Keiler honored with 2023 Graduate Program Chair Leadership Award
Kenneth Keiler, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and associate department head for graduate education in Penn State's Eberly College of Science, is the 2023 recipient of the Graduate School Alumni Society Graduate Program Chair Leadership Award.
The award honors faculty members for exemplary leadership that benefits graduate students and faculty in an existing graduate program at the University.
Nominators said Keiler’s transformative leadership within the past five years has strengthened all aspects of the biochemistry, microbiology and molecular biology graduate program. They said he has been a resource for other faculty members and his commitment to increasing diversity in STEM fields is showing immediate results.
Keiler has made an impact by improving shared governance for graduate education. He created a leadership structure that includes a steering committee with 20% student members.
“Keiler’s realized vision promotes better decision-making through diversity and inclusivity,” a nominator said. “The steering committee represents a meaningful innovation to promote stronger leadership for our program.”
Keiler also led an effort to overhaul the graduate curriculum. As head of a steering committee, he helped develop comprehensive learning objectives for all program requirements. Keiler oversaw modification of courses, the addition of new courses, and changes to components of the program. Nominators cited his efforts to better align qualifying and comprehensive exams so that students were more successful in meeting the standards.
Keiler took several measures to improve the diversity of students in the graduate program, nominators said. He spearheaded efforts to strike GREs from admissions criteria. He, along with the steering committee, created more holistic admissions criteria to promote the equitable assessment of applicants. He improved the written portion of the application. Lastly, he implemented a process to waive fees for students with financial needs.
These measures produced immediate results. The applicant pool increased by 47%. Among underrepresented students, that figure increased by 58%, including an 81% increase in offers made to those candidates. The incoming class of underrepresented students increased by 115%, and those students now make up about 20% of the program overall.
“These outcomes reflect truly exceptional vision and implementation by Keiler and position our department to thrive,” a nominator said.
Nominators said Keiler is an exceptional mentor to students and strives to share his expertise with colleagues. He facilitated the faculty involvement in a culturally aware mentoring study, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health. In that study, faculty members received mentoring training in exchange for anonymously tracked outcomes. Faculty also received an anonymized summary of the research findings, allowing them to assess the impact on climate and inclusion for students.
“We have a stronger, more diverse, more inclusive, and more student-centered program because of his efforts, positioning us to lead in life sciences graduate education at Penn State and beyond,” a nominator said.