Susan Ettner to Step Down as Dean of Graduate Education

Dear Colleagues:

I am writing to share that Dean of Graduate Education Susan Ettner has decided to step down from her role, effective Dec. 31, 2024. The Office of the EVCP will be in touch in the coming weeks about the search for the next dean.

As dean since July 2021, interim dean for 11 months before that and associate dean from 2017 to 2020, Dean Ettner has provided strong leadership of the Division of Graduate Education during a critical period that included the COVID-19 pandemic, academic employee strikes and changes to graduate education at UCLA associated with the resulting collective bargaining agreements.

Dean Ettner has improved support for student academic and professional success by creating a new Graduate & Postdoctoral Success unit, including several initiatives for faculty mentoring of graduate students and underrepresented student retention as well as expanded academic case management. She has successfully developed and implemented new Graduate Council-approved policies, most notably one that allows graduate students who need to enroll part-time to pay reduced tuition and fees. This year, she is implementing a new award for faculty mentoring of graduate students, departmental bonuses to encourage degree completion within normative time-to-degree and a transitional funding pilot program to support doctoral students whose funding is at risk due to a change in advisors.

With a focus on advancing equity, diversity and inclusion in graduate education, Dean Ettner implemented UCLA’s first-ever Graduate Admitted Student Days to improve yield of admitted graduate students from underrepresented groups. She also expanded the Competitive Edge bridge program for first-generation and underrepresented students to allow all disciplines to participate, increased application fee waiver options for economically disadvantaged students, and provided training resources and financial support for departments developing holistic admission rubrics.

Dean Ettner has enhanced transparency, equity and efficiency in the delivery of the division’s services by developing and implementing its first strategic plan, digitizing forms, beginning a complete overhaul of the division’s website, and creating a new customer service system that documents campus queries and supports institutional memory in a graduate education knowledge base. Additionally, she has enhanced data and information support for campus by creating resources such as customized data reports and a graduate student support budget tool to inform departmental decision-making around doctoral admissions. Currently she is finalizing a needs assessment with recommendations for improving postdoctoral scholar support at UCLA.

A UCLA faculty member since 1999, Dean Ettner will be returning to her positions as distinguished professor of general internal medicine and health services research in the David Geffen School of Medicine and distinguished professor of health policy and management in the Fielding School of Public Health.

Interim Chancellor Hunt and I are grateful for Dean Ettner’s years of service, and we will miss her steadfast, thoughtful and action-oriented leadership in the division. Please join us in thanking Dean Ettner for her many contributions to graduate education at UCLA.

Sincerely,

Michael S. Levine
Interim Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost