 And I work in the Rackham Resolution Office. Darlene, would you like to introduce yourself really quickly? Yes. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Darlene Ray Johnson. And my title is Rackham Resolution Officer. I actually wear a couple of different hats within Rackham. One being around conflict resolution and support for graduate students, but also disability accommodations for graduate student employees, as well as our academic integrity process. Fantastic. So we are here on the screen and on this slide for you to just reiterate kind of who we are and our roles. We have a lot of information to share with you just about the context of the office and then we welcome, you know, questions that you may have at any time to be put in the chat or to kind of raise hand and unmute kind of as we go along. Before we really got started, however, we just wanted to get a sense from you about kind of what you're thinking and feeling and what you're bringing with you as you've been thinking about kind of this next year and the next phase of graduate school. So we have a few poll questions that I would like for folks to engage with. I'm going to share them now. So there's three questions. One is as you think about graduate school, what are the areas you're most excited about meeting new people moving to a new place, learning new things and or advancing your research. So take a moment to kind of think about that. Question number two is as you think about graduate school, what are some areas that you're nervous about meeting new people moving to a new place, learning new things and or advancing your research. And then the last one we'd like for you to consider as well as where would you go if you ran into a problem, academic or personal while in graduate school. So we'll take a couple of minutes to do that and kind of talk about and share the results that you have submitted. So so far about 60% of people have responded. Things are kind of spreading out a little bit here in our percentages. I'll do probably one more minute to ensure that everybody has an opportunity here. About 70% of us have participated. Okay, I don't see any kind of new additions all in the poll and then just share the results with you. So question number one, as you're thinking about graduate school, what are you excited about and it seems like this is a great group of learners you're excited to be engaging learning new things probably evidenced by coming to the session and attending today, wanting to just share the survey and kind of gain information. And then thinking about what you might be nervous about a pretty nice spread here but more research focus as well around how might I advance my research. What are some things I, you know, want to be mindful of as I conduct my research, maybe I'm, you know, going into a new field from, you know, undergraduate or a previous graduate degree, some of those things, which I think is, you know, certainly reasonable. And where would you go if you run into a problem, academic or personal, we offer each of these answers so that you know that each of these are definitely opportunities and spaces you could go to get some of your questions answered. So a lot of folks mentioned their advisor which is fantastic department chair or other program staff, you might rely on family and friends for other support, depending on kind of the nature of your worry or your concern, and then campus resources. So again, we really appreciate you being able to share this with us. We offer this as a way to say graduate school is full of lots of things, lots of excitement, potentially lots of challenges. And so knowing just kind of where you can go and who you can turn to is the hope of being able to share with you a little bit more about the resolution. So what do we do the resolution office, we work with students to provide a neutral and safe environment to talk. Really, I tell people that my role is really as a listener in the resolution office to just understand a concern or an issue that you as a student might have. As a personal or related more specifically to your, your graduate work. Listening to the concerns and complaints that you might have as a result of, you know, an issue in the program or with your advisor or just something that has come up in your experience. So we always refer individuals to different campus resources so we always tell people if you're not sure where to go know that you can go to the resolution office to help offer insight and maybe more information about the types of appropriate campus resources that there may be. So much to offer students and so really knowing that there, there can be a place, you know, can offer some security, you know, and confidence for you, you know, related to the issue. We do work to kind of mediate conflicts or address communication issues, progress issues, etc. that may come up as well. And then working to advocate for a fair process to ensure that students are feeling like they are getting kind of the best for themselves in relation to kind of policy and progress. This is kind of our website page, I'll grab our actual link and put it into the chat for folks in just a second but we wanted to let you know that you can of course reach out to Darlin and I individually with our email addresses. And you can also go to the rack and resolution website. You can request a meeting here under the meet with us box. Let us know kind of a time that would work best for you the nature of your concern. And then we will follow back up with you to schedule a time to meet. We really want to direct you to this kind of now for most so that you're aware, if and when something comes up in the future, you would know, you know, where to go to request the meeting and how to reach us. In addition to meeting with students, we also offer some proactive programming and workshops related to conflict resolution and