Title: "Professional Skills and Strategies"

Gallery of Pictures (Photographs courtesy of Wanda Duncan, Administrative Coordinator, Liberal Studies Program)

The Tenth Annual Graduate Forum, hosted by the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, was held on Friday, January 26. This year's forum was attended by over 100 graduate students, from program areas as diverse as Biomedical Engineering, Cancer Biology, Communication, Chemistry, Liberal Studies, Psychology, and English. The Forum provided an opportunity for graduate students from both the Reynolda Campus and the Bowman Gray Campus to meet in small groups with facilitators on a wide variety of topics. Subjects included successful negotiation, acquiring a postdoctoral position, money management, entrepreneurship, and working in fields such as biotechnology, government, industry, and private and public education. Facilitators were recruited from diverse fields such as county, state, and federal government, biotechnology, higher education, and business. Students were given the opportunity to meet and eat lunch at roundtable discussions with two facilitators during the course of the Forum.

Dr. Cecilia Solano, Interim Dean of the Graduate School, commented on the success of the Forum.  “Representatives from the Graduate Student Association did a fine job of recruiting the facilitators, and the attendance this year is one of the largest we have had.  Both campuses were well-represented.  We hope that the students found this experience helpful in their personal and professional development.”

In past years, the Graduate Forum has offered speakers on themes such as mentoring, the researcher's dilemma, and balancing professional and personal lives.

Topics and Facilitators:

Acquiring a Post-Doctoral Fellowship —
   Elizabeth Kneller
   Post Doctoral Fellow
   Department of Biochemistry
   Wake Forest University

Current Public Health Issues —
    Ayotunde Ademoyero
    Director of Health Surveillance
    Forsyth County

    Brant Goode
    NC Pandemic Influenza Grant Program Coordinator
    NC Division of Public Health

Entrepreneurship —
   Betsy Gatewood
   Director
   University Office Entrepreneurship
   Wake Forest University

Financial Advising —
    Jack Banaszak
    Independent Financial Advisor
    Edward Jones

    Tyler Newkirk
    Investments Banker
    BB&T

Getting a Job in Private Education —
    Clint Davidson
    Director of Human Resources
    Duke University

Getting an MBA —
    Suresh Gopalan
    Assistant Dean for Graduate Business Programs
    Winston-Salem State University

Issues in Public Education —
   Dr. Paul Puryear
   Assistant Superintendent
   High School Administration
   Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools

Negotiation Skills —
    Bill Davis
    Executive Professor
    Babcock School of Management
    Wake Forest University

Publishing —
   Laura Laxton, Editor
   Karen Jordan, Editor
   Northstar Travel Media

Research Opportunities in the Biotech & Pharmaceutical Fields —
   John Richert
   Vice President for Business & Technology Development
   NC BiotechnologyCenter

Teaching at the college level —
    John Adeyeye
    Chair & Professor
    Mathematics Department      
    Winston-SalemStateUniversity

Time Management: Getting Everything Done —
   Michael Shuman
   Assistant Director
   LearningCenter
   Wake Forest University

Working in Government —
    Julian Preston, Ph.D.
    Acting Associate Director for Health
    US Environmental Protection Agency

Working in Industry —
   Craig Miller
    Principle Scientist
   Targacept