The Unwritten Rules of Graduate School Exposing the Hidden Curriculum of Succeeding in Grad School Online Join us on October 19th from 6-7pm for a unique workshop to help you gain skills to navigate graduate school and finish your program in a timely matter. Getting your degree might entail earning good grades and long hours doing research, but with the right mindset and tools it can take much less time. Dr. Wendy Carter-Veale has helped hundreds of students at UMBC to successfully complete their degrees while serving as an academic advisor, mentor, and dissertation coach at the Graduate School at UMBC. Her services include helping students navigate sticky situations, leverage productivity techniques, and overcome barriers to promptly complete their degree. This event is open to all graduate students in any year of study, but will particularly help students who are new graduate students, first-generation graduate students, international students unfamiliar with academic culture in the United States, and those students who have found themselves struggling to navigate interpersonal challenges with their advisor or within their departments. The information shared is based on research on retention efforts for underserved and underrepresented communities in graduate school. Dr. Carter-Veale has over 15 years of experience in graduate education. She has presented her dissertation writing workshops and boot camps for MIT, Duke University, Howard University, University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell University, and the Dissertation Institute to name some.  She is the CEO of PhDCompletion.com, co-founder of the PROMISE Dissertation House, the on campus dissertation coach at UMBC, and has authored 4 books about PhD completion (Mastering the PhD Completion Process, Ph.D. Completion: If You Can Write a Master's Thesis You Can Write a Dissertation, PhD Completion: Practical Steps to Selecting a Dissertation Topic and PhD Completion: Methods Journal). To learn more about Dr. Wendy Carter-Veale please visit her webpage.  All graduate students are invited to attend this event.   If you need any accommodations or have questions, please contact Yarazeth Medina at yarazeth@umbc.edu. Accommodations can be made if requested a week before the event.

Submission Deadline Extended to this Friday, 9/22!

The UMBC Review is a peer-reviewed publication, completely directed by UMBC undergraduate students. All of the articles published in the UMBC Review go through a rigorous peer review process. The Review is indebted to the anonymous off-campus faculty reviewers who volunteer their time to assure the high quality of our publication. We are proud to produce the publication in print format.

Submissions for the 25th edition are being accepted through 9/22. We invite researchers of all disciplines to submit their work to our journal. The Review offers a rewarding opportunity to get your undergraduate research published in a peer-reviewed academic journal, improve your writing, and add to your resume!

Publish your research from a summer REU, capstone, honors thesis, or other independent work. All majors welcome! Boost your resume or grad school application by becoming a PUBLISHED AUTHOR!

Free copies of the current issue are available for pick up at the Office of Undergraduate Research (AOK Library, 216 D).

https://ur.umbc.edu/umbc-review/

Contact the editors at umbcreview@umbc.edu

Elevate Your Public Speaking Game! Learn valuable tips, techniques, and insights to captivate your audience and leave a lasting impression.  

Many fields within graduate school require a research presentation, but only some students feel comfortable presenting. Thankfully, you can apply some tips to build your presentation skills and be more confident in your public speaking!

Read here!

·         NIH Final Updated Policy Guidance for Subaward/Consortium Written Agreements

·         Notice Number: NOT-OD-23-182

·         Previous Notice Number: NOT-OD-23-133

·         https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-23-182.html

Purpose

·        In response to audits conducted by the HHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), NIH published a Notice in the Federal Register (88 FR 36603) on June 5, 2023, outlining its plans to update the NIH Grants Policy Statement, section 15.2, to require that foreign subrecipients provide copies of all lab notebooks, all data, and all documentation that supports the research outcomes as described in the progress report, to the primary recipient no less than once every six months. NIH has received extensive feedback and is issuing this Notice to respond and to issue a final revised Notice.

This notice updates the NIH Grants Policy Statement (NIHGPS), Section 15.2, which outlines the requirements for consortium/subaward agreements on NIH-funded grants. These updates will be incorporated into the GPS in the FY24 publication. This updated guidance is effective October 1, 2023. A Federal Register Notice announcing the updates will be posted in the coming weeks.

Updated Policy Guidance

Effective January 1, 2024, section 15.2 will be updated to include the following clarifications (changes are bold and italicized):

15.2 ADMINISTRATIVE AND OTHER REQUIREMENTS

The following highlights several areas within the consortium relationship that the recipient needs to address with consortium organizations receiving subawards under a grant to ensure compliance with NIH requirements. The requirement for a written agreement addressing these and other areas is specified in this section.  NIH will not support any agreement that does not meet the minimum requirements outlined in the written agreement section below (15.2.1). NIH reserves the right to request copies of the written agreement and relevant supporting documentation as needed, as part of its oversight responsibilities. Failure to provide requested documentation may lead to remedies for noncompliance and potential enforcement actions (see 8.5, Specific award conditions and remedies for noncompliance).

NIH expects recipients to ask potential subrecipients, at the application stage, to submit language in their letters of support indicating their awareness of these requirements and the subrecipient’s willingness to abide by all requirements should an award be issued.

Note that most of these requirements only apply to a recipient’s consortium relationships with sub-recipients. When the relationship is with a vendor that is providing routine goods and services within normal business operations that are ancillary to the operation of the research program, the public policy requirements listed below do not apply. The vendor must also be providing similar goods and services to many different purchasers and provide them in a competitive environment.

15.2.1 Written Agreement

The recipient must enter into a formal written agreement, signed, and agreed to by both parties, with each consortium participant/subrecipient that addresses the negotiated arrangements for meeting the scientific, administrative, financial, and reporting requirements of the grant, including those necessary to ensure compliance with all applicable Federal regulations and policies and facilitate an efficient collaborative venture. If a subrecipient is unwilling to accept the requirements outlined in this section, by signing a written agreement, then an agreement cannot be issued. At a minimum, this agreement must include the following:

Note: All current requirements remain in place, with the addition of:

·        For foreign subrecipients, a provision requiring the foreign subrecipient to provide access to copies of all lab notebooks, all data, and all documentation that supports the research outcomes as described in the progress report, to the primary recipient with a frequency of no less than once per year, in alignment with the timing requirements for Research Performance Progress Report submission. Such access may be entirely electronic.

Please refer to the full Notice for further details as this is only an excerpt of the new requirement. 

Should you have any questions, please contact OSP.