I. Minutes

The minutes of the 8 November 2000 meeting were approved.
 

II. Candidates for Degrees

The candidates for Winter 2001 and Summer 2001 were approved pending completion of all degree requirements.
 

III. Report of the Graduate Faculty Nominating Committee - Patricia Somers

The committee met in March to select nominees to serve on these open positions. Some of the nominees declined to have their name presented for election which led to a few open slots.

The committee recommends the following slate of nominees to serve on the Graduate Council for a period of two years, from August 2001 through May 2003.

John Blake, Math/Physical Sciences
Ronald Dotzel, Math/Physical Sciences
Clinton Greene, Social Sciences
E. Terrence Jones, Social Sciences
Andrew Glassberg, Social Sciences
Tom Eyssell OR Kailash Joshi, Business
Kathleen Sullivan Brown, Education
________________, Humanities - open position

The floor was opened to choose a nominee from Humanities. Yael Even, Art/Art History was nominated. The Faculty moved to approve and accept the nominees.

The committee recommends the following slate of nominees to serve on the Doctoral Faculty Selection Committee for a period of two years, from August 2001 through May 2003.

Steven Spaner, Education
Peter Handel, Math/Physical Sciences
________________, Biology - open position
D'Anne Hancock, Business
_______________, Social Sciences - open position
Sharon Levin, Social Sciences

From the floor, Peter Stevens, Biology and Herm Smith, Sociology were chosen to fill the open positions, pending their acceptance.

The committee recommends two nominees to fill the position for Graduate Faculty Secretary, a one year term from September 2001 - May 2002. The nominees are:

Gwen Turner, Education
Stephen Moehrle, Business

The faculty accepted the report and approved the nominees. A ballot for positions with more than one nominee will be sent. The ballot for the Business nominee for Graduate Council will be sent only to the College of Business. A general ballot for election of a Graduate Faculty Secretary will be sent to the entire Graduate Faculty.
 

IV. Report from the Graduate Council - Matthew Keefer

Six new faculty were approved for membership in the Graduate Faculty.

The Curriculum Committee reviewed and recommended approval of 188 course additions, deletions and revisions.

The Admissions and Scholarship committee reviewed and made recommendations for the first round of Graduate School Fellowships. Two new doctoral applicants in Biology and one in Applied Mathematics were chosen for the $12,000 fellowship. The second round of applications for the Graduate School Fellowships, Dissertation Fellowships and Summer Research Fellowships will be reviewed next week.

The Program Development committee recommended approval of changes to the following existing degree programs: MS in Nursing, Master of Music Education, MFA in Creative Writing, Doctor of Philosophy in Education, Master of Arts in Communication, and the Master of Business Administration.

There was general discussion about requiring and use of GRE scores. It is required for all doctoral programs but it is an option at the master's level. Some felt it maintained quality while others felt it wasn't a good source to know whether the student would excel in their graduate studies. This is an item that the Rules and Regulations committee could visit if there is interest. It was asked if the MAT could substitute for the GRE. Some feel it has a low validity. The Education faculty researched the GRE impact on minority students and felt it is not a good predictor of success or failure in graduate studies.

Council recommended that a faculty member who is on tenure-track be automatically admitted to the Graduate Faculty. This recommendation will be presented to the Graduate Faculty at its meeting in the fall.

The Rules and regulations committee brought forth a proposal from the School of Education. One item is membership on the dissertation committee. Currently, four members are required - 3 internal and 1 outside the unit. A fifth member could be someone from outside the University. The proposal was to keep the membership at four - which would include, 2 internal, 1 outside the unit and 1 'recognized scholar or professional'. Other items for change dealt with the dissertation committee and dean's review of the student's dissertation.

Another item was the final approval of the dissertation by the Graduate Dean. A compromise is being proposed. In the preliminary dissertation, the Graduate Dean may ask for additional reader and write to the committee chair on any concerns. The chair must respond in writing before it is approved. After that, the decision of the committee is final. The Rules and regulations committee was asked to meet again, revise their recommendations and present their report at another Graduate Council meeting scheduled for May.

