Attendance: Catherine Axinn, Pat Beamish, Josephine Bloomfield, Duncan Brown, Carolyn Cardenas, Lee Cibrowski, Donna Conaty, John Day, Glenn Doston, David Drabold, JudithEdinger, Jason Hartz, Peter Johnson, David Juedes, Hans Kruse,Christine Mattley, Mark Mecum, Liz Miller, David Mould, Michael Mumper,Chester Pach, Josep Rota, Susan Sarnoff, Katherine Tadlock, MaureenWeissenrieder, Yingjiao Xu, Julia Zimmerman, Valerie Young for AngieBukley. 

Guests: President McDavis and Brooke Hallowel

Excused: Angie Bukley, Robert Roe.

Convened: The meeting was convened at 2:10 pm.  Packets with agenda were distributed. 

1.      President McDavis:

President McDavis apologized for being late, his previous meeting ran over.  He said that he would like to make some introductory remarks and then open the floor up for questioning.  Hesaid that the four dominant themes so far of the Vision Ohio documenthave been to increase national prominence, increase diversity in thestudent, staff, and faculty populations, increasing resources andexpanding partnerships.  He added that graduate education is a critical part of all of these four themes.  Itis one of the core values of an institution to have a strong graduateprogram and that is a sure way to achieve national prominence.  He said that he believes that the educational experience is enhanced in a diverse atmosphere.  Thismeans that we have to recruit and retain the best graduate studentsfrom all over the world so we have to lower fees and increase stipendsto attract them.  They should have access to all resources to succeed.  So, we have to offer more scholarships, more fellowships, and have more endowed chairs.  We have to “transform aspirations into achievement”.  He added that he is committed to this goal even in the time of budget cuts.  This just means re-alignment in the budget process.  He said that he is also committed to increasing the research grants to $1 million in the next few years.  Also aligned with this goal is to support high quality graduate programs that serve the state and the community.  Healso added that we should be able to provide appropriate services tograduate students towards their professional development and to preparethem for academic careers that lie ahead of them.  This means that we have to identify selective investments, which does not mean that we will ignore other programs.  Itjust means that for now we will focus on those that can help us achievenational prominence by building on the research process that is alreadyin place.  One of the important goals of Vision Ohio is to manage resources efficiently.  There is a three year target date from the date of launch of the new budget procedures to go into effect.  Hesaid that he has been talking about having a Graduate College and thathe is hopeful that it will come as a recommendation from the committeeresponsible for it.  He added that having agraduate college will help us in many ways, it will elevate graduateeducation and it defines the importance of graduate education.  He said that this is the optimistic message he comes with today.

Joethanked the President for his optimistic message and said he favorsincreasing graduate enrollment, but wondered how we envision providingsupport to the increasing number of graduate students.  ThePresident said that we will look at National Institute of Health andNational Science Foundation for increasing grants to us.  In the short term increasing grant allocation can help support the increasing number of graduate students.  But, in the long term it will be a part of the capital campaign to increase funding. 

Duncansaid that a problem in the last two years that has had a serious impacton providing funding to graduate students has been the cut in the OGSfee waivers.  Most international students will come if they have fee waivers.  The President said that it is a critical issue and that this is a priority in the Vision Ohio. 

Josiesaid that five members of Graduate Council are members of the GraduatePriorities Implementation team and they have been putting in a lot oftime and hard work in researching other institutions about theestablishment of a Graduate College.  She said that the President’s quotes in the newspaper that he hopes to have a Graduate College undermine the work of the team.  It seems that if the decision has already been made then the research they are doing might not be pertinent.  The President responded saying that if that is what the team recommends then he will change his mind.  He said that his belief in a Graduate College stems from his personal experience.  Hesaid that having worked in one for five years, gives him that hope andalso most of our peer institutions have a Graduate College as well.  Hefurther added that if we can further graduate education and achieve ourgoals without a Graduate college, then that will be fine, but he wouldwant to know why the team did not recommend it. 

Josiesaid that some members of the implementation teams feel that decisionsregarding certain issues have already been made at another level andthat faculty are part of these teams and committees for not much at all.  Carolynsaid that also there is discussion among faculty about the elitistnotion of the ‘brightest minds will serve the brightest undergraduatesand graduates’.  And that isolating certain faculty for such endeavors like not having a Pulitzer Prize winner teach a freshman class.  ThePresident said that the committee will recommend is some sort of agraduate school structure to oversee and manage graduate education.  This body if not a graduate college can maybe then be a model for other institutions.  We do not want to weaken our strength; instead we want to build on it.  We do not necessarily have to follow the same path as our peer institutions, but we do have to excel.  David said that it hard to know in the abstract form what it actually means to propose to have a Graduate College.  We do not know if we have the resources to support it.  ThePresident said that we might have to delay the implementation for a fewyears, but we can at least have an idea of the structure.  We need to focus on the issue of structure and not on the issue of resources.  Among the top 50 institutions in the country, most of them have some sort of a structure akin to a graduate college.  It is about “not where we have been but where we want to go”. 

