Graduate Coordinator

Dr. Nichole Hugo serves as the MBA Graduate Coordinator and began teaching at EIU in 2014. She received her PhD in Community Resources and Development at Arizona State University, where she researched international culture and economic development impacting the tourism industry.

Dr. Hugo's teaching and research interests focus on societal challenges, economic and business structures, marketing, and behavior change. Her research projects have included collaboration with California Polytechnic, San Luis Obispo to create solar cookers to be used in communities that rely on open fire cooking. The project focused on working with people within those communities to understand how to create their own solar cookers, instead of trying manufacture and ship them across the world. Dr. Hugo focuses on the cultural differences of these communities in order to understand their concerns with marketing, management and policies for businesses to sustain positive impacts within their regions.

For information about admission to the MBA program, contact Dr. Hugo at nhugo@eiu.edu.

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE GRADUATE COORDINATOR

The roles and responsibilities of the graduate coordinator support the mission of the university, the mission of graduate education, and reflect the standards for leadership of graduate education as defined by the Council of Graduate Schools (Siegel, Sowell, Sullivan, Tate, and Denecke, 2004). The Council states that the graduate coordinator is responsible for the administration of the graduate program(s) in the department or, in the case of interdisciplinary programs, across departments.

The coordinator also serves as a liaison to the Graduate School. The coordinator has responsibility for a variety of activities, such as recruitment of prospective students; academic advising of graduate students; admissions decisions; degree audit evaluations and submission of required materials for degree certification; the allocation of fellowships and assistantships; and the appointment of faculty members to graduate student committees.

The graduate coordinator communicates university-wide policies on graduate programs to the departmental faculty and communicates department decisions and recommendations to the Graduate School. The purpose of this Handbook is to provide Graduate Coordinators with an outline of best practices for organizing and administering their graduate programs, and to provide a guide to coordinators for advancing the quality of their program through well-focused planning and consultation.