Letter from the Dean
Published August 01, 2026
August in Laramie is a magical time. The days are still long, but the nights get cooler. The leaves of a handful of cottonwood trees start to turn yellow, foreshadowing the changes ahead. The hollyhocks grow to impossibly tall heights. This is the moment to gorge on tomatoes, peaches, and roasted chili peppers from the Laramie Farmer’s Market every Friday evening at the railroad depot parking lot.
The Laramie footbridge with people walking across it stands against a vibrant sunset of orange, purple, and blue, framed by trees and traditional street lamps.
Welcome to those of you who are new to graduate school! The School of Graduate Education is here to provide guidance, support, and professional development opportunities as you progress through your program. For those of you who are returning, I hope you found a balance between getting some tasks accomplished and enjoying recreational activities (this is the constant struggle of academic life!). In the SGE, we have been busy preparing for fall.
Come to the annual Graduate Education Resource Fair on Wednesday, August 26th from 11:00-1:00. We have invited offices from across campus to set up tables to distribute information and answer your questions. Given the construction on Ivinson, we have moved this year to the Geology museum. Stop by for lunch and swag with Rexy, the T-Rex!
We want all our graduate students to find a home and community here at UW. Grad school can be a lonely time, so we will provide opportunities for you to get to know other grad students outside your program. At the end of spring semester, we hosted a Finals Fuel event where we had doughnuts, relaxing activities, and conversation in the basement of the Union, behind Pokes Pub. We are going to do this as a monthly event on the second Tuesday of each month. And if carbs and coffee aren’t enough of an incentive, we will also invite a different office on campus to join us each month to answer your questions. So, stop by on Tuesday, September 8, when representatives from International Students and Scholars will be there to answer your questions. Please see the column by Maria Almendares in this newsletter for more information about important changes to the Duration of Status rules.
We will also be bringing back our Graduate Student Mentoring program, but with a twist. We want to continue to assist our new graduate students by providing a resource outside their department for support and guidance. This year though, we are hoping that those of you who have been mentees in the past will be interested in trying on the mentoring role. Look for announcements coming out in September.
Connect with the Graduate Student Mentoring Program for additional support and opportunities to build meaningful connections with fellow graduate students and faculty.
Other events coming this fall include our second annual 3 Minute Thesis competition in the Union West Ballroom on Tuesday, September 22. Come cheer on your college winners from last spring and learn about the great work being done by graduate students on campus, in presentations designed for lay audiences and limited to 3 minutes and one slide. I promise it will be an entertaining evening!
Look for other events and opportunities coming from the School of Graduate Education this fall. We are planning information sessions to meet the needs of graduate students on AI, demystifying the publication process, and sleep. We also want to provide professional development guidance if you are looking for non-academic jobs, like how to turn your CV into a resume and how to repackage the skills you have learned for industry employers.
For those of you entering your final semester at UW, I want to let you know about a major change to our thesis and dissertation submission process. In compliance with recent changes in federal law, all theses and dissertations will need to meet disability accessibility standards. This will require some additional steps prior to your graduation. In order to ensure that the Registrar’s office has time for this additional check, they will be moving the deadline for initial submission of your documents up by one week. We will be rolling out tools to assist you in meeting these accessibility requirements, but if you want to get a head start to ensure that all your documents can be read by a wide audience, check out the free PAC PDF Accessibility Checker
Finally, we bid farewell this summer to Debbie Swierczek as she retired after 28 years of service at the University of Wyoming. For the last 7 years, she has served as the Program Director for the Interdisciplinary PhD Programs (Program in Ecology & Evolution, Molecular Biology, Neuroscience, Hydrology, Molecular and Cellular Life Sciences). Debbie helped advise students in meeting program requirements, completing milestone paperwork, and solving administrative problems. I know many of you worked closely with Debbie and we are sad to see her go. Kaitlyn Whitlock, who you may have met as our Office Associate, has moved into the role of Program Coordinator. We are currently hiring for the Office Associate job, so please have patience if we are not as prompt in responding to emails and phone calls for a few weeks!
The University of Wyoming has earned its Research Level 1 (R1) status from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, placing Wyoming's only four-year university with the top research universities in the United States.