Resources and Forms

Lab Safety

Stress Management Resources

Feeling Homesick? Find some support resources on the topic of Homesickness on the KU Counseling & Psychological Resource (CAPS) page

 

Having a hard time figuring out the crazy culture around here? Find Culture Shock Resources on KU's CAPS webpage

Found on CAPS Website

Mindfulness Meditation

One way to reduce your stress can be through meditation exercise. Meditation means many things; it means turning inward; it means quiet observation, reflection and awareness of ourselves.

One of the ways to meditate is to practice just watching your breathing.  Since we breathe every moment, it is easy to concentrate on our breathing.  When you breathe, try to breathe from your diaphragm (the muscle that separates the lung cavity from the abdominal cavity).  Now, take a long deep breath and slowly exhale.

The Goal of Mindfulness

The goal of mindfulness is for you to be more aware, more in touch with life and with whatever is happening in your body and mind at the time it is happening - that is, in the present moment. If you are experiencing a distressing thought or feeling or actual physical pain in any moment, you attempt to see it clearly as it is and accept it because it is already in this moment. Acceptance, of course, does not mean passivity or resignation. On the contrary, by fully accepting what each moment offers, you open yourself to experiencing life much more completely and make it more likely that you will be able to respond effectively to any situation that presents itself.

Mindfulness Space

We now have a permanent, cozy, location that will be open to anybody during regular building hours. It's an old grad student office up on the 4th floor of Learned Hall. The room number is 4165G (on the west side of Learned next to the elevator).

Feel free to use this room as a Room of Requirement. It can be a place to relax between classes, for group or personal meditations (should fit 4-6 people fairly comfortably), personal mindfulness, etc. Need a place to pray before a test, pray for Friday Prayer, cry after a test, just clear you head in a quiet place for a few minutes- this is the place to do it!

The room will generally be first come, first serve, but if you or a small group would like to reserve the space, send a request to Martha Kehr at mkehr@ku.edu or search for the room via Outlook and submit a request directly. There will be a printed calendar on the door as a guide, but feel free to write yourself or your group in as well. Please be respectful of others and limit personal room usage of the room to about half an hour and group reservations to an hour. 

Outside the door will be various signs to indicate what is going on in the room (see below). Pillows, yoga mats, and a few chairs will be kept in the room for your use. There is also an older laptop in the room that you can log on to and play quiet music. The bookshelf has items such as paper towels, hand sanitizer, handouts, and other potentially useful things.

We hope you find this space helpful to your relaxation! If you ever have suggestions, please send them to mkehr@ku.edu.

Research has shown that there are undeniable benefits to being mindful and practicing active relaxation. Too many of us go through our days with tense bodies and minds, and that can cause long-term negative side effects. By taking the time to practice mindfulness or some sort of meditative practice, we can begin to heal those imbalances. According to this TedxYouth presentation (YouTube), mindfulness is one of the most important factors in predicting success in life.

Here are some research articles that goes into more detail:

Benefits of Mindfulness for Students

Solhaug, Ida, Thor E. Eriksen, Michael de Vibem Hanne Haavind, Oddgeir Friborg, Tore Sørlie, Jan H. Rosenvinge. “Medical and Psychology Student’s Experiences in Learning Mindfulness: Benefits, Paradoxes, and Pitfalls. Mindfulness; Vol 7, Issue 4, 2016. 

Abstract

Mindfulness has attracted increased interest in the field of health professionals’ education due to its proposed double benefit of providing self-help strategies to counter stress and burnout symptoms and cultivating attitudes central to the role of professional helpers. The current study explored the experiential aspects of learning mindfulness. Specifically, we explored how first-year medical and psychology students experienced and conceptualized mindfulness upon completion of a 7-week mindfulness-based stress reduction program. Twenty-two students participated in either two focus group interviews or ten in-depth interviews, and we performed an interpretive phenomenological analysis of the interview transcripts. All students reported increased attention and awareness of psychological and bodily phenomena. The majority also reported a shift in their attitudes towards their experiences in terms of decreased reactivity, increased curiosity, affect tolerance, patience and self-acceptance, and improved relational qualities. The experience of mindfulness was mediated by subjective intention and the interpretation of mindfulness training. The attentional elements of mindfulness were easier to grasp than the attitudinal ones, in particular with respect to the complex and inherently paradoxical elements of non-striving and radical acceptance. Some participants considered mindfulness as a means to more efficient instrumental task-oriented coping, whilst others reported increased sensitivity and tolerance towards their own state of mind. A broader range of program benefits appeared dependent upon embracing the paradoxes and integrating attitudinal elements in practising mindfulness. Ways in which culture and context may influence the experiences in learning mindfulness are discussed along with practical, conceptual, and research implications.

