Attendance:  Margret Appel, Joseph Bernt, Mehmet Celenk, Peter Harrington, Kenneth Hicks, Rajindar Koshal, Edwin Rowland, Arvind Singhal, Scott Sparks, Edward Yost, Leona Cibrowski, Bobbi Conliffe, Glenn Doston, Jessica Haigney, Daniel Innis, Raymie McKerrow, Josep Rota, Maureen Weissenrieder

Staff:  Gary Schumacher, Katherine Tadlock, Jennifer Francone

Excused:  Bhavin Mehta, Averell Overby, Roger Radcliff, Michael Meyer, Vivek Shinde Patil

Absent:  Jenny Lau, Michael Maume, Julia Zimmerman, James Bush

Guests:  Norman Garber, Erika Zettner, Nancy Bain, Wendy Papa, Bob Shelly, Dan Marazon

Convened:  2:17 P.M.

Chair’s Report:  Conliffe moved to pass the April minutes.  Cibrowski seconded the motion.  The April minutes were passed.

Chair Appel wanted to bring before Graduate Council the idea of combining the Graduate Student Affairs committee and the Fellowship Committee.  Since the committees are both small and have few responsibilities, there has been a problem in the past of no committee members remaining on the committee the following year.  The combination of the two committees could make Graduate Council more efficient.  The new committee could be called the Student Affairs and Fellowship Committee.

Associate Provost for Graduate Studies’ Report:  Jennifer Francone and Dr. Schumacher will be making presentations at departmental faculty meetings over the next few weeks.  The purpose of the meetings is to inform faculty about the availability of electronic production of theses and dissertations.

An interim associate provost will be selected to serve in the Office of Graduate Studies for 2001-2002.  Notification has been sent to all faculty on-campus regarding that position.  The position will be three quarter time until January 1, 2002 and then variable depending on the provost search process.

The Office of Graduate Studies had a request to consider graduate appointments for certificate only students.  The Graduate Catalog states that “students who wish to pursue a master’s or doctoral degree are selected for these (referring to all kinds of assistantships) on the basis of scholarly merit.”  Therefore, the request has been denied.

The Registrar’s Office is operating under a rule that a non-thesis master’s program has to have 50 hours rather than our stated minimum of 45 hours.  Drs. Schumacher and Tadlock can find no record of this in the Graduate Catalog.  There are few programs that have a minimum credit hour requirement around this level.  Dr. Schumacher would like to get clarification on this issue from Graduate Council.  The request was put forth to the Curriculum Committee.

Dr. Schumacher received the tuition scholarship analysis from the Board of Regents on May 7, 2001.  This report now includes data for both Fall 1999 and Fall 2000.  The statewide average for tuition scholarship (alone) usage is 9%.  Ohio University was at 18% for 1999 and 14% for 2000.  Dr. Schumacher noted that Office of Graduate Studies (OGS) stipends are counted as tuition scholarships alone in this report.  The range of such usage across the state is from 0% to 26%.  Ohio University and Ohio State University are very close in percentage of tuition scholarships.  University of Cincinnati has the highest tuition scholarship usage and there are some universities at 0%.  Regents Advisory Committee on Graduate Studies (RACGS) is being asked to provide an analysis for the Board of Regents.  Most of the major concerns that triggered this issue do not seem to be borne out by the data (e.g., a different pattern for U.S. and international students, a heavy concentration in the first couple of years).

University Curriculum Council (UCC) is considering modifications in the types of documents required for new programs.  UCC hopes to get this resolved yet this year.

The new university budget calls for $200,000 of new stipend money to be distributed through the Office of Graduate Studies.  The Office of Graduate Studies will initiate that process in the summer.

The Office of Graduate Studies continues to investigate ways to reduce the general fee for graduate students.  The best chance for success may require implementation over a few years.  The problem is over $2.8 million.

Some strategies and suggestions have been raised about how to improve the quality of graduate education.  The Associate Provost for Graduate Studies will be bringing this topic to Graduate Council in the near future (possibly June).

Ohio University has preliminary approval from the Board of Regents for the MEd in Special Education that Council passed earlier in this year.

Dr. Schumacher also wanted to bring forth to Graduate Council the issue of minimum grade point average (GPA) for graduation.  The issue is if a student starts study in one program and has a low GPA and then switches to another program and does well in that program but still has a cumulative GPA below a 3.0 at the time of graduation.  The problem is whether the student should be allowed to graduate.  The issue is only with Ohio University coursework.

Committees:

            Curriculum Committee:  The committee moved to pass a new degree for Doctor of Audiology (AuD) through the School of Hearing and Speech Sciences.  Currently, a masters degree is required to be certified as an audiologist.  The scope of audiology has grown so much that a two year degree is not enough training.  The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) determined that students are not receiving enough training.  The school would like to expand its masters program to a doctorate program.  They would have six to eight students per year.  The school would need four faculty members for the program and currently have three and are in the process of hiring the fourth faculty member.  The school figures that the new program resulting in the AuD degree will enhance the current PhD program since there is not an audiology track in that program.  There are currently eight students enrolled in the masters of audiology program.  The new degree program was passed.

