Fonds 12 - Office of Research and Graduate Studies

The Office of the Dean of Graduate Studies is responsible for promoting, developing and maintaining graduate studies at the university.

Managing the Graduate Studies department involved liaison with graduate studies at other universities through the AUCC and participation in annual meetings of the Deans of Graduate Studies. The Dean was also responsibie for the academic oversight of graduate theological education at ACTS. In addition to starting new programs, the Dean was responsible for hiring faculty, budgets, and administration, The Dean reported to the Academic Vice President and chaired the Graduate Directors Council for coordinating the administration of graduate studies departments, the Graduate Academic Council for approving all academic courses, and the Graduate Studies Council for coordinating and approving graduate programs in ACTS and the School of Graduate Studies.

Source: email from Dr. Don Page, April 18, 2008

Those who have served in this position include:
Ken Davis, Dean of Graduate Affairs (1990-1995)
Don Page, Dean of Graduate Affairs / Graduate Studies (1995-2003)
Dennis Jameson, Acting Dean of Graduate Studies (2003-2005)
William Acton, Interim or Acting Dean, School of Graduate Studies (2005-2012)
(Diane Beaton, Assistant to the Dean, served as Graduate Studies Office Manager from December 2012 to August 2013, reporting directly to the Provost)
Eve Stringham, Vice Provost of Research & Graduate Studies (2013- )

In 2001, Don Page became Executive Director of the Laurentian Leadership Centre.

The Founding of the Department:
While TWU was designed primarily for undergraduate and later seminary education, at the request of Dr. Ken Davis and the Board of Governors, a task force was established in 1988 to lay out a plan for developing selected graduate programs in the future. It was decided that these new graduate programs were not to be a graduate addition to existing undergraduate disciplinary departments, but were to be designed as unique advancements of the university's mission. Furthermore, to ensure that they did not take away funds raised for undergraduate programs, each program would have to be self-funded and sustained on its own revenues. No progress along these lines was made in the early 1990s until the university was shocked into starting graduate programs when the AUCC began debating a motion to divide all members into three tiers. The third tier was to contain universities and colleges. The president, academic vice-president, and Dr. Davis, who served as Graduate Dean but functioned primarily in ACTS, determined that TWU should not be relegated to the third tier and decided to launch a graduate program as a means of enabling TWU to be recognized among the tier two small and medium sized universities in Canada. (Tier one was reserved for the large research-oriented universities.) It was decided to begin with Counselling Psychology, which was one of four areas recommended by the 1988 task force, because that was the area where it was believed that the university had the most faculty and library resources to move quickly through to completion and accreditation.
Source: email from Dr. Don Page, April 18, 2008

Following an extensive search, Provost W. Robert Wood is pleased to announce that Biology Professor and Canada Research Chair Eve Stringham, Ph.D., has been selected to fill the position of Vice Provost, Research, and Graduate Studies, effective August 16, 2013. Stringham joined the Faculty of Natural and Applied Sciences at Trinity Western University in 1997. She was the first faculty member at the University to be awarded a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Discovery Grant (1999), and has occupied a Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Developmental Genetics and Disease since 2007 ... As Vice Provost, Research and Graduate Studies, Stringham will provide leadership in the advancement of faculty research and the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Trinity Western University.
Source: https://www.twu.ca/news/2013/022-new-vice-provost.html

On September 6, 2016, Provost Bob Wood announced that Dr Stringham had been appointed to a second term which would run through to August 15, 2021.