MINUTES OF THE SEPTEMBER MEETING



MINUTES OF THE SEPTEMBER 2016

MEETING OF THE GRADUATE COUNCIL

The Graduate Council held its regularly scheduled meeting on Wednesday, September 7, 2016 in Plaster Student Union, Room 313. Council Chair Ching-Wen Chang called the meeting to order at 3:34.

Members Present: Drs. Bakker, Buchanan, Buyurgan, Chang, Dillon, Dollar, Duitsman, Goodwin, Gouzie, Haggard, Hickey, Hignite (for Moses), Kaula, Kemp, Kim, Llewellyn, Maddox, J. Masterson, Nelson, Penkalski, Prescott, Schick, Stanojevic, Tomasi, Williams, Williamson, Wilson, Worman and Zimmerman; Ms. Cardin, Ms. Miller, Ms. Griffith-Phelps (for G. Masterson)

Members Absent: Drs. Calihman, Carr, Ghosh, Goerndt, Harsha and Salinas; Ms. Cleveland

Guests: Drs. Iqbal, Rozell and Vollmar

Approval of Minutes

A motion was made by Dr. Buchanan and seconded by Dr. Worman to approve the minutes from the May, 2016 meeting. The minutes were unanimously approved.

Committee Reports

Report of the Council Chair – Ching-Wen Chang

Dr. Chang welcomed everyone to the first Graduate Council meeting. Introductions were made by each member and guest. Dr. Chang announced that this year the Graduate Council would focus on business as outlined in the Bylaws which would include all committee reports and voting on graduate faculty membership and all curricular items. We would not schedule a “program” as had been done in the past. Since many of these programs focused on recruitment and other issues that related directly to the Graduate Program Directors, more professional development was being planned for the Program Directors meeting. However, if any Council member has a topic or issue that should be addressed, please contact Dr. Change.

Report of the Graduate Dean – Julie Masterson

A. Announcements: For a complete listing of announcement and deadlines, see the “Graduate College Update” at under the “Graduate Council Archives” section.

B. The 3-minute Thesis (3MT) Competition. This is scheduled for Friday Nov 4th starting about 4:30. More details will be provided next month. Each College will get to nominate students to compete, so ask your Dean about your college-level competition (when/how it will be conducted).

Dr. Masterson continued by reminding Council that she gave a full “State of the Graduate College” address at the April Council meeting so she would use her report time to give updates on some items and also raise a few new issues.

A. The newly forms Graduate College Steering Committee, Marketing/Recruitment Team and Academic Innovation Teams have been formed and are all meeting this month. More information will be forthcoming.

B. Student Travel Policy. The procedures and the form are being evaluated to make slight changes and clarifications. Dr. Masterson announced that 1,164 student have been funded since fall, 1997. There were 29 student applications the first year with a high of 111 in 2013-14. The average award given to a student was around $270 and the amount of budget not funded per student is about $500. In the past 5 years, the Graduate College awarded an average of $17, 800 per year which has required us to use about $5,000 from the reserves. The Graduate College cannot continue to sustain this additional money. Dr. Masterson is working with the Foundations Office to begin a fundraising campaign for this purpose.

Some items that need clarification include funding of first author as well as co-authors, funding a student only once or more than once during their program, and how many is used once it is transferred to the department. Currently, the money is transferred directly to the departmental account and the Graduate College has no mechanism to ensure that the money goes directly to the student(s) who wrote the proposal and received the award. Some departments have even stated that they split the money among students (including undergraduate). Departments should be responsible with these funds and ensure that the correct money goes only to toward the awarded students travel expenses.

The proposed changes to the form and to the procedure as presented by Dr. Masterson included:

▪ Student must provide evidence along with the application form that s/he is presenting (hasn’t changed).

▪ Co-author or sole author is fine (clarified on the form to provide awarding to either or both).

▪ Each student has a “life-time” limit of $300 so can be spent on single or multiple trips, as long as each trip involves an actual presentation of research (new). The amount of $300 is subject to change based on amount of funds available in the Graduate College budget.

▪ Research doesn’t have to be done as part of the thesis or non-thesis project as long as the student(s) did the research as part of the graduate program (course) and the presentation is eligible. However, it may make sense in most departments for students to wait to use funding for that purpose (new).

▪ Student is to list all actual costs on application which is needed for budgeting and potential fund-raising (clarified). Departments/program directors/advisors need check the forms and be accountable to make sure the budgets are correct. Don’t pad the budget but make sure all expenditures are listed appropriately. Do not just list a budget up to the $300 and stop. List all expenses so we know how much students are actually spending above what funding they receive.

▪ Department head signs the form assuring that the funds will go to the student submitting the proposal (new).

