Graduate Council

Voting members present: Sourabh Apte, Bill Bogley, Maureen Childers, Jim Coakley, Ryan Contreras, Lisa Ganio, Marie Harvey, George Waldbusser
Voting members absent: Rebekah Elliott, Theresa Filtz, Lisa Price
Ex-officio members present: Graduate School – Stephanie Bernell, Jennifer Brown
Guest: Julie Gess-Newsome (via phone)

Introductions and Brief Orientation to Graduate Council for New Members

Review of major responsibilities:

• Conduct reviews of graduate programs, approximately eight per year.
• Review action plans that result from graduate program reviews.
• Determine and develop policies around graduate education and present recommended changes to the Faculty Senate for approval.
• Bring issues to the Graduate Council that arise from constituencies.

How to have Graduate Council Representation when a College’s Representative Cannot Attend Scheduled Meetings

• It was noted that one voting Council member cannot attend meetings this term; the Council discussed how to make sure that there is adequate representation. It was suggested that Ryan ask the Faculty Senate Executive Committee how to proceed. 

Graduate Program Review Process and Assignments for Upcoming Year (discussion to update guidelines) – need to get Graduate Council assignments confirmed for reviews. What happens to the graduate review?

• Ryan reviewed the assignment of Council members to this year’s proposed 10-year and 5-year graduate program reviews and scholarship and award committee assignments.
• A discussion ensued about a Graduate School revision to the process for the 10-year reviews. The revision was prompted by the fact that the Graduate Council has not received timely action plans from programs after their 10-year review, and the process for accepting the plan and following a program’s implementation of the plan was unclear.

Currently, once the 10-year review team has submitted their report to the Graduate School, and the program has had an opportunity to review and correct factual errors in the report, the Graduate Council reviews and approves the report. The program then writes an Action Plan to implement changes suggested in the review report. 

The revision to the process occurs at this point. Under the revision, the responsibility for the process moves to the Graduate School Vice Provost and Dean who meets with the academic college dean(s), a representative of the Graduate Council and the program director to review and accept the program review and action plan.

• It was noted that figures in the ‘Graduate Program Review Guidelines’ document need to be updated to reflect the changes.
• There was a short discussion about the proposed upcoming five-year review for the Business Administration and Accountancy Ph.D.; it is slated for winter term. It was noted that they hope to be (or are?) a Ph.D.[RNC1] -only program that accepts students every other year, so there may not be full answers to the questions posed in the five-year review.
  • Clarification was provided after the fact by Jim Coakley, as follows: “We have a PhD in Business Administration. It has two options - Accounting and innovation/ commercialization. We admit students every other year. We admitted five students in 2014, who are now through comps, and six students in 2016 who are in their second year of coursework. We are fine with moving ahead with the five-year review this winter.”
  • An email discussion between Ryan, Lisa, Maureen Childers and Jared Moore (who oversees the BAA Ph.D. program) clarified that the review will take place in Winter 2019 at which time the program will have been in place for 5 years, and there should be one graduate cohort.
• A topic for future discussion is how to coordinate the timing of reviews to correspond to the accreditation reviews that programs may be required to do. 

Action: Jennifer agreed to seek out additional qualified faculty to serve on 10-year review teams since there a large number of reviews. 

Policy to Establish Major Advisor and Committees for Graduate Students

• Discussed the history of the policy and the text that was approved by the Council last year. After presentation to the Faculty Senate Executive Committee last spring, small wording changes were suggested to the Graduate Council to reflect the fact that summer term should not be included in the time limits for the process. 

Action: A motion was made to accept the changes, the motion was seconded and passed unanimously. 

Update on Policy on Disallowance of Undergraduate Courses in the Calculation of the Final Student GPA (informational item)

• The Council passed this policy last year and is being discussed at Faculty Senate today.