communication. And if you have ideas or thoughts around content that you'd like to be related to that or skills that you're hoping to kind of gain. We welcome your input and have a space on our website as well for you to share a little bit more about maybe what you're hoping to see or what you would like to see that maybe you've experienced in other spaces in the past. So, a number of students that we meet with and we meet with. I can't tell you how many students. They always asked so under what kinds of circumstances should we reach out to you. And so we wanted to share with you here are some options you're not limited to these options. But here's just a couple of examples of reasons why you might contact us. If you have a problem or conflicts that's involving the broader university, and you don't know where to go as Mallory indicated, you can always come to our office and talk with Mallory or myself. And if we don't have the answer we will help you locate the answer or the correct office. If you feel your concerns are not being heard so you've gone to several different individuals you've not gotten a satisfactory resolution. You can come to us and we will help advocate for you and to find a solution that works for you. If you need information about policies and procedures that are affecting you. I was saying just this morning that we have Rackham policy, you have your program policy, you may have your school college policy so there's lots of policies that you have to adhere to. And the expectation is that you know those policies, but certainly, you know, if you do not and you're impacted or affected by one, you know, it's a very good practice to be familiar with with your policies. But if you're not quite sure, like how this policy applies to you, or you believe that the policy as written wasn't applied to you fairly. You can certainly come to us and we can assist with that. We need help to resolve or mediate a dispute with a faculty member or administrative staff. So we typically do not become involved in student to student conflict we have another office on campus that can assist with that. But if you're having difficulty would say your mentor or your faculty advisor research advisor lab manager or something like that so a faculty or staff member. We need assistance in getting that issue resolved. Certainly mediation is one tool that we use to help resolve issues but there are lots in our tool belt. And we certainly talk with you try to understand what the issues are. And how are you to be very actively involved in the decision about how to proceed with with your matter or your case. So, but please reach out to us and we can assist. And if you believe your rights have been violated or have not been followed. So we also wanted to provide just a couple of examples of cases that students have brought to us. It's amazing you know students will say I, you know I never thought about taking this particular issue to an office. And we see just about everything we see the gamut in terms of student both personal and academic issues. So, so I guess I will want to go on the record to say there's not an issue. You're too small that we can help resolve. But for example, you have a relationship issue related to your advisor or your PI. And so let's say you're not getting feedback, you know despite efforts to to receive feedback. Or you're getting too much feedback and you're actually going to mothered by your advisor or mentor. Another issue is certainly just not having clear expectations from from your mentor, in terms of you know how to progress in your program or what's needed in your paper your. So, you know if you run into those kinds of issues please come see us is not that we can sort of dictate to your program around these issues. But sometimes it's about having a conversation, and we can help sort of post you about how to approach that conversation. If you have concerns about academic progress or coursework concerns. Let's say something has come up. You've been hospitalized and so you've had to miss several days or you had to go home unexpectedly to deal with a family emergency. And that's impacting your academic progress. Or there's something going on in your in your class and the instructor not necessarily following what was in the syllabus. If you have concerns about that because it hasn't impacted you negatively, certainly seek us out and we can help provide just a little bit of guidance about how to. In the lab setting, you know, labs, sometimes has three individuals sometimes they're much, much larger and sometimes conflicts are bound to happen and so if you do run into disputes with your your lab mate. And the group dynamic is just not gelling. And there are some issues and you want to figure out a way or you're interested in trying to address that in a proactive way. Come to us come to us early don't wait until the issue gets so large. And it's really hard to manage. We would encourage you to come early if you have concerns and then we can talk about a couple of tactics to help get the relationship in the dynamic back in order. Or if you have safety or protocol concerns. You can certainly reach out to us. We also provide assistance with emergency funding. Many of your programs may have emergency funding, but some of them will actually send students to rack them for emergency funds. There is an application on the rack them website. If you run into an issue graduate students are eligible. Let me back up PhD students are eligible for, I think, up to two emergency fund awards master students are eligible for one. The maximum amount per award is $2,500. We really want you to access these funds if you have some kind of unforeseen unexpected hardship that comes. You know, something something happening you had your rent money but something happened and now you no longer have it and you know you'll go into arrears if you don't pay your