Graduate Council

Graduate Council

February 5, 2016 ~ 3:00-4:30 PM

128 Kidder Hall

Minutes

1. Approval of Minutes

• October 16, 2015 
• November 6, 2015
• December 4, 2015

Action: Ryan moved to approve the above minutes; motion seconded and passed by voice vote.

2. Entomology Graduate Program

An information item related to discussions about a potential revivification of the Entomology graduate program

• Theresa met with Sujaya Rao and Dan Edge regarding the Entomology graduate program, which is still on the books; suspended 5 years ago because they didn’t want to do program review. They now wish to reactivate the program, and the external reviewers would be focused on how to build a new program.
• Stephanie voiced concern about setting precedence. If a program is in good standing, and one that has regularly participated in program reviews, this is a different situation. Theresa felt that revivification of the Entomology program would require a full Cat I proposal including external reviews.
• After the Entomology unit was abolished, the program existed for awhile as an interdisciplinary program. Ryan felt it was similar to other CAS graduate options, and questioned why there was a problem with it being a graduate option. Theresa noted that there a lot of questions that would need to be asked of Rao if submission of a formal proposal occurs.

3. Oregon Medical Physics

Information on the Oregon Medical Physics program is attached. This is a program that was established and operated prior to passage of the Graduate Council joint degree program rule requiring that 50% of all coursework be OSU courses. The program is undergoing a revision of their MOU and would like to continue to operate without meeting the 50% rule for joint degree programs. Curricular information relating to the program is attached in the Graduate Student handbook. For those interested, additional information can be found at these links: 

You can find statistics for the current program at

http://ne.oregonstate.edu/oregon-medical-physics-program

The background on the program can be found at https://www.ohsu.edu/xd/education/schools/school-of-medicine/academic-programs/medical-physics-grad-program/about/index.cfm

A sample academic plan can be found at https://www.ohsu.edu/xd/education/schools/school-of-medicine/academic-programs/medical-physics-grad-program/about/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&PageID=2694387 . 

I have not invited the program director to join us on Feb 5th, but I can at a subsequent meeting if we have questions. 

4. Flow-chart for New Program Proposals

If you have additional comments about the flow-chart for New program proposals discussed last time, please bring them to the meeting. 

5. Summative Requirements for “M.Other” Degrees

We will again take up the issue of summative requirements for “M.Other” degrees. Specifically, we will discuss exempting “M.Other” degrees from the first graduate learning outcome of conducting research or producing some other form of creative work. We agreed that we are not discussing summative requirements for non-thesis MA or MS degrees at this time. If programs in your college offer an “M.Other” degree, please remember to discuss how they will meet the GLO of “be able to conduct scholarly or professional activities in an ethical manner” if we remove the requirement for a summative assessment.

• Sourabh Apte indicated to Theresa that MEng wants time to develop ideas around how they will meet the 2^nd LO (ability to conduct research) when designing a summative assessment. Wants to know if any summative assessment is required – they want to use coursework.
  • Jennifer - Could be more summative assessments if they were professional programs.
• 1) mastery in the field; 2) creative work; 3) scholarly and professional …
• Should each program be required to submit a program stating how they justify #3? This would require a change in policy.
• If there is a summative written policy, it would be a change. A summative assessment could be approved by GC.