blog posts

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  Ask the Grad College: On Taking Time off from a Busy Schedule

  Jan 15, 2024 9:15 am

  I haven’t seen my parents in two years, and I would like to plan a trip home. I have an RA in a lab with year-round research. How do I approach taking time off for this trip?

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  Where Are They Now? Rick Deja

  May 13, 2020 12:15 pm

  Landing a teaching role outside of the US was always a goal for Rick Deja (PhD, musicology, '16). So when he was offered a job teaching in South Africa, he simply couldn’t pass it up. Deja is currently a lecturer (the equivalent to an assistant professor position) in ethnomusicology at the University of Cape Town (UCT), where he teaches courses on music and culture from Africa and other world regions, advises graduate students’ research and writing, curates a collection of traditional and historical instruments, and leads a student music ensemble performing Pan-African Jazz and Popular music.

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  Where Are They Now? Mariela Fernandez

  Apr 18, 2017 10:45 am

  Where can a graduate degree from the University of Illinois take you? In this monthly series, we catch up with one recent Graduate College alum and ask the question: "Where are they now?".

  Mariela Fernandez graduated from Illinois in 2015 with a PhD in Recreation, Sport and Tourism and a minor from the Latina/Latino Studies Program. Now, she works at Clemson University as an Assistant Professor. Her research examines why lack of access to park and recreation resources occurs in Latino communities, what the health implications of this are, and what strategies can be used to address the problem.

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  What We Learned at the Faculty Job Search Retreat

  Aug 8, 2016 10:15 am

  On an especially hot and muggy day last month, nearly 250 graduate students and postdocs peeled themselves away from the bench, left the library, set aside their dissertations, and trekked over to the Illini Union for the Graduate College’s seventh annual Faculty Job Search Retreat.

  The retreat featured sessions on application documents of all kinds (cover letters! teaching philosophies! research statements!), helping attendees get ready to write excellent materials. But as it is every year, the highlight of the day was a panel of faculty members who offered a window into everyday life and hiring practices at their very different institutions. This year’s guests were: James Matthews, Associate Professor of French at Illinois Wesleyan University; Angela Glaros, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Women’s Studies at Eastern Illinois University; and Jeremy Guest, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois.

  Since not all of you could attend this year, we thought we would share some highlights in the form of 3 tips from our panelists....