Chestersaid that since the number of students has decreased and with budgetcuts, it seems to be a time of crisis and how does the President remainso hopeful of success?  The President said that he has seen the other side of the budget realignment.  He added that state governments cannot continue to ignore higher education.  Once we realign our budget and priorities then we can decide on where to spend the money that we have saved.  He said the he does not see diminishing revenue, but instead new ways to generate revenue.  Hesaid when he came to OU he did not see any documents that indicatedthat graduate education and research were a priority here.  And, now that we have said that they are a priority, then we are going to make decisions in consonance with those priorities.  Maureen asked about the planning process at the Cabinet level.  The President said that we have four to five years of no new funding.  No university can take hits for so many years and not suffer.  We have been living off of carry forward money and trimming around the edges.  We cannot go about business as usual; we need to have a debate about this.  We have to be realistic about where we are and where we are going to go.      

Susan raised the issue of balancing budgets and making decisions at the individual unit level.  The President said that there are going to be some limitations for all units.  We have to ask questions, find answers to fix this.  Wehave to see how we got here: there has been a tuition increase by 9%,and then by 6%, and then by 1% to the Gateway scholarship fund.  There was a 3% decrease in subsidy, followed by a 3% increase in salaries from July 2006.  Also, health care costs went up by 13-17% and our natural gas cost went up by $1.2 million.  We cannot just focus on one thing, we have to have a plan and share that with all constituent groups.  Michaeladded that increase in graduate tuition has hurt us but we still haveto try to increase the number of fee paying graduate students.  The President agreed saying that Ohio is becoming a high tuition state.  The tuition increase for the next year is 6%.  Maureen asked if differential tuition for different programs had been considered.  The President responded saying that private universities do that more than public universities.  But, it is an idea and we should talk about it.  It becomes interesting because all departments want to be a part of it.  Miami university made a decision and they have to live with it now.  We offer a great value at the level of undergraduate education; we have to be able to offer the same for graduate education too.  We should keep up the high number of applications.  This year they were more by 600 even after the 6% increase in tuition.  We have to look at value.  David said that the rumor mill says that Miami is doing quite well with the new plan.  The President said that they have 200 less students this fall than last year.  They had to dip into their endowment funds, so they have not been successful. 

Josieasked if there were any projects in the pipeline for graduate studentsthat would be considered similar to the Urban scholars and theAppalachian scholars programs at the undergraduate level.    The President said he would like to, but that there are no resources for that.  And, that it comes back to running a capital campaign.  It is hard to run a campaign to see fellowships at the graduate level.  People like to give money for the first degree, but not for the second and third degrees.  They believe that students should pay for those themselves.  Josie said that even if a little money is set aside for that, maybe a part of that 1% that is going to the Gateway fund.  The President said that it was a fair suggestion.  Duncan added that minority scholarship and Appalachian scholarship are a valuable resource.  Susan said that we have a very limited child care facility on campus.  A lot of the international and minority students turn away because of that.  Shesaid that they lost two students to different institutions because OUcould not make a commitment to those minority students that their kidswould be placed at the Child Development Center.  David added that housing is also an issue for international students.  Josieadded that she has heard from people that closing Mill Streetapartments was a big blow to the international student network.  Duncan said that the Mill street network used to work well.  The current students would contact the incoming and help the new ones find a place.  On that note the President thanked Graduate Council for inviting him and he said, “I will be back”. 

2.      Approval of Minutes:

Corrections were made to the minutes from the October 14^th, and November 18^th 2005 meetings and the minutes were approved. 

3.      Chair’s Report (Dr. Duncan Brown):

1. President’s visit: Duncan informed Graduate Council that President McDavis had a conflicting meeting and will be here shortly. 

2. Thanks to PRC: Duncan thanked Lee’s committee for working on the proposal to grant posthumous degrees to graduate students.

3. List-Serv: Duncan said that the Graduate Council list serve has been enabled for one year and has only been used once so far.  He said that he checked the members list on Thursday and half of the current members are on it.  He added that he will send instructions for the list serve and then in a few days a test message will be sent.  

