Message posted on behalf of Kent Holsinger, Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Dean of The Graduate School:
The Graduate Student and Postdoctoral Affairs team of The Graduate School has gone through a complete staffing transformation over the past year. We would like to introduce our team to you and invite you to collaborate with us as we support our scholars.
Cinnamon Adams was the first team member named last November when she agreed to become our Director of Graduate Student and Postdoctoral Support. Cinnamon comes to us with many years of experience helping students through conflict and various processes. With a background in Residential Life, Community Standards, and prior work in The Graduate School, she is well prepared to serve our various communities. Cinnamon administers the complaint and appeal processes of The Graduate School, explores and implements strategies to support wellness, and serves as a resource for students, faculty, and staff in supporting our students and postdocs.
Karen Bresciano joined us in January of this year as Assistant Dean and lead for the Graduate Student and Postdoctoral Affairs team. Karen brings with her over 20 years of experience in student and academic affairs, most recently in UConn’s Dean of Students Office. She is active in the University Senate. She has served as Chair of the Student Welfare Committee, and is now a member of the Senate Executive Committee. In addition to supervising this team, she works closely with a variety of University offices to ensure that The Graduate School policies and procedures are both sensitive to student needs and compliant with federal/state laws and University regulations.
Megan Petsa is our new Graduate Student and Postdoctoral Affairs Coordinator. We benefit from Megan having most recently served as the Program Assistant in Department of Statistics where she worked extensively with graduate Students and associated processes. She assists students and departments with issues and irregularities surrounding graduate assistantships and enrollment, including leaves of absence and separations. She has also taken on a leadership role in providing accurate and timely resources to departments.
The most recent and final addition to our full-time staff is Stuart Duncan, Director of Fellowships, Outreach, and Programming. You may have interacted with Stuart previously at UConn when he served as The Director for New Faculty and Teaching Assistant Development at the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning as well as an adjunct faculty member in the Music Department. Stuart has experience in teaching, mentorship, and program development. In his new role, Stuart will be providing leadership for The Graduate School’s recruitment efforts, the selection and support of our internal fellows, and developing a programming framework for graduate students and postdoc scholars.
We also are joined by two new graduate assistants, Shalyn Hopley and Shawn Priore. Both are coming to us with valuable work experience in their fields. Shay will be primarily supporting our programming efforts. Shawn will be providing technical expertise to our communications with special attention to our website development.
Our team looks forward to working with each of you as we advance graduate education at the University of Connecticut.
Kent E. Holsinger
Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor
Vice Provost for Graduate Education
and Dean of The Graduate School
University of Connecticut
www.grad.uconn.edu
For more information, contact: The Graduate School at 860-486-3617