Graduate-Professional Student Appreciation Week
April 6 - 10, 2026
We're celebrating the UO's graduate and law students with events, activities, and giveaways during Graduate-Professional Student Appreciation Week.
Our Programs of Study
Explore over 150 degree and certificate programs and find the perfect graduate program for you.
Have questions about grad school at the UO? Our admissions team is available to help you find the right path. Email gradadmit@uoregon.edu
Graduate Employment
Graduate Employee (GE) is the term used at the UO for teaching, research, and administrative graduate assistantships.
GEs receive a competitive compensation package that includes a monthly salary, full-time tuition waiver, mandatory fees subsidy, health insurance premium coverage, and subsidized health insurance premium coverage for dependents. All GEs at the UO receive labor union representation.
What can you do with a graduate degree from the UO?
Our alumni take their graduate education in inspiring, community-centered directions. Their stories show what's possible at the UO.
Shannon Oliver, MBA '13, works as the director of operations at the Oregon Food Bank. Read Feeding Oregon: UO Alumni Work to End Hunger.
Kelly Clendenon, MA '25 (multimedia storytelling), directed the documentary "Helpers" with J.J. Kirby. Read How Recovery Inspired an Award-Winning Student Documentary.
Naomi Evans, MNM '23, works as a community relations coordinator for the Minnesota Vikings. Read Becoming a Leader in Career Preparation.
Events
The Craft Center is thrilled to welcome Laura McClain as our Spring 2026 Visiting Artist. Laura McClain is a wet felting artist and educator who works with wool to create functional and expressive décor, accessories, and wearables. At the heart of her practice is a method she calls Felt by Feel—a playful, embodied conversation between maker and material that allows her to stay connected to the wool’s changing textures, while tapping into her own responses as the work evolves. Laura has been creating with fiber arts since childhood and brings a balance of technical knowledge, curiosity, and fun to her teaching. To learn more about Laura McClain, please visit www.lauramcclain.art. Exhibition On View: March 30 - June 12 The Craft Center Gallery is located on the 2nd floor of the Erb Memorial Union by the Adell McMillan Gallery. Artist Talk & Reception: April 24, 12pm-1pm Join us at the Craft Center for an inspiring artist talk with Laura McClain. This event is free and open to the public. Please register at myemu.uoregon.edu. (Community Members without a Community Card must email craftctr@uoregon.edu to be added to our roster.)
Wet Felting Workshop: April 24, 1pm-4pm This hands-on workshop introduces wet felting, guiding you as you transform soft wool fibers into a strong, cohesive piece of felt. Using merino wool, water, soap, heat, and pressure, you’ll layer, embellish, and shape fibers by hand while learning how the material changes at each stage. This workshop is free. Registration is required at myemu.uoregon.edu. You must have a UO ID or Community Card to register. Space is limited.
April 6 through 10 is Graduate-Professional Student Appreciation Week, and we're celebrating the UO's graduate and law students with events, activities, and giveaways. See what's happening below, and check out our Graduate-Professional Student Appreciation Week webpage for more details.
All Week
- Free professional headshots (hosted by the Division of Graduate Studies)
- Prize wheel for COE graduate students (hosted by the College of Education, HEDCO's Student Academic Services Office)
- Free coffee for SOMD students (hosted by the School of Music and Dance)
Monday, April 6
- 9:30 - 11:30 a.m. Free refreshments for all graduate and law students (hosted by the Division of Graduate Studies, Graduate Student Lounge, Susan Campbell Hall 111)
- Noon - 12:45 p.m. Free Pilates-yoga class for graduate students (hosted by PE and Rec, Woodruff Gymnasium, 220 Gerlinger Hall) - Register in advance
Tuesday, April 7
- 8:30 - 10 a.m. Knight Campus and collaborating departments and institutes coffee and treats (hosted by the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Impact, First Floor Forum, Knight Campus Building 2)
- Morning. Coffee and hot chocolate for law students (hosted by the School of Law)
Wednesday, April 8
- Morning. Doughnuts for Ducks for COE graduate students (hosted by the College of Education, HEDCO Courtyard)
- Noon - 12:45 p.m. Free Pilates-yoga class for graduate students (hosted by PE and Rec, Woodruff Gymnasium, 220 Gerlinger Hall) - Register in advance
- Noon - 1:00 p.m. College of Design graduate student showcase and social (hosted by the College of Design, Hayden Gallery)
- 3:30 - 4:30 p.m. Free button-making table for all graduate and law students (hosted by the Craft Center and the Division of Graduate Studies, Graduate Student Lounge, Susan Campbell Hall 111)
Thursday, April 9
- 9 - 11 a.m. Free coffee and pastries for all graduate and law students (hosted by the Knight Library, GradSpace, Knight Library 148)
- 2:30 - 4:30 p.m. Free button-making table, plant giveaway, and refreshments for all graduate and law students (hosted by the Division of Graduate Studies, Graduate Student Lounge, Susan Campbell Hall 111)
- 2:30 - 4:30 p.m. Reception for CAS graduate students (hosted by the College of Arts and Sciences, Tykeson Hall)
Friday, April 10
- UO Summit for Sustainable Organizations. Ten free tickets available for graduate and law students (email summit.so@uoregon.edu to request your free ticket)
- 9:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. Free coffee if you wear your UO Ducks gear (hosted by Duck Store, Flagship Campus Location in Eugene)
- Noon - 2:00 p.m. Free rock painting with the Craft Center (hosted by the Craft Center, Erb Memorial Union, Oregon Plaza by the O Desk)
- 2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. Grad student networking: Like to mingle? Let’s play bingo! (hosted by the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation, Willamette Hall Atrium) - RSVP by April 6
Saturday, April 11
- UO Summit for Sustainable Organizations. Ten free tickets available for graduate and law students (email summit.so@uoregon.edu to request your free ticket)
Utilizing the visual language of color calibration charts and contemporary stock photography, this image collage offers the viewer an amalgamation of references that could at first appear to be celebratory. Mashed together are depictions of beauty regiments, skin tone makeup charts, piles of foods and ethnic spices, sumptuous desserts, tropical vacation landscapes, pastoral farmlands, and community building moments of togetherness. On closer inspection, the frictions and ironies begin to surface, suggesting an anxious shift in contemporary politics masked by upbeat advertising language and colorful veneer.
Long interested in how visual displays can camouflage more complex realities, Syjuco purchased the majority of these images from commercial stock photography sites, juxtaposing them in a way that teases out conflicting meanings. Included is one large image she staged in her studio, as well as multiple color calibration charts that are meant to check for “correct color” — a fraught metaphor for our times.
Stephanie Syjuco works in photography, sculpture, and installation, moving from handmade and craft-inspired mediums to digital editing and archive excavations. Recently, she has focused on how photography and image-based processes are implicated in the construction of exclusionary narratives of history and citizenship. Born in the Philippines in 1974, she is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship Award, a Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Award and a Tiffany Foundation Award. Her work is in numerous collections, including at The Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum, The Getty Museum, SFMOMA, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, among others. She was a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow at the National Museum of American History in Washington DC in 2019–20 and is featured in the acclaimed PBS documentary series Art21: Art in the Twenty-First Century. She is a Professor in Sculpture at the University of California, Berkeley and lives in Oakland, California.