The meeting was called to order at 1:30 p.m. by Dean Douglas Wartzok. Members in attendance were: Ta-Pei Cheng, Louis Gerteis, Roberta Lee, Piers Rawling, Theresa Sears, Christopher Spilling, Joachim Stoeckler, Anne Winkler. Members absent were: Richard Cook, Vengu Lakshminarayanan, Fran Hoffmann, Matthew Keefer, Donald Kummer (leave of absence), Margaret Sherraden, Bruce Wilking.

I. Minutes

The minutes of the 17 March 2000 meeting were approved.
 

II. Committee Reports

Admissions and Scholarship - Theresa Sears

The committee met yesterday to review applications for the Summer Research Fellowships, Dissertation Year-Long Fellowships and Graduate School Fellowships. Most applicants were funded. A couple of the applications were incomplete and the departments have been asked to resubmit them. It is anticipated that several more assistantships will be funded with money obtained from declined offers. The committee plans to meet in mid-May to review any unfunded applications.

Departments have been notified of the Graduate School Fellowship recipients. The Graduate School will send out notifications to the Summer Research Fellowship and Dissertation Fellowship recipients on Monday.

Because the SRF applicants did not reach the number of available slots, that money was used to fund an additional full-year dissertation fellowship.

The committee make some suggestions for next year's committee:

Money for student travel is very important. Not all departments have funds nor any grant funds to support student travel to conferences. The committee suggests having either a separate pool of money or use part of the fellowship money to award travel money to students.

The 5-page format should be used by the department for ranking purposes but there should also be a 1-page format in non-specialist language which would explain the project and its significance.

The Graduate School should consider having available a sample of successful proposals for review by students and departments who have not been successful in the past.

The application should no longer request a three-line listing of publications/presentations . Instead, it should be requested that a listing of presentations/publications be attached to the one-page abstract.

When asked about future funding, the Dean said next year's funding might be less because we will have to fund the current and past two years of fellowships. In another year, we will receive additional mission enhancement money. The Dean also mentioned that next week he will be meeting with a representative of the UM system to continue discussions about graduate student insurance.

Council accepted the committee's report.
 

Curriculum and Instruction - Ta-Pei Cheng

The committee reviewed two Engineering course additions and recommends their approval:

JEE 305 Product Engineering (add)
JEE 363 Digital Integrated Circuit Design and Architecture (add)

Council accepted the committee's report.
 

Program Development Committee - Louis Gerteis

The committee recommends approval of the changes in the following degree programs:

M.Ed. Secondary Education with an emphasis in Adult Education
M.Ed. Emphasis in Elementary Counseling
M.Ed. Emphasis in Secondary Counseling

Council accepted the committee's report.
 

III. Nomination to the Graduate Faculty

Melva Ware, Division of Teaching and Learning, was approved for membership to the Graduate Faculty.

IV. Dean's Report

The Dean distributed the internal and external reviewers' reports on the site-visit of the Graduate School and Office of Research Administration. The office is pleased with the report. Suggestions by the committee for the Graduate School recommend that a graduate data base be established and maintained; Graduate Admissions should be more proactive in its recruiting efforts and provide more resources to departments for recruiting; in making this possible, the application fee should go to the Graduate School and be used for recruiting activities by the departments.

Suggestions for the Office of Research Administration by the committee are: significantly reduce the subsidization of the animal research facility; significantly reduce the internal grant program and instead use the money for more strategic investments with higher potential for enhancing external funding; and reserve some money for areas where external funding is not available.

There being no other business the meeting adjourned at 2:10.

Respectfully submitted,

Piers Rawling
Vice-Chairperson and Secretary

PR:meh