Raj Dakshinamurthy has made strides toward growing and expanding graduate studies at University of Texas Permian Basin where he is associate vice president for research and dean of graduate studies.
He was drawn to UTPB by President Sandra Woodley’s “student first” culture.
“With UTPB’s strategic vision, we are all working together to provide opportunities for our students to learn and be successful. Besides the University of Texas Permian Basin offers a modern, affordable education deep in the heart of the most economically important region on the planet. Also, UTPB plays a critical role in generating and supporting the next generation of workforce to support the local economy and beyond,” Dakshinamurthy said.
His job entails managing the day-to-day operations of Graduate Studies and the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs.
“I partner with the president, provost, deans and faculty to promote graduate education, academic research, and innovation and grant writing,” he said.”We are also developing and growing graduate programs designed to meet regional and national needs. As a UTPB authorized research officer, I am responsible for all research related matters.”
Grants of about $3,000 per faculty member are awarded to support and work collaboratively with students to “participate in high-impact practices.”
“This year, we … supported 18 faculty members across campus for approximately $54,000. Half of them are in humanities so we want to make sure we support all that creative activity across campus, irrespective of the discipline,” Dakshinamurthy said.
He noted that the humanities don’t have a lot of external resources.
“So our job is to give them the seed money to get started with it and then they can start collecting data, papers, journals, books, chapters, travel, museums and so on. So ultimately, they can approach federal agencies like National Endowment for the Humanities and National Endowment for the Arts. Some of our faculty members also worked with Odessa Arts. …,” Dakshinamurthy said.
The Office of Research provided matching funds.
In addition to being associate vice president for research and dean of graduate studies, Dakshinamurthy is also a biochemistry professor.
“… At the end of the day, I truly believe in investing in students and providing them the opportunity to participate in high-impact practices across campus, irrespective of the discipline. I worked with at least 100 students in my career as a professor. And my students did 300 presentations. We published papers and so on. I really appreciate what they do, what they gain through that experience by working side by side with the other faculty researchers,” Dakshinamurthy added.
That prompted him to establish these grants for faculty, as well as for student support.
“Prior to my arrival, we didn’t have the internal grant mechanism,” he said.
It was on a first come, first served basis where anyone who needed to travel would request funds.
“But now we have a structured process. Then they need to work with the student, support the student, … pay for the students’ stipend, and provide supply money for getting supplies to do research. Also support them to travel for conferences. It’s a win-win for all of us. For the faculty member, they are getting their research productivity improved. The students are getting the experience,” Dakshinamurthy said.
Out of the total enrollment at UTPB, approximately 23 percent are graduate students. At most schools, he said, it would be 10 to 15 percent.
“At UT Permian Basin, we have close to 1,200 graduate students out of 5,800 total enrollment which is unique. What I have been doing since I arrived is working collaboratively with the deans and the chairs and the program coordinators, bringing more on-ground graduate programs. When we build more on-ground graduate programs, they are going to be in the labs doing research with the faculty member to fulfill their program requirements, including thesis projects … That’s going to provide a tool for faculty members to have more hands in the lab doing stuff. It can be history; it can be English; it can be chemistry, biology or engineering. It doesn’t matter,” Dakshinamurthy said.
To build research and scholarship activity, he said they need to build their graduate programs.
“We are not a research institution, but we are a comprehensive applied research institution. The resource for us is our students,” Dakshinamurthy said.
A goal at UTPB is to double research grants by 2030. The external grant funding increased by 300 percent within the last three years providing students with “excellent experience through scholarships, research experience, support systems, internships and others,” information from UTPB said.
Within the last three years, the total research expenditure doubled, which helped provide world-class applied research opportunities to students and support local businesses and industries, the information said.
Also within the last three years, UTPB doubled its research expenditures per faculty in comparison to its Lone Star peer institutions.
As a student-centric institution, 58 percent of grants go toward student success such as internships and chances for students to do research.
Twenty percent of grants go toward advancing technology and knowledge.
Dakshinamurthy said that is the “real hardcore research” such as what is happening at the biomedical research center, Natural Resources Center and Texas Water Institute.
Twenty-two percent goes toward West Texas public interest, such as the Small Business Development Center, Dakshinamurthy said.
During COVID, some subject areas waived the graduate exam requirement.