rent. So our website will has a list of things that are eligible and things that are ineligible and rent I think would be listed as ineligible, but again we would not want someone to, you know, lose their housing. So, you know, if that's an issue, I think the best thing is if you're not sure, check in with Mallory or I, and we can help you we can also help guide you in terms of applying for these funds in a way that you're more likely be approved. And also streamline the process cut down on the amount of time that's needed to go back and forth to get the appropriate information we can help you with that. And then, if there are mental or physical health concerns, you know, one of the things that our office is is charged with doing is that we can provide an academic notification to your program. So students don't take advantage of this and you don't have to you know you may be in a program where you feel very comfortable letting your program know what's going on. And so then they can make allowances for it so if you have to make up work or take up make up exam, you know you can work that out with your program. But if you're running into difficulty getting that kind of accommodation I would say we've got Mallory or myself. So we talked about some of the resources within Ratham. I've shared about the Ratham Emergency Fund. I would like to take this opportunity to let you know that there is also an emergency fund in the Center for the Education of Women Plus, CW Plus, and it's open to all students, not just women. And they also have an emergency fund. And as I mentioned before, some of your programs might be able to provide some funding. But, you know, if in doubt, please come to Ratham. And then I mentioned earlier I wear a couple of different hats and one of those is accommodations for graduate students with disability. On the employment side, and I do want to make that clear. Students, GSIs, GSSAs, GSIs and GSSAs are covered by the GEO contract. And so you may have heard about that if, or you will, if you haven't yet you will, because that'll probably be probably a funding package. GSRAs are not covered by the GEO contract, but they are generally covered under the same provisions as the GEO contract. One of the provisions of that contract is that graduate student employees has a right to employment accommodations, and they tried to streamline that process. And so my office is the designated central office for graduate student employees seeking a disability accommodation. The accommodation request form is out there on the Ratham website. You just put in graduate students with disabilities in the search box and it should take you to that particular website. In terms of another really important policy for graduate students to know about the leave of absence policy, it applies to PhD students only. There are four types of leave, a personal leave which you can take one time, one semester only, a medical leave, military leave, and a family dependent care leave. The medical leave, so there's a couple of things about the medical leave. One is that if you are eligible for the leave of absence, the medical leave of absence, your health insurance is included. Usually the program pays half and Ratham pays half. If you run into difficulty with your program paying half, again I would say reach out to Mallory and I to assist with that. And the other thing about the medical leave of absence is that you will need medical documentation to substantiate that. You don't need any kind of documentation for a personal leave, but you do for a medical leave. And then the family independent care leave, I don't think there's any documentation, you know supplemental documentation needed for that as well. And then the last policy is called our preliminary parental accommodation policy. And so students, we have pretty good insurance here with grad care and so a number of students come here and then they start their families. This policy applies to students who give birth or who adopt the policy, both the father and the mother are eligible for the parental accommodation period. And I call them leave. So it's like an eight week period where you make modifications in your, your academic requirements to allow you to spend time to bond, you know, with your, your new child. So, and you apply for that a bonus to the parental accommodation policy is for students who take that parental accommodation period. Their time to degree is extended, you know, for a period. So it's not like you lose time, even if you take that eight week break. So all of those policies are available online. You know, if you need to know about it is pretty early because you're just stepping on campus. And again, you may not remember necessarily that these policies exist, but we do want you to know that if you run into difficulty, there's usually some kind of policy that is available that we can help assist you. Thanks, Ellen. So this is just a listing of the workshop offerings I had mentioned earlier to give you a sense of maybe what you could look for. So as you kind of enter and consider what your fall schedule might be, we have offered a navigating difficult conversations, community, community across difference and then some different listening circle conversations, all intended to be able to provide insight skill and just context to, you know, communication styles, complex styles, but also kind of just hearing from you like what's going on what have been your experiences what are some of the needs that you have that are kind of ever evolving as a graduate student. We have offered virtual office hours in the past and will continue to do so into the fall. They previously were on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays and so we would just ask that as you are getting, you know, your students to be weekly and you can contact them, student newsletters, which generally count on