Graduate Contacts play a vital role in graduate education and in supporting our graduate students. Contacts are often the first point of contact for graduate students and perform a wide range of essential tasks. Whether you are new to the role or a seasoned professional, we hope the resources in throughout this Canvas site will be helpful to you. The duties of Graduate Contacts are as varied as the departments they serve, so many resources are available, but you might not need them all.
What follows in this section are steps to take to get started. Pro tip: When you first accept your position, try to see if training from the former graduate contact is available, and if it’s possible, take advantage of it!
And remember that the staff of the Graduate College can always help you. Call the front desk at 217-333-0035 or email grad@illinois.edu, with your questions, and the Student Service Team will be able to answer them or direct you to someone who can.
Getting Started
First steps
- Roles and Access Manager: The first thing to do is to let the Graduate College know you are new in your role. Your unit does this by updating their Authorized Signatories in the GC Roles and Access Manager. This also adds you on our email lists to help keep you informed of future announcements.
- Banner Access: Banner is the university’s database, and contains all the student, HR, and financial records information for the university. If you have any roles in student records, human resources, or business/accounting, you will need access to Banner. Access is requested by your Unit Security Contact to the needed Enterprise Applications. Ideally, your Unit Security Contact will be able to set you up with the same access as the previous Graduate Contact.
- FERPA Training: As a Graduate Contact you will be viewing student records, and so you are required to complete Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) training, which is available online.
- Canvas Toolkits and Training Resources: Enroll in our Canvas Toolkits and Training Resources site for faculty and staff. This site is tailored to the needs of graduate program staff and faculty and is available whenever you need it.
Graduate Admissions
If graduate admissions are part of your role, contact the Graduate College Admissions and Enrollment unit (244-4637 or grad@illinois.edu), to enroll in training and get access to the Slate application system. You'll also want to familiarize yourself with the admissions resource and training modules in the Canvas site.
Graduate Petitions
If graduate petitions are part of your role, contact Academic Affairs at the Graduate College at (217) 333-0035 or grad@illinois.edu. These permissions are part of the Graduate Contact role, but you will have to be added to the Petition Portal user group for your department. You'll also want to familiarize yourself with the petition training resources in the Canvas site.
Degree Audits
If you need access to Graduate Student Degree Audits, it is requested by your Unit Security Contact in your disciplinary college. The audit system may be referred to as DARS, DARWIN or uAchieve. "Advisor" access should be requested. That is the only type of access, and it allows viewing of both grad and undergrad audits.
Departmental Degree Certifiers
Departmental Degree Certifiers are responsible for verifying that program degree requirements for graduation have been met by all students graduating from a unit’s programs. A Departmental Degree Certifier is named by the Executive Officer of a unit using the GC Roles & Access Manager. Degree Certifiers will need to sign up for training and access to the Graduation Certification Process (GCP) database with Academic Affairs at the Graduate College, (217) 333-0035 or gradgcpaudit@illinois.edu.
Reports
Eddie and MobiusView allow you to access standard reports about student and catalog/schedule data. Your Unit Security Contact can request access to these systems for you.
Other Good Things to Know About
- AAG
- The Graduate College Administrative Advisory Group (AAG) is a group of departmental administrators whose work focuses primarily on the operational aspects of Graduate College policies and procedures.
- Graduate College Annual Workshop
- Our annual workshop is an opportunity for directors of graduate study, graduate program contacts, and graduate faculty to come together around important topics in graduate education. This year’s workshop focused on holistic admissions.
- Illinois Graduate Professionals Association (iGPA)
- Illinois Graduate Professionals Association (iGPA) is a newly formed group on campus that was created to bring together graduate student professionals. In a previous meeting, we thought it would be helpful to create a listserv so everyone can communicate easily to share ideas, workshops, challenges, etc.
- Calendar of Faculty/Staff Events
- The Graduate College offers workshops and events for faculty and staff throughout the year to share best practices in graduate education among our campus community.