Issue 7, Spring 2024

News & Announcements

• GradScholar: A Doctoral Re-Orientation (4/5/24)
• Science and Storytelling Symposium (4/5 and 4/6/24)
• Income Tax Webinars for International Students (4/5/24)
• To Postdoc or Not to Postdoct (4/10/24)
• Graduate Student Experience Survey (4/12/25)
• The Kentucky Graduate Internship Scholarship (5/15/24)
• Kentucky Young Professionals Summit (4/23/24)
• Graduate Student Congress Regalia Rental Closet (4/26/24)

Reminders

• ETD Submitters Tips
• Course Repeatability
• For Graduating Master (Plan A & Plan B) and Specialist Students: Degree Audit
• Responsible Conduct of Research
• Graduate-Level Fellowships & Funding Opportunities
• Thomas D. Clark Graduate Study 
• Graduate Student Resources 

GradScholar: A Doctoral Re-Orientation

Date: Friday, April 5, 2024

Time: 1:00 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. EST

Location: Room 330AB, Gatton Student Center

GradScholar will assist doctoral candidates in navigating the difficult transition from graduate student to independent scholar. Participants in GradScholar can expect to learn more about and engage in meaningful conversations on:

• Dissertation writing and completion strategies.
• Effectively working with your advisor and doctoral committee.
• Peer advice on where/how to start and keep the momentum going.
• Resources and support for academic and career professional development.
• And more!

Eligibility: GradScholar is for graduate students who have recently entered the candidacy stage of their doctoral degree, or those who are close to completing their qualifying/comprehensive exams. As such, doctoral students must have completed, or will complete, their qualifying/comprehensive exam between May 2023 and May 2024 to participate.

Registration is coming soon! Please mark the date on your calendar, and we will notify you via email and this newsletter when the registration has launched.

Science and Storytelling Symposium

Location: Friday, April 5: Gatton Business and Economics Classroom Building 191 (8:30AM-5:30PM) Saturday, April 6: Remote (8:30AM-1:15PM: Note that a Zoom link will be sent to remote registrants on April 4)

Topic: Using storytelling to make science more accessible to lay audiences.

Join us April 5th (face to face) and April 6th (virtual) for the first Science and Storytelling Symposium!

This symposium explores how storytelling can help scientists address problems such as public distrust and denialism, declining science literacy levels, and low levels of public engagement. Public attitudes towards COVID mandates and policymakers’ sluggish responses to climate research are obvious (and dangerous) examples of science denialism. Misunderstanding basic concepts such as what a hypothesis is or what data reported in the news means also puts people at risk. Science literacy has been linked to enhanced critical thinking skills. Scholars such as Rita Charon argue that the act of listening to or telling a story can help forge deeper connections between speakers and audiences. In educational settings, stories help listeners remember and engage with information.

We believe that sharing experiences with storytelling across disciplines will help participants develop valuable strategies for engaging audiences and combatting misinformation.

Income Tax Webinars for International Students

International Student & Scholar Services (ISSS) at UK is pleased to announce the following webinars for J-1 scholars and F-1/J-1 international students to learn more about filing a tax return for federal, state tax income or other tax filing forms (1040NR, 8843, W-7 etc.). Webinars will be hosted by our provider Sprintax. Sprintax is a tax preparation service used only for F and J visas who cannot use other tax services for U.S. residents. All F and J students and scholars must file a tax form 8843 even if you didn’t work in 2023 but were physically present in 2023.

These tax webinars will provide general information and explain how to file your tax forms using a free tax discount code or embedded link. UK provides tax preparation software to help you file one federal for FREE. International students and scholars are responsible to pay for any additional forms such as state tax forms, ITIN or other tax related forms, if applicable. A discount will apply for J-2/F-2 dependents when filing the Form 8843 together as a family. For these additional services you may also choose to use the services of UK’s Legal Tax Clinic offered through the law school.

University of Kentucky specific processing tax webinars

• Sprintax Nonresident Tax Webinar 4 - University of Kentucky on Apr 5, 2024 4:30 PM EDT at: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/8225009317710758233

Other PUBLIC Webinar Dates

Public webinars offer general information but will not explain how to obtain access using the special discount codes which are made available to you by ISSS. However, they can be useful to understand how to use Sprintax software and complete the forms properly. Students may be unable to ask individual questions as it’s open to anyone.

• Thursday April 4th @ 3pm ET – Register here
• Wednesday April 10th @ 12pm ET – Register here
• Monday April 15th @ 1pm ET – Register here 

To Postdoc or Not to Postdoc

Graduate and Professional Student Experiences Survey

The Kentucky Graduate Internship Scholarship

The Graduate School is piloting a summer internship opportunity for doctoral students who want to explore a career direction that is related to their research but is not within academia, nor in the field that is a typical career outcome for that degree program.

Examples:

• A Political Science student wants to apply their knowledge of a critical issue to work in a government agency focused on that problem.
• A Psychology student wants to see if HR work is the career direction that fits their interests and skills.
• A Communications student is interested in helping an NGO develop campaign strategies.
• A Plant and Soil Sciences student wants to explore work on regional environmental issues.
• 
  

Eligibility: Doctoral students (PhD, EdD, DMA) who have passed their qualifying exams and have completed no less than three years, and no more than six, towards the degree. Applications from advanced MFA students will also be considered.

Application portal now open. Deadline to apply is May 15, 2024. See further details on the Graduate School’s website here. 

Kentucky Young Professionals Summit

Graduate Student Congress Regalia Rental Closet

The Graduate Student Congress is happy to announce that the FREE Graduate Student Congress Regalia Rental Closet for May 24’ Commencement is now accepting rental requests!

Please use the link below to reserve your FREE regalia before April 26^th, 2024. Feel free to reach out to Sarah (snca229@uky.edu ) or Maaz (mffa224@uky.edu) if you have any questions.

https://uky.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_06WzteVHs0d93y6

Reminders

ETD Submitters Tips

We recommend that each day you work on your thesis or dissertation, you save your document under a brief name that ends with the current date. For example, "Ch One 24-Mar-2012", then tomorrow, "Ch One 25-Mar-2012." You will have a chronological archive of your work in case you make an inadvertent change or even lose the file on which you are currently working. It’s well worth the expense of buying removable media such as a flash drive, or saving your work to the cloud. It’s also a good idea to have copies in multiple places. It takes a bit more time, but sensible backup procedures can save you from a lot of heartbreak and many hours of lost time down the road.

Course Repeatability

It is important to be familiar with the repeatability limits of courses.

If a student exceeds the limit, the Registrar’s Office will not assign academic credit to the course. The Graduate School cannot support petitions for exceptions to this policy.



For Graduating Master (Plan A & Plan B) and Specialist Students: Degree Audit

Conducting a degree audit is critically important during the semester you intend to graduate. Checking at the start of the semester gives you a view of the requirements you have satisfied and those that are remaining.

If you discover a course that was wrongly assigned to a requirement, or not credited, you should bring this to the attention of your DGS (Director of Graduate Studies) or your program advisor. The program should contact the student affairs officer for the area/ discipline well in advance of the final examination to resolve. If there are requirements that have not been met, then you and your program will need to decide it there are substitutions that will fulfill that requirement.

Responsible Conduct of Research

Graduate-Level Fellowship & Funding Opportunities

The Graduate School's office of Finance, Funding, and Analytics maintains a webpage of fellowship opportunities available through the university. They also keep a list of some external funding sources.

Additionally, UK Research's Proposal Development Office is a great resource to discover extramural research funding and award opportunities.