Fridays, that you just be mindful of the links at the times that will be shared kind of within within those spaces, or a few questions again you can reach out to Eileen and I, the office intake form, or dropping to office hours if it's a kind of quick question or you just wanted to engage in some problem solving. And that's it. We have a lot of information that we covered kind of fairly quickly there might be a lot of just questions or things that we could help clarify for you. We did a few links into the chat. And so I just welcome any thoughts questions, things that perhaps we're hoping to hear, you know, but didn't as we offered this overview for you of the services within the Resolution Office. I'll just stop my share so that I can see. So we have a question our PhD students kind of GSRAs from the start. It probably depends on your program in terms of what that designation will look like. Some students could start out, you know, that could be their, their first funding opportunity is through a GSRAs or working in the lab. Again, others are the GS, I where you're teaching, and you're doing some level of teaching in the classroom. But I would say, you know, if you, if you're not, if you don't know what your funding packages at this point, please check your program. And so you'll know that other questions. We were just so comprehensive, darling, I think it's certainly a lot to take in and we didn't want to you know, lead you by saying there may be conflicts, you know, here are these resources. But again, I think as proactive as possible as you can be as a student and gathering resources, you know, making contacts getting your questions answered. You know, the better certainly at this initial stage. Yeah, I mean, I've encountered fifth year students who said, Oh my God, I wish I had found you earlier. Right. And, and so we think it's helpful just to let you know that that we're here. Again, as Mallory indicated you may not remember sort of all of the services and resources that we offer but if something comes up. And you know you're not sure where to go or you're not sure how to manage it you can say. And so I think that's all you have to remember, darling and Mallory said to come to them for just about anything. So, that's all you have to remember. I think. Oh great we got a question about just a link to read more about resources and Paul mentioned lots in the grad school, when I won in canvas just I would say generally the rackham site itself rackham.umich.edu has information about additional services you know fields of study finances. So, kind of like, information linked from the broader kind of campus maze and blueprint about returning to campus kind of covert crossions, all of those things so we've tried to condense as much as possible and then have information taking different spaces so that you can know kind of where to go. And also, again, and I'm totally plugging the grad school 101 portal but so I'm that guy, but yes there are resources there and we're always trying to update and add announcements and the like but also, if nothing else to submit a question form we check that daily in grad one if you just have a question don't know where the link is just go to the portal hit submit a question fill in the form and we'll get back to you to direct you to whatever resource or resources you need so that's something new we're kind of trying this year and so we encourage you to use it especially if you don't know where to go. Start by asking a question if you can't find it. Just one more thing I'd like to say about the rackham policies that I shared. The process I think is straightforward, usually you go online you complete, you know, the, the application, but a lot of time students aren't what they aren't clear about is the patient. So for example, if you decided you wanted to take a leave of absence the semester before your qualifying exam. And so students may reach out to Mallory and I just you know to talk about that so what do I need to think about what kinds of questions should I be asking. And so we can help with that piece more around the implications. Again, I think the policies are pretty straightforward, but you know what impact might that have on your standing or status in the program. You know by taking advantage of one or or another of these policies. We have the coven 19 emergency fund. So I can share from kind of the rackham perspective is that we have kind of expanded eligibility criteria under our emergency funding process to kind of considering the impact. Some dynamic circumstances that may have been a part of your experience kind of in in the pandemic. So that would be again for like your access as a student upon kind of courses beginning so next week, if there were then presenting factors related to coven 19 so some students who kind of have been active have previously sought out funds for, you know, travel expenses returning from field research. Kind of other just dynamics with living expenses rents conflict with roommates might not have been as attentive to you know public health guidance etc. So that's kind of within the rackham so I do know that my sense is this additional emergency fund you might be referring to comes from the Office of Financial Aid. And I believe there should be like a tab within your canvas account that has information about that. My sense is a pretty straightforward application and that they're kind of doing those on a rolling basis. Within the next couple of weeks. And so I would direct some more specific questions about that to OFA, or go to the site to just double check that but that is an additional kind of coven specific emergency fund that is has been made available. Anything else other things that either what we've talked about or what other folks have asked questions about have made you curious of war. Thank you Paul, the Michigan acronyms Office of Financial Aid. And some