Faculty comments varied from not having the Dean give comments on the dissertation which would allow the campus to have confidence in the faculty committee to having the dean offer comments to the committee chair in order to ensure quality control.
 

V. Dean's Report

The Winter 2001 enrollment is 2249 compared with the Winter 2000 enrollment of 2175 for an increase of 3%. Arts and Sciences increased by 9%, Business had an increase of 2 students; Education decreased by 4%; Nursing was up by 19.5% and Physiological Optics' enrollment increased by 4 students.

We anticipate that 250 Master's degree students and 19 doctoral students will graduate this January compared to 202 Master's degree students and 9 doctoral students last January.

In the first round of competition, the Admissions and Scholarship committee awarded three Graduate School Fellowships. The committee will meet again to select recipients for the second round of Graduate School Fellowships, Dissertation Year Fellowships and Summer Research Fellowships.

Most of the fellowships have been funded by Mission Enhancement monies. For the past three years, we have received almost $900,000. We were supposed to receive an additional $300,000 in July but we're not sure if the money will be released by the Legislature. If it is released, we're not sure if the Chancellor will use that money for Graduate School Fellowships. The majority of the $900,000 has been spent on tuition remission. Only about $100,000 is available for new initiatives. The Dean is diverting $50,000 from the Graduate School GIF fund to pay for fellowships. This year we will be able to fund 6 Summer Research Fellowships, 6 Graduate School Fellowships and 3 Dissertation Fellowships. If additional money comes in, then there would be money available to fund additional dissertation fellowships.

The dean distributed information on new procedures for processing fellowships. If the fellowship is awarded to a student and is non-service based, then the fellowship must be processed through the student's account in the Cashiers Office. Only assistantships which have a service requirement can be paid through the payroll system. The Graduate Program Directors were very concerned that this new process would cause serious problems because educational fee fellowships might not post promptly and the expected fellowship payment would be reduced. The Dean asked for prompt reports of any problems with this new procedure.

In order to encourage units to seek external funding for graduate students whenever possible, units which obtain external funding for the educational fees of a GRA will receive a 25% credit toward a Graduate School funded educational fee fellowship. I.e., if one GRA receives support and educational fees for four years from external funds, then one year of an educational fee fellowship will be provided by the Graduate School. If a faculty member has an external award providing educational fees for four GRAs, then the Graduate School will provide an educational fee fellowship for an additional GRA. Calculations of external GRA educational fee support will be retroactive to be beginning of this fiscal year.

The Dean distributed a document describing the Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) program, a national project which will prepare faculty for their careers which often will not be in research universities. Last week the Dean met with the new UM-Columbia Graduate Dean, Suzanna Ortega, about the development of a UM System-wide PFF program. UMC will be starting this fall with a cohort of 15 students. This campus might want to identify some departments that are interested in the program. The Dean asked that GPDs discuss this with their faculty and let him know if there is an interest in the project. The Graduate Teaching Scholars seminar might be made available via interactive television, if there is interest at UM-St. Louis. Also the Dean spoke with Peggy Cohen, Director of the Teaching and Learning Center, who is interested in working with GTAs at the Center.

The College of Arts and Sciences is developing a proposal to offer a 2-3 bachelor's/master's program. Students would be dually admitted and start taking graduate courses in their senior year for graduate credit. Graduate School regulations preclude students from using credits for both the undergraduate and the graduate degree. Students would obtain an undergraduate degree simultaneously with receipt of a master's degree. They would complete the full 30 hours required for the graduate degree and receive an undergraduate degree based on 108 hours of credit. It is not yet certain that the University can award an bachelor's degree for 108 credit hours. Another problem is payment. Currently, the UM System only allows payment for a course based on the student's matriculation status; i.e., all courses for which a graduate student enrolls are billed at the graduate rate, even if the student is not receiving graduate credit for a particular course. The combined bachelor's/master's degree idea will work only if fees are assessed based on the level of credit received for the course, undergraduate or graduate, rather than the matriculation status of the student.

There being no other business the meeting adjourned at 4:00 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
 

Mary Ellen Heckel for
Dr. Moehrle