Discussion was also held about when the applications forms are due. Currently, the procedures state that the form must be received in the Graduate College no less than 2 weeks before the student will begin the travel. Should this time be longer than 2 weeks? Should it be changed from an ongoing deadline to have 3 or 4 set deadlines during the year? It was decided that because of the nature of when some conferences are held, the ongoing, rolling deadline would be best.

C. McNair Assistantships, Diversity Scholarships, Graduate Fellowships. The Graduate College has invested $310,000 in these initiatives and we can no longer sustain that type of money so these programs are being suspended. An ad hoc committee has been formed and a proposal is being developed to present to President Smart and the Executive Enrollment Committee for the University to take over these programs.

D. New LRP and Action Plan for 16-17. The focus is on number of degrees awarded and diversity. It really isn’t about bean-counting administrators; it’s about social justice - - providing access to post-graduate education and then ensuring timely completion of the degree.

The three prongs of this focus include Recruitment, Retention, and Graduation. The new Marketing/Recruitment Team will address the first issue. For retention, the Graduate College will be providing retention rates to program directors and asking them to actively monitor continued enrollment and progress of their students. Students may lapse, but we need to know why. With increased emphasis on retention, graduate rates should increase for some departments. Again, the Graduate College will be providing graduation rates and asking programs to do something with the information.

Dr. Masterson acknowledged that recruitment, retention and graduation are a joint effort between the Graduate College and the departments/program. She asked for any suggestions on additional ways the Graduate College could be of assistance in these areas. In the following months, she will be sharing data and strategies with both the Graduate Council the Graduate Program Directors.

E. The Graduate College has received some comments about the current thesis procedures – specifically the timing of when the thesis are due to the Graduate College for review. A new ad hoc committee is being formed to look at this issue and all procedures involving the Graduate College processing of theses. If anyone is interested in serving on this committee, contact Dr. Tomasi.

Report of the Graduate Faculty Membership Committee – Erin Buchanan

The following faculty were approved for full graduate faculty status:

Gautam Bhattacharyya CHM Research

Joshua Davis CIS Research

Nancy Drake PT Professional

Wesley Friske MKT Research

Andrea Hellman ENG Research

Alex Jean-Charles RFT Research

Brendan Melley DSS Professional

Debra Price CEFS Professional

Dr. Buchanan also stated that the Membership committee often has a difficulty time reviewing applications because of the mix and match approach we get from departments. In addition, many of the criteria have not been revisited since they were first created nearly 20 years ago. Dr. Masterson and Dr. Buchanan have created some new forms which would ask the department to use a criteria template to provide information to the committee on the required minimum standards as per the grad college. The template also has a place for the department to cut and paste in their rules. For example, psychology would put in Ph.D. and 3 scholarly publications. The other two include a revised application in which the department would fill out and then cut and paste the template information for that candidate. These new forms should make it much easier for the department and the committee. The new forms are currently being reviewed by the Membership Committee and will also be sent out to the Council members for comments.

Report of the Graduate Grievance Committee – Scott Zimmerman

No report.

Report of the Graduate Scholarship Committee – Kyoungtae Kim

Applications for the Aileen and Keith Ford Endowed Scholarship and the Basil and JoAnn Boritzki scholarship are due Sept 15. Information can be found at .

Nominations for the MSU Distinguished Thesis Award are due October 1, 2016 (will be accepted on Monday, Oct 3). Information can be found at .

Report of the Graduate Screening Committee – John Prescott

The following Non-Substantive Proposals were approved:

Course Change

CSD 795 Advanced Clinical Practice – change prerequisite

The following Substantive Proposals were approved:

New Program

MSED, Early Childhood Special Education

Program Change

MM – change required courses

MS, Applied Behavior Analysis – change required courses

MS, Health Promotion and Wellness Management – add KIN 650 as elective

New Course

AGS 752 Advanced Cow-Calf Production

AGS 753 Advanced Stocker and Feedlot Cattle Production

EDT 670 Fundamentals of Computer Networking, Cloud Based Technology, and Internet Safety

GLG 715 Isotope Geochemistry

Course Change

MUS 670 Instrumental Conducting – change title, description, and periodicity

MUS 671 Choral Conducting – change description and periodicity

MUS 746 Seminar: Symphonic Literature – change description

MUS 747 Seminar: Wind Literature – change description

MUS 748 Seminar: Choral Literature – change description

Course Deletion

MUS 780 Practicum in Advanced Conducting

Unfinished Business

None.

New Business

None.

Adjournment

The meeting adjourned at 4:34. The next meeting of the Graduate Council will be on Wednesday, October 12, 2016 in Plaster Student Union, room 308.

Ching-Wen Chang, Chairperson

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