GRADUATE COUNCIL
Minutes of the Meeting
The meeting was called to order
by Dean Judith Walker de Felix at
I. Old Business
Discussion of Workload Policy
The dean distributed a draft resolution on workload policy for discussion purposes. The draft includes information on another university’s practices and previous discussions by Council. Discussion points were:
· Delete mention of banking hours as it could have negative implications for department teaching loads. Qualify it to be no more than one course reduction per semester OR you must teach at least one course per semester regardless of the hours banked.
· Consider this a resolution; send to Senate to be included in their discussions.
· A graduate course should be equivalent to 1 ½ undergraduate courses.
· Could faculty could teach 3 undergraduate courses or 2 graduate courses and achieve the required 9 hours? Some may want to teach only graduate level courses.
· Concerns by Humanities faculty (class size) would be different than those in the Sciences (amount of labs taught). Larger classes or teaching labs would cripple the faculty member from having time to spend on research.
· Main goal: protect faculty research time.
· Differences between teaching undergraduate and graduate courses should be considered so that differentiated credit would be awarded.
· Make it clear that accountability should be at a college (or department) level, not at the individual level.
The resolution to send a workload policy for discussion purposes to the Senate with the points mentioned above was moved by Dr. Silva and approved by Dr. Peck. Council voted to approve the resolution. The dean will revise the resolution with the above points, e-mail it to Council for their comments, and send a final resolution to the Senate.
II. Minutes
Dr. Carol Peck
moved to accept the minutes of the
III. Committee Reports
Curriculum and Instruction Committee – Wes Harris
The committee report at last month’s meeting omitted a few courses that were sent for review. The committee recommends their approval and Council concurred. The courses are:
Art/Art Hist 4490 Senior Seminar in Photography I (new)
Art/Art Hist 4491 Senior Seminar in Photography II (new)
Bus Admin 4321 Production and Operations Management (change)
Finance 6580 International Financial Management (change)
Finance 6581 Seminar in International Investments (new)
Program Development Committee
Dr Felix
contacted Dr. Joyce Mushaben about Council’s concerns with the proposed
revisions to the Graduate Certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies. Dr.
Mushaben believes that proper advising by her or her staff would alleviate any
concerns by Council. One item (page 10)
under “Graduate Certificate Requirements” is incorrect and needs to be changed
to conform to
“….At least 9
hours of course work must be completed at the 4000 5000 level; no more
than 6 hours of course work may be completed as Independent Study.”
Council disagreed with advising students properly in place of having a sound structure in place. For example, the current listing of courses in Clusters 1, 2, 4, and 6 don’t include enough 5000-level courses in order to obtain the certificate. The structure of existing courses does not support the intent of the certificate and Council sees the document as premature.
Graduate Council voted to return the document to Dr. Mushaben outlining the specific problems with the proposal.
Dr. Felix distributed a few changes to the proposed policies document which was sent to the Graduate Faculty. They are suggested revisions which she received via e-mail.
Page 13, Section 3.7
Remove the section on GRE/GMAT/TOEFL scores.
Change last sentence to: “Teaching assistantships will not be awarded to students with weak oral English language skills.”
Page 22, Section 5.2
Change word in line 4 from “inaction” to “inactive”
Page 25, Section 5.6.3.
Line 5 to read
“petition in advance if they request to take courses at another “
Remove “if they request” as it is redundant.
Council agreed with the minor editorial changes to the original document sent to Faculty. The dean will send out the revisions to the Graduate Faculty before the April 8 meeting.
IV. Nominations to Graduate Faculty
Last month Council placed the graduate faculty nominations of Dawn Garzon and Wilma Calvert on hold until additional information on their post-doctoral appointments could be reviewed. The explanation from the College did not clear up Council’s concerns, one of which is how can a “full-time faculty member” concurrently be a post-doc at another institution? The nominations will be held until next session in hopes of a clarification.
V. Other business
The dean thanked Council for their hard work this past year.
Some items of interest:
· The Board of Curators approved a 7.5% increase in tuition. The same dollar amount of $17.70 will be increased at the in-state and out-of-state rates.
· The EDT project is moving along. The IT department plans to write its own program. The entire dissertation will be loaded instead of chapter by chapter.
·
The next meeting of the Graduate Program
Directors will be at
There being no other business,
the meeting adjourned at
Respectfully submitted,
Mary Ellen Heckel for
Therese Macan
ADDENDUM:
The Curriculum committee and Graduate Council were emailed last-minute course proposal for review. The outcome of those e-mails is as follows:
Committee recommends approval and Council concurred:
5400 Proseminar in Philosohy (add)
4475 Topics in American Art
4481 Topics in Contemporary Art
4402 Topics in Tribal Arts
4408 Topics in the Arts of
4411 Topics in Ancient Art and Archaeology
4405 Topics in the Arts of
4455 Topics in Modern Art
The following course was submitted to the committee but will be held over until next academic year as answers to concerns were pending:
Econ 5055 Economics Issues for the School Curriculum