In April, Dr. Rowena Winkler, assistant director, graduate student career development in the Career Center, and collaborator Rex Jarrett, director of professional programs in the Division of Professional Studies received the first-ever Janet C. Rutledge Graduate Student Well-Being Award! Their winning proposal, "The Dos & Don’ts of Networking," champions a human-centered approach to professional development. By replacing high-pressure tactics with low-stakes, community-based storytelling, the initiative aims to reduce "networking anxiety" for graduate students. The award funding will allow the team to scale these community-centered experiences to reach more students across UMBC.
In June, Dr. Winkler will be heading to Sacramento, CA, to present at the Graduate Career Consortium (GCC) Annual Conference. The session, "Roots of Engagement: A Multi-Method Study on Meeting the Career Needs of Graduate Students," addresses the "Engagement Gap" — the discrepancy between student service awareness (85%) and active engagement (54%). Utilizing three years of longitudinal Handshake data and in-depth interviews with international, master’s, and doctoral students, this research offers a replicable methodology for universities to transform complex data into high-impact, student-centric interventions.
Photo caption (from left to right): Dr. Christa Porter, dean of the Graduate School; Rex Jarrett, standing next to his daughter Skylar and behind his sons Aamir and Nasir; Dr. Rowena Winkler, standing behind her daughter Kerrigan; Janet C. Rutledge, former dean of the Graduate School; and Dr. Robin Cresiski, associate vice provost of the Graduate School.