Policies and Procedures

Announcements and other important information on such matters as departmental events, colloquia, visiting faculty, visiting prospective graduate students, or special opportunities are sent out over the Geography graduate student listserv via OU email. Much information about the department and graduate program, including the proposal and thesis defense forms, appears on the department’s webpage. It is your responsibility to review these sources periodically for information and general communications in order to remain informed.

Dr. Sinha manages the Geog Jobs listserv, which sends out announcements relating to geography internships and job opportunities, both undergraduate and graduate. Contact Dr. Sinha if you would like to join the Geog Jobs listserv.

You are expected to use the email account supplied by the university as your primary email account for all official departmental, college, and university communication. Facebook, Twitter, and other means of electronic communication are not appropriate for departmental or university business. This is particularly important for graduate students with teaching responsibilities.

Teaching assistants (TAs) have priority for the desks in the graduate student office. The chair of the graduate committee determines desk assignment priority and makes all final desk assignments. Typically, most, if not all, graduate students are able to have a desk in the department. It is usually possible for the department to supply a relatively recent desktop computer for your desk, if you request one.

Keys to the building, to the graduate student offices, and to assigned desk in a graduate student office are available from the departmental administrative specialist to allow students access to the department during evenings and weekends. No deposit is required, but the keys must be returned at the time of graduation for the department to finalize the degree process. These keys are your responsibility and are not to be loaned out to anyone. If you lose these keys, you may be charged a replacement fee.

All graduate students have a physical mailbox in the graduate office (Clippinger 100). These boxes are for professional, university, college, and departmental mail, and not for personal business or private communications.

Teaching assistants may use the departmental printer/photocopy machine to copy materials directly related to their teaching responsibilities. Please be conservative in your use of paper, such as by making double -sided copies, as much as possible. You are not permitted to use this machine for a class you are taking or for personal copies.

Graduate students may use the printer in the main copy room for printing/copying related to your TA assignment. Computers in the graduate student offices have networked access to that copier/printer. Each graduate student may copy/print up to 500 black/white pages each semester on that printer free of charge. Any changes in the maximum number of pages will be announced via the graduate student listserv.

Personnel in the departmental office are available to assist graduate students, but the requests should be for official purposes and related to departmental duties.