4. Conflict of Interest Reviews:Duncan said that the Conflict of Interest and Program Reviews were sentvia email earlier because of a prior discussion that it might not bebest practice to post them on the list serv for Graduate Council todiscuss them.  Due to their sensitive nature, making them too public would be an invasion of privacy.  He added that he could not see anything that would prevent anybody from signing on, as long as they have a valid Ohio ID.

5. Graduate Priorities Implementation Team:Duncan requested the Chair of the Graduate Priorities Implementationteam, Josie, to present an update and the implications theestablishment of a Graduate College would have for Graduate Council andfor Chester’s committee.  Josie said that they have been collecting best practices from aspirational peers.  There has been an ongoing discussion, whether or not to recommend the establishment of a graduate College.  If a Graduate College is established, Graduate Council would then become a more robust policy making body.  Duncansaid that Michael had provided information about Graduate Colleges atother aspirational peers, and it seemed that Graduate Councils had aclearer role in those institutions.  Another matter under discussion was about the graduate stipends at OU.  They are not competitive, other institutions in Ohio offer higher amounts.  Also, we have general fees, and high health insurance rates for family members, particularly for international students.  Duncan added that we an exception, not the norm when it comes to low stipends and high health insurance rates.  Josiesaid that Phyllis Bernt (from Faculty Senate) will analyze the GeneralFees to see where they actually end up in the University.

6. MBA site change:  Duncan brought everyone’s attention to one of the documents in the packet.  This is an amendment to an earlier proposal for delivery of an existing program at a new location.  It is being proposed to now offer the program in Bahrain and not in Malaysia.  Josie asked about the security issues about teaching in Bahrain.  Johnresponded saying that their partner in Bahrain indicated that the costsinvolved in having people mover to Malaysia for a couple of years topursue the degree were prohibitive and that there are no perceivabletravel hazards.  He added that no agreement has been signed yet, all of this is still under discussion. 

7. Faculty classification:Duncan informed Graduate Council that Faculty Senate is reviewing thefaculty classification about granting graduate status to certainfaculty.  He added that faculty senate is looking for input on this.  

4.      Associate Provost of Graduate Studies (Michael Mumper):

A.     Recruitment Money:Towards the end of winter quarter $2500 was transferred to each collegefor them to forward the same to recipient departments.

B.     Stipend Enhancement Fund: The decisions of the Stipend Enhancement Competition were made known to departments in mid-December.  This was done so enable Graduate Chairs to make offers to prospective graduate students.

C.     Applications for Fall 2006: Michael said that the handout in the package depicts yesterdays application numbers.  They are up from last year this week.  There have been noticeable improvements from places where we have been recruiting, Lebanon, Jordan, Thailand, and Turkey.

D.     Enrollment: Enrollment was down in Fall quarter by about 50-75 students.  But, this week, we are at the same number as we were last year.  In the College of Education, one of the cohorts (Education Administration) has about 26 or 27 new doctoral students.  Rest of the numbers are distributed across the board.  JoeRota commented that International Studies ends up under miscellaneous,so where could the numbers specifically for it be found.  Michael answered that when one looks up numbers by program, International Studies is there. 

E.      ETD Director: As of January 23^rd2006, ETD will have a new director, Angela McCutchen. Michael said thatDave Drabold and Wayne Chiasson have been very helpful with the searchprocess.  He also added that he is the acting ETD director and requested patience from all during this transition phase. 

Maureen asked Michael how he sees the cuts proposed by McDavis impacting the graduate scenario.  Michael responded that he had not heard that the graduate school would be immune.  The Provost is aware that some cuts might hurt the recruiting efforts. Maureen also asked about stipends and waivers.  Michael said that everything was on the table and that OGS has lost $800,000 in the last two years in fee waivers.  They have lost $800,000 ($400,000 a year for two years).  Duncan suggested saving that question for President McDavis.  Healso said that the higher numbers of applications from the countrieswhere recruiting efforts were focused should be used to make a case fornot cutting the recruitment budget.      

5.      Policies and Regulations Committee (Lee Cibrowski):

Leesaid that the model used by the Bachelors and Associates degrees togrant posthumous degrees cannot be used for graduate students becauseof the issue of the requirement of completion of a certain number ofcredit hours.  She added that Masters programs have a broad range of credit hours, anywhere from 45 to a 100 hours.  The committee then thought that it would be better to have a percentage of hours instead of an absolute number.  But, then there is the issue of internships, thesis, performances, and portfolio requirements and so on.  Also, OUCOM students would have some other conditions apply as well.  So,Lee noted that the committee can propose a minimum set of requirementsand then departments can add their specifics to them. Peter Johnsoncommented that there is a place in the documents for the involvement ofthe thesis and dissertation and the committee has already signed off onthem. Duncan said these guidelines would apply very clearly in hisschool.  At OUCOM though, students do not have a ‘committee’ so there would have to be some other mechanism in place.  Lee commented that each program is unique and it is rather difficult to write policy that would apply equally to all. 

