GRADUATE COUNCIL
Minutes of the Meeting
Dean Judith Walker de Felix
convened the meeting at
I. Minutes
The
minutes of the
II. Election of a Secretary/Vice-Chairperson
Dr. Therese Macan was elected to fill the position of secretary/vice-chairperson.
III. Election of Subcommittees
The Dean gave a brief overview of committee assignments for this year.
The Admissions and Scholarship committee will determine how to spend potential fellowship money.
Humanities: Joseph Carroll
Math/Natural Sciences: _____________________
Social Sciences: Therese Macan
Education: _____________________
Fine Arts: _____________________
Business: _____________________
Nursing: Peggy
Ellis, Chair
Optometry: _____________________
The Curriculum and Instruction committee will work with the Senate C & I on graduate level course approvals.
Humanities: _____________________
Math/Natural Sciences: John Blake co-chair (suggestion)
Social Sciences: _____________________
Education: Elisha Chambers, co-chair
Fine Arts: _____________________
Business: _____________________
Nursing: Connie
Koch
Optometry: _____________________
The Program Development committee will
review all new and revised graduate-level degree and certificate programs.
Humanities: _____________________
Math/Natural Sciences: _____________________
Education: _____________________
Fine Arts: _____________________
Business: _____________________
Nursing: Donna Taliaferro
Optometry: Vengu
Lakshminarayanan
The Rules and Regulations committee will review
the student handbook,
the; clinical faculty status on graduate
faculty, the procedure to replace Council members who have resigned and make recommendations
on transcript requirements for degree-seeking students.
Humanities: _____________________
Math/Natural Sciences: Zuleyma Tang-Martinez
Social Sciences: _____________________
Education: Bill Kyle, Chair
Fine Arts: _____________________
Business: _____________________
Nursing: _____________________
Optometry: Carl Bassi
Council members who have not already done so are to select one of the above committees on which to serve and find nominees from their discipline to serve on the remaining slots.
IV. Dean’s Report
Previous discussion
with the Graduate Program Directors and Graduate Admissions staff suggested
changing the Graduate Information session from Spring
to Fall. Council agreed that October
would be a better fit. The Fall session would be a general graduate school information fair. The spring session would be research- oriented and held
on a Monday in early February.
The Dean asked the Admissions and Scholarship to look at ways to promote our programs and our enrollment.
The Dean e-mailed data on student credit hours by curricular designation to the chairs and Graduate Program Directors. Also of note: certain programs are offering professional or on-line Master’s degrees (same degree, different format) to accommodate their student body. Do our expectations meet student needs? We also need to consider if and how these students could feed into the Ph.D. programs. Nonetheless, there are policy implications that need to be addressed if programs are solely offered on-line.
Two Graduate Council positions are vacant and will need to be filled. Mary Beth Mohrman in Business resigned last January. Betty LaFrance, Fine Arts, resigned from the University. Council suggested Dean Felix ask the respective Deans for a replacement.
Much discussion focused on late
applicants for
admits stduents into a
post-baccalaurette designation through the
*If we allowed
admission to a course without a formal application review, pre-requisites would
need to be placed on all graduate courses so that non-degree
students could not get into specific degree program courses.
*Pre-requisites can’t be placed in our current computer
configuration.
*Class rolls don’t reflect non-degree status, just “MA or “PhD”.
*There are also MyGateway issues. If a student is not admitted early enough, he/she wouldn’t have access to needed course materials.
*Why is there an official deadline? Why not make the deadline later?
*Degree program admission vs. non-degree admission are two different issues.
*There is a mismatch between what we are advertising and reality of applying and being formally admitted.
*Quality control should be at the course level.
*Admission as non-degree or sampling courses could affect student retention.
*Admit non-degree for 12 hours only. The student would then have to decide to apply or continue taking courses with the knowledge that those courses would not count toward a degree program.
*How would we handle non-degree students who gather a significant number of hours and then believe they should be awarded a graduate degree?
*The Graduate Program Directors were hesitant to change the current procedure. *Departments should have the right to admit on the spot and not have to wait for PeopleSoft to process the applications.
The Dean asked if the issue should go to the A&S committee or a task force. Council believed discussion should be a joint effort between the Graduate Council and Graduate Program Directors.
Another issue raised was the difficulty of increasing our enrollment if we can not be competitive in supporting our students.
At the next
meeting, the Dean will provide information on how we are spending our
mission enhancement money. We will
also revisit the 9- hour
limit on tuition and talk about how best to spend our limited funds.
Late in the last fiscal year, the Dean was given a small amount of money that had to be spent quickly. She awarded graduate school fellowships to two minority students for $2000 each. For this year, the Dean will seek the advice of the Admissions & Scholarship committee on how to spend these monies.
Action Plan:.
We need to discuss ways to meet the goals of the Action Plan.
The Dean asked the group to talk to their departments and see what other issues Council should review this year. We will have our graduate faculty meeting in the Fall and any changes will need to be ready by them.
Meeting adjourned at
Respectfully submitted,
Therese Macan
Secretary & Vice Chairperson
TM:meh