of you mentioned in the poll that you would, you know, seek out your department resources or family and friends. You know, if you needed assistance. And so I just wanted to share with you that, you know, in all of your programs, they may have an equivalent of a student services area to assist students. And they're certainly welcome to utilize those resources. So you may go your entire, you know, three to five years here and never meet Mallory and I, and that was certainly be okay. But our office is also available for students. Sometimes it's a very personal issue and we've had students say, I, you know, I wasn't comfortable sharing this information with anyone in my program. I'm glad that you're available. And as Mallory indicated, you know, our conversations are private. We don't share any information with anyone without getting your permission first. So, so again, you know, it's just another resource, you know, your advisor will know some things, most likely related to your degree. And then there's another position in your program called a grant coordinator who does all the administrative related work within your program. They're an excellent resource. And then, and then we are available as well. I'm just going to also add to the chat information about our kind of counseling center and services so it's called CAPS counseling and psychological services. RACM itself has an embedded counselor who works specifically with graduate students and so while Darlene and I can be helpful in, you know, problem solving consulting, you know, resource referral policy kind of related things. We're certainly not clinicians in the way that, you know, a therapist or another kind of provider maybe and so a lot of students that have come to talk with us about, you know, some logistical things also have found caps to be beneficial for some of them, maybe more personal issues that they are experiencing. And so RACM, as I said, does have an embedded counselor as many other programs and so maybe that your program has a counselor that you would want to have a much more kind of confidential conversation with about concerns. And then like at Darlene, my program staff or even I, so that's something for you to consider there as well. And then we had one additional question about explaining more about leaves for PhD students. I don't know Darlene if you want to pick back up. I'd be happy to. So, you know, as I indicated there are four. There's medical leave of absence. And I think you can take up to four consecutive semesters of leave. And you need medical documentation and health insurance is usually provided along with a medical leave. That you can take one time for any reason, but you only get to take it once. There's family and dependent care and military leave. So those are the four types of leave for our PhD students. If you're a master's student, we have something called the tax study. You can work with your program if you're interested in that and you can go on the tax study for up to 12 months without having to reapply for admission to the program. So thank you for asking that question because it prompted me to to share with you about the master's kind of equivalent but there is not a leave a formal leave for master's students. We'll kind of let you consider let it simmer a little bit more if there are any other questions. I think we've offered many links things for you to kind of pull from the chat point to and certainly revisit with the 101 kind of information within the tab. So Paul, is there anything on your end that you would like to emphasize or connect with the group about. Very just to fill out today's evaluation. Keep going to the grad school 101 portal if you're not in the portal or maybe you didn't get our initial email about it or whatever just I'll be around afterwards let me know we'll make sure that you're in it. And thank you, I'm going to turn off the recording here in a second and then we can stick around if you want to ask one on one questions either by opening up your camera mic or just keep going in the chat will be around. Thank you. Everyone for coming. Thanks for a lot of you for coming to these rack on rack on 101. Sorry grad school 101 workshops. Over the last couple weeks we're going to continue to do them into the fall our next one. Well next week we have our information fair so we get if you haven't heard or seen the information about that in the many emails we've sent out. Next Thursday the 26 from 11 to 1pm it's more of a drop in drop in and then converse with over 70 different organizations on our campus see what involvement looks like see what some of these different offices on campus can do for you so if you have a specific question. You know you can hang with them for a few minutes and ask them questions and of course we have a virtual fall welcome. Next Friday, and then in terms of a program workshop, September 1 for those that are interested in taxes and how to fire taxes as a graduate student, specifically more catered towards domestic students. September 1 is our tax workshop you can sign up for that in the grad school 101 portal. You also be getting direct email invite to that as well. It's a virtual workshop but I think it is one that's very beneficial for graduate students as they're starting their career here at Michigan and even for some that have been here for a couple years people always pick up some new information and for those that are going to be filing quarterly. The first deadline is September 15 still September 1 really gives you a couple weeks to sort of get in there and and see what you need to do. Thank you Mallory thank you Darlene and thanks everyone coming from grad school 101. We will stick around in the room and recordings of this will be probably made available in the next week or two, you will get a message when recordings are up in the portal. So enjoy your afternoon everyone. Thank you.