Watch Teams for communication about SPA. There is the channel within the GAADs team as well as the SPA Team for this academic year.
Consider forming a peer learning group for the programs in your college undertaking SPA this year. This provides a chance for those programs to share best practices and learn from each other. This also provides you with a way to assess their progress throughout the year. At the least, consider holding a college kickoff meeting which helps set a tone that this is an important activity that you care about.
Consider the timing of your internal deadline. Please set it early enough that programs will have a chance to revise their self-study in response to any feedback you may give them before their final submission.
Please review the Self-Study Questions document. It may be helpful to your programs for the college to create a document that lists some college level activities/initiatives that your programs might reference in their self-studies. This college level document should NOT be an aggregation of program level activities/initiatives. Specific items you may want to address include but are not limited to:
- College level recruiting and admission activities/initiatives (see Question 3)
- College level retention activities/initiatives (see Question 4)
- College level career preparation, professional development, and placement activities/initiatives (see Question 5)
- College level activities/initiatives to support the quality and effectiveness of instruction of graduate students (see Question 16)
- College level activities/initiatives to support the advising and mentoring of graduate students (see Question 17)
- College level activities/initiatives to assess and address the health and wellness of graduate students and/or create community and a sense of belonging (see Question 18)
- College level offerings that address any other priority areas identified by the Program in their optional self-reflection questions

Instructions to Colleges

2025-2026