The committee moved to pass the academic assessment of the self-study report for Osteopathic Medicine.  Dr. Marazon felt that the committee’s assessment was very accurate.  The College of Osteopathic Medicine has two tracks:  one is self-study based and the other is seminar based.  There is currently an Assistant Dean for curriculum that handles both programs.  They do not foresee hiring a second person to handle curriculum.  The college has set aside funds to determine how to get more facilitators.  The college is looking at increasing their faculty in the social sciences, physiology, and clinical areas.  The primary mission of the college is to provide health care professionals for the state of Ohio.  The college was ranked first in Ohio and second in the nation for primary care.  The college is trying to get extramural funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIF).  Most of their current grants are National Science Foundation (NSF) grants.  The college is working with the Research Office to help with incentive funds.  The Academic Assessment for Osteopathic Medicine was passed.

The committee moved to pass the academic assessment of the self-study report for the Center for International Studies.  Dr. Rota stated that the feedback was very useful.  The center has the challenge of being an interdisciplinary program.  There were two issues that came as a surprise to the center.  The first was the statement that the center should be actively involved in promoting international visits and exchanges.  There are currently over 150 international agreements that the Center provides oversight for.  Dr. Rota feels that there maybe should be less of these.  The second concern was over the statement that the center needs to have greater collaboration with departments.  Over the last five years, the center has invested a great effort into this issue.  The problem that the center has is that there are only four ways to reward professors who teach for the Center for International Studies:  1.  voice in merit review, 2. voice in promotion, 3. voice in tenure, and 4.  give funds.  The last option is the least valuable.  The problem with the first three is that the department has to be willing to allow the center input into those processes.  Koshal moved that the statement regarding involvement in international promotions and exchanges be stricken and that the statement regarding collaboration be changed to allow the center to have a role in merit, promotion, and tenure decisions.  There was concern that affiliates may pull out if the center’s role is too great.  The department will still make the final decision.  The amendment was changed to add “if the faculty member or department requests it.”  The amendment was passed.  The Academic Assessment for the Center for International Studies was passed.

The committee moved to pass the academic assessment of the self study report for Economics.  There was no representative from Economics.  The Academic Assessment for the Department of Economics was passed.

The committee moved to pass the academic assessment of the self study report for Sociology and Anthropology.  Dr. Shelly stated that most of the issues that Graduate Council addressed were addressed in the first report.  Dr. Shelly did disagree that the department needed more technological support staff.  The department is not a technology heavy department and they could really use more secretarial support for staff and faculty.  Currently, the department has a high number of junior faculty members due to early retirements.  Dr. Shelly does agree with Graduate Council’s assessment that the practice of having non-tenure faculty help determine tenure is a problem.  Hicks moved to amend the document to state that there is strong concern over this practice and that it must be discontinued.  It was also moved that there be a statement that Graduate Council will do a focused review regarding this practice in two years.  It was also moved to take out the technological part of the support staff issue.  Rota seconded the motion.  The motions were passed.  Dr. Shelly felt that the Bentley addition should help with the department’s facility problem.  Enrollment within the department at the graduate level has been relatively stable with an enrollment of 20-24 students.  The cohort program in Chillicothe has an enrollment of about 16 students.  The enrollment was not addressed in the Graduate Council’s report because it was not thought of as a strength or weakness.  The Academic Assessment for the Department of Sociology and Anthropology was passed.

The committee moved to pass the academic assessment of the self study report for Geography.  Dr. Bain wanted council to reconsider the statement regarding 300/500 level courses.  There are few students in the Geography department that actually take the 300/500.  The courses are 300/500 designated for students who need remedial work.  Hicks moved that the statement be stricken from the report.  Haigney moved that the word extensive be stricken from the statement about dual course usage.  Harrington seconded the motion.  The motion was passed.  The academic Assessment for the Department of Geography was passed.

            Fellowship Board:  The process for selection of students for the fellowships is that the student submits proposals and then the committee ranks the candidates.  They had thirteen applications.  Once the students are selected, Dr. Tadlock matches the student with the appropriate fellowship.  The committee moved that Asma Abdel Halim, Guoxiang Chen, Anna Dzirkalis, Brian Plow, and Holly Rivers be given fellowships with Cynthia Riccardi and Charles Scherbaum as alternatives.  The motion was passed.

            Policies and Procedures Committee:  The committee brought forth for a third reading the Deposit Fee policy.  There was discussion of the issue of departments who accept students in other quarters than the fall quarter and how this applies to the Council of Graduate Schools policy on acceptance dates for contract offers.  The problem is that the proposed policy only deals with fall admittance.  Currently, the student has two weeks from the time that they receive their acceptance letter to accept admittance to the university.  The policy was changed to note that the Bursar’s office will collect the deposit after the student accepts admittance and apply the deposit to the student’s tuition.  The committee moved to pass the policy as amended.  The policy was passed.

The committee brought forth an amended Definitions of Graduate Stipend Designation policy to address the issue of graduate students teaching other graduate students, especially in their own discipline.  The policy stated that graduate students could teach graduate courses as long as the course did not have graduate students enrolled from the graduate student’s own discipline.  There was concern about whether this was the correct place for this policy.  It was suggested that it could be its own policy but then the issue of how to get it out to departments was raised.  The committee will bring the issue forth again at the next meeting.

            Admission Requirements Committee:  The committee moved that Virginia Finsterwald be approved for study.  The motion was passed.

Adjourned:  3:53 P.M.