Graduate Council

Voting members present: Sourabh Apte, Ryan Contreras, Rebekah Elliott, Theresa Filtz, David Finch, Lisa Ganio, Anita Grunder, Marie Harvey, Lisa Price (via phone)
Voting members absent: Pat Chappell, Jim Coakley
Ex-officio member present: Jennifer Dennis, Ryan Reese (via phone)
Guest: Ryan Reese (via phone)

Curricular Proposal – Change Graduate Major, Counseling – MCOUN, MS, PhD – Ryan Reese, OSU Cascades

Discuss the revised MCOUN alternative final exam proposal.

• Following an earlier discussion, Rebekah had requested proposers to address three items, which they did.
• Why will the exam be different for those after June 2017? Ryan responded that the current exam process will be phased out.
• Counselor preparation comprehensive exams currently exist, and many programs use this exam for this purpose, although Cascades has not used this exam before – how does this assess a mastery of candidates’ ability to apply research? Ryan indicated that it has content and application level questions which will cover knowledge as well as application of their knowledge.
• Are there options other than the counselor comprehensive exam? Ryan noted they are looking for flexibility, and he’s about 99% sure that the stated exam would be used.

Action: Anita moved to approve the proposal as revised; motion seconded and approved with no dissenting votes.

Proposed Standing Rules Revisions

Discuss revising the Standing Rules to include representation from the OSU Cascades campus and, looking forward, to how to handle representation from other campuses.  The request is to revise the Standing Rules by adding or deleting the shaded text:

The Council consists of one graduate faculty member from each College and one graduate student. The Chair shall be a faculty member with immediate prior experience on the Council. The Dean and Associate Dean of the Graduate School, and the Chair of the Graduate Admissions Committee, and a representative from OSU Cascades shall be ex-officio, non-voting members.

• After discussion of how to revise the verbiage to allow other ‘branch’ campuses to participate when requested, it was decided to revise the Standing Rules to just allow participation by OSU Cascades at this time.
• It was felt that OSU Cascades and the Marine Studies Initiative (MSI) are different than Extension and Experiment Stations, due to their curricular nature, and it was noted that there may be reason in the future to include MSI representation on the Graduate Council.

Action: Ryan moved to approve the proposed verbiage to revise the Standing Rules; motion seconded and passed.

Courtesy or Emeritus Faculty Advising Requirement

Continued discussion on how to handle emeritus faculty taking on new graduate students. Feedback from the Graduate School on College-level policies/responses.

An informal survey of various colleges resulted in the below responses:

• College of Forestry – There is no formal policy. The only time when an emeritus faculty member serves as supervisor is when a faculty member continues with an existing student.
• College of Education – Emeritus faculty may act as advisor or chair for students who have advanced to candidacy at the time of the retirement.
• College of Veterinary Medicine – Wouldn’t recommend allowing emeritus faculty.
• College of Engineering – There is no policy; they depend on the university for guidance.
• College of Science – There are policies by unit, which vary – they would like flexibility. It appears that Emeritus faculty advise only current students.
• College of Public Health & Human Sciences – There is no formal policy, but their preference is for the current advisor to continue with existing students.
• College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences – There was a mixture of opinion among faculty whether there should be co-advisors for emeritus faculty, but they would like flexibility for various groups. Some faculty felt that a co-advisor should be appointed.
• College of Liberal Arts – There is no written policy; emeritus can finish with existing students. However, there was an issue of absorbing funding that could be allocated to younger faculty if an emeritus faculty member took on a new student after retiring.  As a general college policy, emeritus faculty cannot take on new students after retiring.
• College of Agricultural Sciences – One Council member felt that the college would be supportive of not allowing emeritus faculty to take on new graduate students.
• Emeritus faculty taking on a new student should agree to continue to be actively involved in the unit and graduate program, and be aware of programmatic requirements and changes in university policy for the protection of students and the graduate program.
• It was discussed that graduate programs be requested to develop guidelines and Theresa will request that the programs submit their guidelines with their assessment report in April.

Action: Theresa will draft an email to graduate program directors and advise them of the need to discuss guidelines to ensure active involvement in the graduate program by emeritus and courtesy faculty; she will also inform them of their graduate council representatives.

Minutes recorded by Vickie Nunnemaker, Faculty Senate staff