Benefits of Mindfulness at Work

Hülsheger, U. R., Alberts, H. J. E. M., Feinholdt, A., & Lang, J. W. B. (2013). Benefits of mindfulness at work: The role of mindfulness in emotion regulation, emotional exhaustion, and job satisfaction. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98(2), 310-325. 

Abstract

Mindfulness describes a state of consciousness in which individuals attend to ongoing events and experiences in a receptive and non-judgmental way. The present research investigated the idea that mindfulness reduces emotional exhaustion and improves job satisfaction. The authors further suggest that these associations are mediated by the emotion regulation strategy of surface acting. Study 1 was a 5-day diary study with 219 employees and revealed that mindfulness negatively related to emotional exhaustion and positively related to job satisfaction at both the within- and the between-person levels. Both relationships were mediated by surface acting at both levels of analysis. Study 2 was an experimental field study, in which participants (N = 64) were randomly assigned to a self-training mindfulness intervention group or a control group. Results revealed that participants in the mindfulness intervention group experienced significantly less emotional exhaustion and more job satisfaction than participants in the control group. The causal effect of mindfulness self-training on emotional exhaustion was mediated by surface acting. Implications for using mindfulness and mindfulness training interventions in organizational research and practice are discussed in conclusion.

Having a dispute with somebody, and you don't know where to go first? The University Omsbuds Office is a great place to start.

The Office of Institutional Opportunity and Access (IOA) offers assistance with discrimination, harassment, and other such reporting services.

Software & Technology Resources

The University of Kansas has an amazing central IT office which provides students, faculty, and staff with access to hunderds of software programs at free or reduced rates. Learn more on the KU Software Resource Summary Page

For example,

How to access MATLAB for free as a KU Student

How to access ChemOffice Ultra

How to purchase SigmaPlot (not free - cost will vary)

Technology Resource Hot-To Guides

KU students, staff, and fculty also enjoy many helpful online software resources such as saving to a cloud via MyCommunity/OneDrive

Faculty, Staff, and GTA/GRAs also have access to host web-based meetings through Zoom: Direct KU Zoom Access

If you cannot find the program you need through these resources, we suggest asking your instructor or advisor for additional information. 

Annual Departmental Awards

Departmental Awards

Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant: This award is made to a graduate student who has demonstrated outstanding performance as a graduate teaching assistant. 

Frank Bowdish Outstanding PhD Award: An Endowment Fund was set up for the Frank Bowdish Award in 1999.  Frank Bowdish briefly taught at KU after WWII, and resigned to work on and earn a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering. He worked in the area of mining technology and later taught at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. 

Outstanding Master of Science Research: This award is made to the graduate student who is judged by the faculty to have demonstrated superior performance as a Master of Science candidate during the past year. 

Maloney Award for Writing: This prize is meant to encourage and recognize writing excellence by master and doctoral students in the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering.  The measure of excellence is to be demonstrated and judged on the basis of an independently prepared abstract that each student shall prepare for his or her thesis or dissertation. 

University Awards

Available awards vary from year to year. Learn more on the Graduate Studies Webpage.

Forms & Links

Graduation

When you are done with your coursework requirements, it will be time to review the graduation requirements. You will need to give the department program coordinator 3 weeks notice before your final defense, so planning well in advance is key to a worry-free graduation.

What you will find on the various graduation pages:
Graduate Studies - graduation deadline calendars, thesis/dissertation formatting guides, writing resources, doctoral hooding ceremony information
School of Engineering - graduation checklists and School graduation requirements
Commencement - information about university commencement events
Graduate Studies Graduate Studies
School of Engineering School of Engineering
University Commencement University Commencement