Davidasked about the number of times this had happened in the past. Duncanresponded that three years ago this potentially could have happenedwith a student in his department. He explained that when theundergraduate policy was passed in 2002, it gave impetus to a policy atthe graduate level being instated.  A proposal came through, but it did not go much further.  Pat added that it happens more often than it is brought to anyone’s attention.  Sheclarified saying that that people do not know the right forum forraising this issue. Chester suggested that the threshold be set at“being admitted to candidacy”.  Lee agreed with putting the minimum standard there.  Davidposed the scenario if two people were in a boat, and both died in theaccident and if they both were from two different departments then onegets a degree posthumously and the other does not.  Therefore, David thinks a uniform policy would be better.  Duncanstated for the members of the council to email suggestions to Lee andthe committee can bring it up for discussion next month.

6.      Admissions Requirement Committee (Josie Bloomfield):

Discussion began with Maureen asking how many non-degree students go on to pursue degree programs.  Katieresponded saying that it is up to the department to transfer coursesfrom a student’s non-degree program to their degree program.  Someprograms in the College of Education admit their students as non-degreeseeking students and then they move on to be degree seeking students.  They are required to do a new application at the time of becoming degree seeking.  Maureen asked if some people fall through the cracks in this process.  Katieacknowledged saying that there was an incidence of one person who wasgraduating from the program, but had never been admitted as a degreeseeking student.  Katie said that one way toovercome that is to have CNS generate a quarterly report of allnon-degree seeking students and credits they have accrued in the lastsix years.  Catherine suggested that maybe havingsome sort of a colored indicator in the non-degree seeking student’sfile might trigger the attention of the person handling the file.  Carolyn added that it can also be added on the Form 18 and that also could be something that one could watch out for. 

Conflict of Interest reviews for Cheryl Hanzel and Taeil Kim were approved.  Then Josie initiated discussion about Mark Singer and Bruce Brown, whose situations seem to be very similar.  She added that their advisor checked “Yes” to the student being subordinate to the faculty in the academic program.  Valerie said that in these two cases the strict application of policy and rules might not be correct.  Josie asked about the money that was being used to pay these two employees.  Valeriesaid that if they take a leave of absence and then come back, then itwill meet the literal reading of the policy, but it is not going toactually change the situation.  All it does is removes the situation from the purview of the decision by this body.  The money is coming from the external research grant generated by faculty.  So, Dr. Nesic could either be funding his employee or his graduate student.  Duncansaid that a person who was in-charge of their technical facilitiesgraduated two years ago and is now an employee of the department.  Hesaid that it is a very different dynamic and relationship that he haswith everyone in the department now versus when he was a student.  He now sits in the faculty meetings as well.  Joesaid that there should be some consequences for Bruce Brown since itwas indicated that his supervisor would not be his academic advisor,but it turned out that he was.  Discussion about Mark Singer and Bruce Brown had to be adjourned in the interest of time.  Valerie Young offered to come back to another meeting to provide the department’s (Chemical Engineering) point of view.  Duncanthanked her for that and asked Graduate Council to address the lastissue on the agenda, the seven year program review of the Hearing,Speech and Language Sciences. 

7.      Curriculum Committee (Chris Mattley):  Chris said that she struggled hard with this review.  One of the reviewers who had made unfair comments was at some point in time removed from the review process.  Brookesaid that in the 7 year accreditation process, the internal reviewerwas removed, but he was the one who had drafted this document.  Chris said that she was concerned about it going to UCC in its current format.  She said that she would like the Dean and Director’s responses to go along with the review as well.  Brooke said that Marty Tuck had mentioned that they could remove the unfair comments from the document.  And that they are just looking forward to see it completed.  Duncansaid that the letter that Graduate Council sends to UCC could emphasizethat we accepted the review with these two provisos: that the fullresponses from the Dean and Director be included and with the revisionsthat include deletion of the objectionable comments.  Duncanadded that he would like to see David Ingram, the current chair of UCCincrease the number of members by a couple so there are at least twointernal reviewers, one can be an experienced reviewer and the other ashadow.  This would be a good way to build institutional memory. 

There was no new business and the session was adjourned at 4:18 pm. 

Next meeting on February 10^th 2006, 2 to 4 pm in the Governance Room in Walter Hall.