Each academic year after the candidacy exam (via a staggered schedule to be created by the graduate office), students will be required to prepare a 1 page executive summary of research progress to date since the last examination.  Beyond research, this document should also include an “individual development plan” discussing future plans and strategies for personal and career development (approximately ¼ of the page).  In addition, students will be required to complete the PhD update form, documenting research papers, presentations, awards, conference proceedings, etc. earned to date in the program.  Both of these documents will be provided to committee members.  Students will meet with all committee members (either as a group or individually) to discuss annual progress and sign-off on PhD update form (typically <45 minutes).  GSC Committee members will assess the performance of the student based on the PhD update form in the form of “making excellent progress”, “making satisfactory progress” and “needs improvement”.  We expect that most students will be assessed as “making satisfactory progress”.  The PI and committee will communicate concerns and suggestions to the student.  These signed documents will be provided to the graduate office.

Forms and additional information will be forthcoming.

Lynda.com

Lynda.com is an online learning platform that helps anyone learn business, software, technology and creative skills to achieve personal and professional goals. You can login with your EID to learn a variety of skills, such as team management, that will help you through your career path. This link will take you to the UT portal.

Resources for creating an effective Executive Summary

Abstracts and Executive Summaries, Engineering Communication Program, University of Toronto, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Writing the Executive Summary, Effective Writing Center, University of Maryland-University College

Executive Summaries, CSU Writing Guide, Colorado State University

Guidelines for Writing an Executive Summary, Plant Science Center

• in addition to being a good resource for writing the executive summary, this document cites a great style guide, The Elements of Style, co-written by none other than E.B. White, the author of Charlotte's Web. 

Resources for creating an Individualized Development Plan

Organized in the order of how I would recommend you learn about creating an IDP

Individual Development Plan Resources, Graduate School, UW-Madison

• A good overview of the goals and benefits of creating an IDP. Watch the video and read the tips.

My IDP, Science Careers, American Association for the Advancement of Science

• Probably the most applicable IDP self-assessment tool for Texas ChE grad students (and it's free!). They also have a series of articles explaining some of the steps to create an IDP here: https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2013/05/myidp

Mentoring Resources, Graduate Mentoring Guidebook, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

• Although these are actually worksheets to draw the most out of a mentoring relationship, they will help you think through your strategy for thriving during and after graduate school.

Individual Development Plan, Department of Science, Purdue College of Science

• A worksheet designed to help you create your IDP.

Adviser, Teacher, Role Model, Friend: On Being a Mentor to Students in Science and Engineering, National Academy Press (1997)

• I recommend chapters 3 & 4. While quite outdated and geared towards faculty, this resource is a fast read and can help you better understand some of the broader skills you need to develop during a graduate program.

S.G. Brainard and L. Ailes-Sengers, "Mentoring Female Engineering Students: A Model Program at the University of Washington," Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering 1 (1994): 123-135

• Also geared towards faculty, this article, though old, can help to articulate some of the specific needs of women in the program.

Barbara E. Lovitts, Making the Implicit Explicit: Creating Performance Expectations for the Dissertation (Sterling, VA: Stylus), 2007.

• This is a great resource for understanding generalized faculty expectations. Available in the Grad Office Library!

Resources for creating reasonable tasks, timelines, and deadlines

SMART Goals from MindTools

• One of the best models for goal setting

"Time Management for Scholars," presentation offered regularly by the UT Austin University Writing Center

• In this presentation you will learn time management skills that you can apply to your performance improvement

Setting Meaningful, Challenging Goals from MindTools

Locke, Edwin A. and Gary P. Latham, "New Directions in Goal-Setting Theory," Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15/5 (2006). 

• More of a literature review on Goal-Setting Theory. Don't fall down this rabbit hole, but know that there are indeed best practices for setting goals and that it is a skill you must practice

Dweck, Carol S. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Ballantine Books, 2008.

• Available in the Grad Office Library!

Duckworth, Angela. Grit: The Power of Passion and Perserverance. New York: Scribner, 2016.

• Available in PCL, and coming soon to the Grad Office Library. 

Resources for giving and receiving feedback

Zenger, Jack and Joseph Folkman, "Your Employees Want the Negative Feedback You Hate to Give," Harvard Business Review, January 15, 2014

• Crucial conversations can be difficult. This is a frequently-cited article that may alleviate some anxiety about giving a performance review.
• The Feedback Practices and Perceptions Assessment is a free assessment of your feedback style.

Style Under Stress Assessment, Crucial Conversations by VitalSmarts

Receiving and Giving Effective Feedback, Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo

Hardavella, Georgia, Ane Aamli-Gaagnat, Neil Saad, Ilona Rousalova, and Katherina B. Sreter, "How to give and receive feedback effectively," Breath: The Resperatory Professional's Source for Continuing Medical Education 13/4 (2017): 327-333.

• Although this article is geared towards medical professionals, it has a lot of general advice particularly useful for receiving feedback

Singh, Manjet Kaur Mehar, "Graduate Students' Needs and Preferences for Written Feedback on Academic Writing," English Language Teaching 9/12 (2016).

...

Goal

The purpose of the Annual Review is to offer students structured feedback between their candidacy exam and their dissertation defense. This will allow the committee to become more familiar with the student’s work over time and will allow the student to receive constructive feedback while their research is in progress.

Process

Students will meet with their committee in the fall no sooner than 1 year after passing candidacy, usually in the Fall semester. The graduate office will communicate the deadline for submitting the paperwork for the Annual Review process. 

Process Summary

The student will complete the Annual Review Update Form. The Graduate Office encourages students to share a draft of these materials with their advisor prior to completing the form in DocuSign. The advisor will approve the form, and then it will automatically route to the rest of the committee. The committee will review the document, and each committee member will have the option to sign the form (without an individual meeting with the student), to request an individual meeting with the student or to request a meeting of the committee. While it is not required if not requested by the committee members, we encourage students to schedule meetings with their committee members as needed/interested. The fully signed document will then route to the Graduate Program Administrator, who will file the annual review in the student’s file. Students are encouraged to communicate the Annual Review process to their committee. 

Individual Items (Forms)

Annual Review Update Form through DocuSign

The Annual Review Update Form can be accessed here 

A few helpful tips for filling out the form in DocuSign: 

• When filling out information about courses, insert the word "transfer" in the year and semester field if you took a course or its equivalent at a different institution. If you took more than 10 courses, only list the three required courses (Thermo, Transport, Kinetics) and 7 others that are relevant to your research.. 

Action Plan to Improve Performance

If the committee finds that a student’s work has serious deficiencies, the student should design an Action Plan with the help of their advisor. The Action Plan should have concrete and measurable tasks within a manageable timeline and clear deadlines. It should also address all deficiencies recognized by the committee. The graduate office has provided numerous resources for creating Action Plans.

The Action Plan should be concisely presented to the committee in 10-15 minutes. It should contain a clear timeline and metrics for measuring improvement. There are no formatting requirements. While it might be most beneficial to the student to meet with the committee in a group (virtual attendance is acceptable), this may not be possible given the diversity of committee members. For serious deficiencies, group meetings are suggested, but not required.

View additional resources here