During the first year of graduate studies, students are mainly focused on taking classes, preparing for the written qualifying exam and adjusting to graduate student life at Rutgers.
During the second year students are focused on identifying potential research areas and advisors, and preparing for the oral qualifying exam.
The graduate program mentoring committee consists of faculty members who are each assigned a group of entering students. The assignment of mentors to students is not necessarily based on research interests. Rather the mentor is available to the student to discuss concerns that arise during the first years, and to help the student make contacts with potential research advisors. The graduate program director also serves a general advising role for all students.
The assignment of mentors to students should not bound students to limit their interaction with other faculty members in any way; we courage students to establish their own informal mentoring relationships with additional faculty. You may find useful information in the handbook How to get the mentoring you want, published by the graduate school of the University of Michigan.
Both the graduate director and graduate ombudsperson are available to hear and address concerns, complaints and appeals arising from faculty-student or student-student interactions. Note that faculty including the ombudsperson have legal obligations to report instances of harassment, assault or misconduct; see http://compliance.rutgers.edu/Title-ix/ and https://uec.rutgers.edu/. Confidential resources, that is, people in the university who are not obligated to share any personally identifying information about a report of sexual violence (such as the survivor or accused’s name) with law enforcement, the Title IX Coordinator, or any other University administrator, are listed here: http://compliance.rutgers.edu/resources/studentresources/confidential-resources/
In the case of grade appeals for graduate courses, a student must submit a written complaint about a final course grade to the math department's graduate ombudsperson no later than four weeks after the end of the exam period for that term. The graduate ombudsperson will appoint a committee of graduate faculty members to evaluate the merits of the complaint. The decision reached by the committee is considered the decision of the department.
For the current mentoring committee and graduate ombudsperson, see the department committee membership page.
