returned from a five week, 10,500 mile post-defense party/road trip across this immense country. I spent a week in Arizona and Utah with my parents, who flew in from Pennsylvania. Before heading out of the hotel room in Page, AZ to spend the day in Zion National Park, my mum decided that the three of us should wear our variegated Michigan apparel. Instantly, I thought of the awkward glances I would exchange with…

Jill McDonough

Make an Impact: Support Graduate Students

January 12, 2012 | By Jill McDonough, Director of Development and Alumni Relations, Rackham Graduate School

To celebrate a century of support for Michigan’s graduate students, the Graduate School will provide special awards to be distributed in 2012. These awards are intended to connect donors with scholarly endeavors that are significant and particularly meaningful to them. The Centennial Awards offer a wide range of giving opportunities, from helping to fund conference and travel grants, to research grants and dissertation fellowships. More information on how you can support a graduate student with a gift to the Centennial is available.

Wendy Ascione-Juska

Master’s Alumna Leaves Legacy Gift to Rackham

August 23, 2011 | By Wendy Ascione-Juska, Annual Giving Officer, Rackham Graduate School

Elena Sliepcevich earned her master’s in education from the University of Michigan in 1949 and a doctorate in physical education—the first woman to do so—from Springfield College in 1955. She went on to a distinguished career in health education at Southern Illinois University. Before she passed away in 2008, she had established a trust to benefit the causes that were most important to her, including the University of Idaho, from which she graduated in 1939…

Wendy Ascione-Juska

Distinguished Dissertations Receive ProQuest Awards

August 23, 2011 | By Wendy Ascione-Juska, Annual Giving Officer, Rackham Graduate School

Recipients of the ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award More than 750 dissertations were published by Rackham Ph.D. candidates in 2010. The top eight received the ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award at a special ceremony this spring. Read more about these outstanding authors and their research.

Guest Writer

Record Number of Ph.D.s in 2010-11

August 23, 2011 | By Guest Writer

By Jeff Mortimer Brett Levy is one of 824 doctorates conferred by Rackham in the 2010-11 academic year. In the 2010-11 academic year, Rackham conferred 824 Ph.D.s, compared to an average of 780 Ph.D.s annually over the prior five years. But like a savvy baseball fan, Dean Janet Weiss knows which numbers are really significant. “Something I’m even happier about,” she says, “is that we’re inching up from a 65% completion rate four or five…

Guest Writer

U-M Students Inducted into the Bouchet Honor Society

May 4, 2011 | By Guest Writer

By Jeff Mortimer In the photo from left to right: Noelle Hurd, Rabia Belt, Kush Patel, Melisa Carrasco, Carl McGill, Lani Teves, Clinique Brundidge, and Maria Johnson. Not photographed but equally appreciated for their achievements are Peter Muhoro, Kyla McMullen, and Cali Mortenson Ellis. “These people have amazing resumes,” says Gina Poe, an assistant professor of anesthesiology and of molecular and integrative biology who serves on the committee that selects Michigan’s members of the Edward…

Wendy Ascione-Juska

AGEP Provides Testing Ground for Graduate Scholars

December 17, 2010 | By Wendy Ascione-Juska, Annual Giving Officer, Rackham Graduate School

An AGEP participant at a poster session featuring faculty and students from the Michigan Alliance Debby Mitchell sits at her desk and reads aloud an e-mail from a student. “Wow! I just wanted to thank you for allowing me to serve as an AGEP delegate at the institute on teaching and mentoring. It was a wonderful experience. I shared my frustration with you about the outcome of my dissertation defense. Participating in the institute got…

Wendy Ascione-Juska

International Research Awards

December 17, 2010 | By Wendy Ascione-Juska, Annual Giving Officer, Rackham Graduate School

Jessica Goldberg, Ph.D. student in Public Policy and Economics, used a Rackham International Research Award to conduct field experiments in Malawi Anthropology students are headed for Bulgaria, Japan and Sierra Leone. Ph.D. candidates in history will be working in the Marshall Islands, Russia and Azerbaijan. A nascent scholar pursuing a joint degree in social work and political science is bound for Haiti. Other than being Rackham students, they have one other thing in common: none…

Wendy Ascione-Juska

Rackham Alumna Wins MacArthur Fellowship

December 17, 2010 | By Wendy Ascione-Juska, Annual Giving Officer, Rackham Graduate School

Shannon Dawdy at work in St. Anthony’s Garden in the French Quarter, New Orleans, 2009 Shannon Dawdy was on a city bus in Chicago, en route to an appointment with her hairdresser, when her cell phone rang. Even though the screen said “unknown caller,” she answered. “The person calling said, ‘This is Daniel Socolow,’ a name that at that time I didn’t recognize,” she recalls. “There was lots of noise on the bus and it…

Wendy Ascione-Juska

Rackham Alumni and Donors Making a Difference for Graduate Students

December 17, 2010 | By Wendy Ascione-Juska, Annual Giving Officer, Rackham Graduate School

When Mary Rackham and the Rackham Fund made a gift to endow the Graduate School back in 1935, they established a philanthropic precedent that continues to this day. Rackham alumni and donors provide the support our students need to pursue their studies, investigate scholarly questions, and prepare for meaningful careers both within and beyond academia. In addition to the critical funding we receive each year from thousands of alumni and friends, we have received several…

Guest Writer

Librarians Prepare for a New World

June 26, 2010 | By Guest Writer

By Jeff Mortimer Rackham Graduate School promotes excellence in graduate education for students in 103 Ph.D. and 108 master's programs. Alumnae and library professionals Josie Parker and Karen Jordan spoke recently with Ph.D. student Chris Leeder about what has changed, and what hasn't, in the information science program. These can be scary times for anyone in the information field, as technological earthquakes rock centuries-old notions about the acquisition, storage and dissemination of knowledge. Libraries are…

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