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The Harvard Graduate School Alumni Association Council held its fall meeting in Dudley House on November 5-6, considering topics ranging from career building for recent alumni to the impact of Harvard's fiscal challenges on the Graduate School to new directions at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Amid committee work in the areas of careers, graduate student life, global outreach, and fundraising, among other topics, Council members heard a presentation by Cherry A. Murray, Dean of SEAS and John A. and Elizabeth S. Armstrong Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Murray discussed her plan to grow the School's faculty from 80 to 100 in the next ten years, partnerships between SEAS and Harvard's professional schools on research projects to solve global problems that span the disciplines, and the quality of the engineering work that happens at SEAS.
Council members also heard from Virginia Maurer and a team of colleagues from the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, who described a new course the Center is offering (with support from GSAS) on preparing international teaching fellows for the undergraduate classroom. Maurer, an associate director of the Bok Center, said that the course focuses on oral communication, cultural expectations, and pedagogy, helping students -- whose language capacity, disciplines, and goals range quite broadly -- gain comfort and earn credibility and respect in an American classroom. Maurer brought along Rebekah Maggor, director of the program in speaking and learning, who gave an interesting overview of the techniques she uses to help students improve their presentation skills and gain command of their topic and their audience. And two students -- one a graduate student enrolled in the course, and one an undergraduate course assistant who serves as a helpful source of feedback to the graduate enrollees -- also discussed their experiences.
The GSAS Alumni Council next meets on May 25 and 26, 2010, a meeting that encompasses the presentation of the Graduate School's Centennial Awards, which will be given on May 26, the day before Harvard's Commencement.
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