Graduate Faculty Meeting
Dr.
I. Minutes
The
minutes of the
II. Graduate Faculty Nominating Committee
The Nominating
Committee is charged with finding faculty to serve
on next year’s
| A & S Humanities | |
| A & S Math/Physical Sciences | Zuleyma Tang-Martinez |
| A & S Social Sciences | Theresa Guess (elected) |
| Joyce Mushaben | |
| College of Business | Marius Janson |
| College of Education | Joe Polman |
| College of Fine Arts | Alan Heisel |
| College of Nursing | Jean Bachman |
| College of Optometry | Ed Bennett |
David Curry moved to close the nominations, Fred Willman seconded and the nominations were closed. Since there were two nominees for the Social Sciences position, paper ballots were tallied and Theresa Guess was declared the winner.
III. Report from the
This fall the Graduate Council reviewed and approved a) 23 proposed course additions and revisions, b) the elimination of the advanced GRE for entrance to the Doctorate in Applied Mathematics, and c) addition of a professional option track to the existing MA in Criminology and Criminal Justice. These proposals have been forwarded to the Senate C & I committee.
Over the summer,
the
Some of the possible changes that the Council discussed include the following
Add grade of IP (in progress). Some Council members routinely give letter grades as the student takes dissertation hours; others thought that delayed grades had to be awarded until the dissertation was finished. Council suggested that the Rules and Regulations committee review this issue. Council also suggested that Dr. Felix verify that an IP or delayed grade would not cause problems for international students or students receiving financial aid.
Transcript Requirements. International students often have difficulty receiving transcripts from all universities they’ve attended and even from receiving more than one official transcript from the B.A. granting institution. A member suggested amending the current Rule to require, “all data even if on a cumulative transcript.” The Admissions and Scholarship Committee will review the impact of such a change.
ESL requirement. A department chair asked Council to review the necessity of the ESL requirement. A State statute requires testing of international teaching assistants’ English proficiency but not students or RAs. The Admissions and Scholarship committee will suggest possible amendments to the current Rules.
Dissertation rules.
Residency and continuous enrollment. Many urban
universities have flexible residency requirements. One way that they ensure
scholarly activity among non-traditional graduate students is to require
continuous enrollment. In a related area, Graduate Certificate students must
follow all Graduate School Rules. Should they be exempt from residency
requirements? The Program Committee has been charged
with considering whether we should make any changes in the current policies.
Faculty workload for graduate study. With the
development of a new faculty workload policy, the issue of workload credit for
dissertation and thesis direction emerged. Many campuses award additional
workload for such activities, normally upon the students’ graduation. Faculty
could “bank” credit until they have accumulated sufficient dissertation
graduates to constitute a course equivalent. Some units have such policies. The
Curriculum and Instruction Committee was charged with
proposing whether the campus needed a policy.
Dr. Polman asked about continuous
enrollment. He noted that it was hard
for students to get the 9 hours in one semester. Are we concerned with continuity as opposed
to volume? Dr. Felix said that Graduate
Assistants are not able to carry a full load and therefore we need to create an
academic experience for them in some other way.
IV. Chancellor George
Dr. Felix asked
Chancellor George to speak to the Faculty about the Strategic Plan for the
campus and how the Graduate Faculty could contribute to the action plan. With the agenda was a handout (attached) entitled
“Possible roles in strategic planning activities for
* Academic strengthening & development
* Research mission
* Enrollment management
* Civic engagement & economic development
* Resource development & allocation
Dr. George said
he didn’t want to speak to the group but rather hear
their thinking on matters. He asked for
input and suggested e-mail as a way of communication after today’s
meeting. He noted that of the five
elements listed above, probably research and economic development would be most
pertinent to
Dr. Glassberg asked if the Carnegie classification has clear matrices that could be broadly distributed across campus. Chancellor George said the campus is listed as “Intensive”. One set of goals for the “Extensive” classification is 15 Ph.D. offerings and 50 doctoral degrees awarded in one year. We are close to these goals although there is some discrepancy in how many Ph.D.s we offer e.g. some are cooperative. The System views the number of Ph.D.s differently than we do at the campus level. Our campus’ goal is to be a major research urban university.
Dr. Mushaben asked about internationalization. Elsewhere students are required to spend one semester abroad or have knowledge of a foreign language. Chancellor George wants the undergraduate international experience increased and said this should be looked at seriously at all levels.
Dr. Speck asked what the implication is for library resources as it relates to the Carnegie classification. Chancellor George noted that, for some reason, there is a correlation between grant funding and the number of library holdings. When asked if Carnegie would expect us to increase our research resources before allowing us to change our matrix, Dr. George did not think so.
Dr. McClusky asked about the planning process. Is there an overall design for the strategic planning process? Dr. George said he is open to suggestions. We still have the five-year review and program viability as part of our process.
Chancellor George stated that UM has established a performance leadership design to determine how administrators will be evaluated. In the first phase, it will evaluate the President the Chancellors. After that, the evaluation would include the Vice Chancellors and perhaps, finally, the Deans. The Chancellor must provide UM System with up to 8 goals for which he will be held accountable. One of the goals he mentioned was to increase the low number (3%) of alumni constituents who give to the University.
Chancellor George will no longer chair the Budget and Planning Committee. Instead, a faculty member will be elected as chair. He also wants to open up the budget more so that the campus community knows where the money is and where it is spent. He intends to create something on the web for open dialogue.
Dr. Felix thanked the Chancellor for his time.
V. Other business
Dr. Felix mentioned that there will be several proposals to vote on at the Spring Graduate Faculty meeting. She asked the group to e-mail her with any upcoming conferences or events in the Spring that might involve a large group of faculty. From there, we can find the best date to hold the Spring meeting. We will try to schedule the meeting date and let faculty know early so that they can mark their calendars.
The meeting adjourned at
Respectfully submitted,
Paul Speck
Secretary to the Graduate Faculty
for
Act
as a consultative body in plans and decisions that involve graduate education
in the five themes in the Action Plan.
1. Participate in
activities to strengthen and develop graduate programs, research, and economic
development/civic engagement.
·
Explore ventures to move toward Carnegie's Research
Extensive category.
·
Increase internationalization of graduate education.
·
Possible means to achieve these goals.
·
Build interdisciplinary graduate programs on current strengths, for
example,
o
Enhancing the environment
o
Life sciences management.
·
Cooperate with local or other UM campuses.
2. Support Action
Plan themes of resources and enrollment management
·
Conduct a needs assessment of current graduate programs,
provide feedback, and prioritize proposals for reallocated funds.
o Support current
strong programs.
o Create a process
through which the Council could recommend funding for current along with
proposed programs.
· North Central
and specialized accreditation have moved to quality models.
· Continuous
quality improvement could provide accountability in the Strategic Plan.