On July 1, Peter Weber began his role as the new dean of the Graduate School. After teaching in the Department of Chemistry for over 20 years, Weber said he is excited to take on new tasks.
"It's great to be in this position," he said.
Though he has not yet defined his major projects, Weber said he plans to address his students' needs immediately and continue to improve their experience. One of his goals is to further facilitate the assignment of graduate teaching assistants to the courses they are going to teach because "they don't know until quite late," he said.
He would also like to finish the process of making the Grad School application materials entirely computer-based to make the process much more efficient.
Housing is another subject he aims to tackle. Weber said he will create discussion forums with the help of the Graduate Student Council, through which he hopes to learn whether students are satisfied or not.
"My objective is to listen," he said. "If there is a problem, I would like to know about it."
Since this is only his third month on the job, Weber said there are still a lot of "dimensions of these issues" he needs to figure out before he works on a solution.
The Grad School, he said, fosters the University's "research mission" and complements its college education. Whether it is by serving as teaching assistants or by working closely with undergraduates, graduate students are "a very important part of Brown."
"It's a good partnership," he said. "They really help each other."
"I went to graduate school, and I loved it," Weber said. "So I want to make graduate education the most thrilling experience a student would have in his or her lifetime."