“What happened is due to COVID, the UT System gave us a waiver for GRE … During that period, we evaluated the students who got into the program, how successful they are, and the retention and graduation rates of those students. … Based on the retention and graduation rates of those students, we are going case by case, program by program. If in program x, we see an increase in the graduation and retention rate for the students who got admitted without GRE or GMAT, then we are trying to see whether we can waive the GRE/GMAT requirement for not all of them; for students who do have a reasonable GPA, for example, about 3.25 but we also want to make our programs competitive. It’s not just us doing it. A lot of literature has been done and published in high impact journals about the validity of those kinds of exams GRE or GMAT, a lot of schools are getting out of those kinds of exams. … We are looking at lots of peers and examples. Whenever I approach any program about the GRE waiver, I give them an example like this is what Austin is doing. … So we do several studies before we request for any prerequisite waivers looking at our peers; looking at other competitors …” Dakshinamurthy said.
There are a couple of factors with graduate exams. One is cost. Right now it is about $250 or $300 to take the test, which is too expensive for a lot of the students UTPB serves.
“… Some of them are full-time professionals. Our average age of graduate students is around 34. Most of them are working, full-time professionals. They don’t have time to spend a month or two or three to prepare and go and spend four hours in a test booth somewhere in a testing center and take it. … One of the things … we did (is) if someone has professional experience working in a company as a business manager (has)a BBA degree (and) wants to get into an MBA program, we look into their career experience and admit them into the program,” Dakshinamurthy said.
On why UTPB has more graduate students than most universities, Dakshinamurthy said they have developed programs in the last five or six years.
“… UT Permian Basin invested in graduate programs for a long time and we are taking advantage of it. On top of (that), due to all the research and scholarship activity that Dr. Woodley is trying to push through make it happen here, helping us to put together a bunch of other programs. … For example, in the last two years we put together a master’s in cybersecurity, data science, information technology, marketing, applied statistics. … These are the programs which (are) going to diversify the workforce here in West Texas. We are also creating tracks … so our undergraduate students don’t need to spend two more years after four years of undergraduate … They can start taking graduate courses in their senior year and get a master’s degree in one year, so basically, four plus one. We created almost 10 four plus one tracks across campus. So any of these undergraduate students in geology, biology, history, mechanical engineering, psychology, computer science, Spanish, criminal justice, can get into a graduate program in the senior year. That’s why we call it accelerated master’s program,” Dakshinamurthy said.
They also want to focus on workforce development with stackable certificates.
Phumara Cox, director of graduate admissions, said she thinks it would help people advance because it’s so focused on a specific topic.
“… I’ve been working with a student for his cybersecurity certificate. He’s working for … AT&T … at the corporate level … He’s been enjoying it. … It is going to benefit him and also for certificates, you can apply it, depending on how your work looks at it, because it can come toward your professional development or your training. So that can also improve like your raise,” Cox said.
Dakshinamurthy said some companies provide financial incentives for employees to take limited number of courses like one or two. “… There is no rush for the students. The students will be admitted as a graduate non-degree seeking. There is no pressure for them to enroll in a certain number of credit hours every semester. They can take one course at a time and then finish the full three or four courses, which made the certificate requirement. Then if they like it, they can stay on the course and get a master’s degree. … It’s also retooling them. For example, there are a lot of developments in computer science, a lot of changes happening all the time with the software, the hardware and so on. The folks want to learn new techniques and update themselves and this kind of credentials and certificate can help them,” Dakshinamurthy said.
Comparison highlights Academic Year 2020 vs. Academic Year 2021
>> Increase in number of graduate students of 14 percent.
>> First-time graduate student increase of 63 percent.
>> Increase I number of graduate students in on-ground programs, 15 percent.
>> 18.5 percent increase in semester graduate student credit hours.
>> 8.6 percent increase in graduates.
>> Almost 50 percent of overall enrollment growth is through graduate students.
Next generation workforce development
>> New graduate programs/tracks
>> Six new master’s programs/tracks: Masters in cybersecurity; master’s in data science; master’s in information technology; MBA in marketing; master’s in applied statistics.
>> Eight new accelerated master’s programs in geology, biology, biology/chemistry, history, mechanical engineering, psychological sciences, computer science, Spanish, criminal justice.
>> Eight new graduate certificate programs: Energy business, GIS and Geo-Spatial, cybersecurity, data science, applied statistics and data science, engineering project management, early childhood intervention, extended reality for special populations.
They are currently working on multiple graduate programs including stackable graduate certificates. These programs are specifically designed to meet identified workforce needs and provide students with skills and knowledge for their careers, information from UTPB said.
