The University of Wisconsin graduate education program recently restructured the senior associate dean position and appointed Judith Kornblatt to hold it.
According to a Feb. 2 press release, Kornblatt will leave her current post as associate dean of graduate education in the arts and humanities — which she's held for the past nine years — to take over the new position.
Kornblatt will be responsible for working with issues pertaining to graduate education across all disciplines.
Internally, Kornblatt said she would oversee all the department's units and deal with aspects of recruitment, degree granting and diversity resources.
Kornblatt said the appointment took her by surprise and added the new position comes at a time when professional development and diversity have a real sense of urgency on campus.
"[The university] was having to reorganize a little bit because of some retirements, and we thought it would really be helpful to have a faculty position as an associate," Kornblatt said.
Martin Cadwallader, dean of the graduate school, said Kornblatt's new position will aid in the visibility of graduate education at UW.
"[She will] coordinate our efforts with graduate education. It's really important on the Madison campus," Cadwallader said. "It affects how well we do in research, … and we wanted to put a real visibility on graduate education."
Kornblatt will retain a 25 percent appointment as a faculty member in order to avoid becoming distanced from what's happening on campus.
According to Sharon Dunwoody, associate dean of graduate social studies, Kornblatt will work with the increasing trend of interdisciplinary practices at dual graduate level degrees as well as the issue of tuition remission.
"The campus has recently been wrestling questions of graduate student tuition remission," Dunwoody said. "It's the cost that the campus has to bear, and it's going up. We need to think creatively about tuition remission and maybe a way to reconfigure the whole idea."
Kornblatt said her new position will allow her to be more visible and informative to the campus.
"I think the biggest challenge will be to find the way to articulate the central importance [of graduate education] to our university," Kornblatt said.