Attendance: Catherine Axinn, Dominic Barbato, Patricia Beamish, Josephine Bloomfield, Duncan Brown, Angie Bukley, Carolyn Cardenas, Lee Cibrowski, Dawn Deeter, Tim Heckman, David Juedes, Hans Kruse, Michael Mumper, Chester Pach, Animesh Rathore, Nihar Shah, Robert Staron, Katherine Tadlock, Maureen Weissenrieder, and Julia Zimmerman.
Excused: David Drabold, Judith Edinger, Aimee Howley, Christine Mattley, Josep Rota, Susan Sarnoff, and Yinjiao Xu.
Convened: The meeting was convened at 2:10 pm.
1. Graduate Student Housing and the University’s Housing Master Plan (With Pam Callahan, University Planner)
During the recent presentation of the Master Plan for Ohio University, there was no mention of graduate student housing. The Wolfe Street apartments were shown marked for academic buildings. Pam said that she looks at the plan like a tool to help describe the future plan of the expansion process at the university. It suggests areas of development for the university. It marks the Clippinger area for demolition. There is a need of housing for graduate students. They are at a disadvantage because they arrive late in the cycle and the international students arrive even later. Another issue that some graduate and international students face is that they do not have vehicles, so proximity is definitely an issue for them. She added that the Facilities and Auxiliaries offices cannot renovate more than two dorms a year. They are not in a position to take on an economic enterprise of building apartments. She said that the plan identifies $700,000,000 in needs and they can generate maybe $300,000,000 in ten years. So, making good decisions is imperative. Pam said that graduate housing is important, but it is not a priority on the plan, repair and renovation of buildings is.
Pam said that the real estate strategy has not been worked on much, but conversations are taking place. One of the developments has been proposed on a site on Dairy Lane. Another one has been proposed at the Ridges. OU might partner with a private builder for the Dairy Lane development. But, no decision has been made so far. The developers are working on the financial aspects. Hans said that the transportation issue needs to be looked at as well. He said that graduate classes sometimes end at 9 and 10 pm and if no buses are running at that time, students have to walk in cold temperatures to their homes. Duncan said that the transportation issue is also important from the perspective of spouses who are alone at home all day. Dominic said that $10 of the general fees of all students at Penn State goes to transportation services, because not all the development happening on that campus is in walking distance as well.
Josie expressed her disappointment with the master plan. She said that when the implementation teams were working on the proposal, graduate housing was on there and at least four if not more of the committees had graduate housing on their priority lists. She added that now a year later, graduate housing is not on the plan any more. Josie said that she is aware that undergraduate housing needs attention, but so does graduate housing. Duncan said that a partnership between OU and a private builder is suggestive of the prioritizing at OU and also that OU is not willing to commit its resources to graduate housing. Pam responded saying that there are limited resources and everyone is competing for them.
This is a ten year Master Plan which will be presented at the Board of Trustees meeting in April. This plan will be re-visited every two years and every year in a less formal manner. Michael added that there have been discussions and many iterations of the appropriate housing for graduate and married students. He said it is important to be specific about the needs of students with families. Pam said that OU can use the negotiating power to achieve that. Dominic added that subsidized rent is one of the things to negotiate for.
2. Approval of January Minutes
Hans said that in the discussion on January 12th, about academic honesty it was not decided that the Curriculum committee would bring some language for discussion for the next meeting (February 12th). The minutes were approved with the deletion of the words, ‘next meeting’.
3. Chair’s Report (Duncan Brown)
A. Thanks to Chester: Duncan thanked Chester for chairing the January meeting.
B. Posthumous Degree Policy: Duncan said that it appears that the policy has not been posted online yet. Josie noted that some things in the Provost’s office got behind schedule due to the untimely death of Miriam McLaughlin.
C. Honor Code: The Curriculum committee will work on creating an honor code and will have a discussion whether program reviews should touch upon academic honesty.
4. Remarks by Michael Mumper
A. Patriot Act: Michael informed members that he spoke to Jim Kemper and Jim said that everyone who is a part of the payroll system was asked to sign the form. That is why Graduate Assistants and Teaching Assistants were included in it as well. He also added that other schools besides OU and University of Akron in the state of Ohio are requiring their graduate students to complete this form. OSU does not have its graduate students sign it and legal affairs is looking into it to see if graduate students can be exempt from signing it at OU.
Maureen noted that she is still concerned about new faculty being required to sign it.
B. Graduate Education Research Board: Michael referred to the handout that lists the proposals that were funded. Four out of the 30 proposals received for the Program Enhancement Competition were funded. Two out of the 12 proposals received were funded by the one-time only funding of the Future Growth Fund.
Chester asked about the budget situation at the university. He said that a few months ago, the President said that the university was fiscally sound and the message has changed radically over a period of a few months. He asked if the review process for the other GERB proposals will be affected. Michael said that the Provost asked him to continue to review with the assumption that funds will be available at some point in time, later if not sooner. Chester also asked if there was any reason to worry about the graduate student stipend, since all departments are in the thick of making admission decisions and offers to potential graduate students. Michael said that departments should not change anything at this point in time.
C. Graduate Catalog: Michael told members that just this week he was informed that Communications and Marketing is not going to print the Graduate Catalog this year. This is a catalog revision year. Michael noted that the understanding was that the undergraduate catalog would not be printed this year and this would be the last iteration of the mass quantities of the printed version of the graduate catalog. Now that Communications and Marketing is not going to print the catalog, the Office of Graduate Studies has to come up with funds for the printing of the catalog. He added that it is a significant cost saving endeavor if the catalog is online, but doing it at short notice makes it hard. The number of the printed catalogs has been decreased every cycle since 2001. From 20,000 in 2001 it went down to 12,500 in 2003 and then to 7000 in 2005.
Michael said that it might be a good idea to print the first part of the catalog, that pertains to OU policy and then the College specific information can be available online. Michael said that he would like input from members about the importance of the hard copy of the catalog for departments, and if members felt that moving the catalog online would cause any potential problems. He added that OU has purchased new software that undergraduate admissions will be using. This software gives the capability to the departments to update material. Maureen noted that it is hard to maintain the currency of websites. She asked about the checks and balances that would be in place if the process of updating material is going to be decentralized. Katie responded that some departments still note that the office of graduate studies is located in Wilson Hall. She explained that the process of making changes in the printed catalog used to begin at the department level by the chair and then it would be forwarded to the College and then to Communications and Marketing. Finally, the document comes to her for the last edit. Carolyn noted that the catalog is an historic document and it would be a good idea to have at least some printed copies available, for each graduate chair and rest of the material can be online. Michael said that up till a few years ago, the catalog was the only printed material mailed to potential applicants. Josie said that she likes the idea of the Policy and Procedures book. Michael said that the university is in the process of negotiations for signing the contract with the software company.
Maureen asked about the approval process for changes in the course offerings. Josie added that in the present system all courses have to be a part of the master list and hence courses get listed that have not been taught for a while. If a course that is no longer offered is deleted from the list of offerings, the process to have it included again is very lengthy. Lee said that in their College they have worked with that issue by flagging certain courses with comments such as ‘on demand’ or ‘on request’. Duncan said that there are certain courses in his school that have not been taught for a while and they are trying to recruit faculty to teach those courses. That is why they do not want these courses deleted from the master file, since once deleted, the same course number cannot be used for ten years. He added that he will not be able to attend the upcoming UCC meeting, he encouraged those present to raise this issue. Hans noted that it is nice if incoming students could get a copy of the policies, though he does not necessarily use the catalog for advising purposes. Duncan added that he has referred to the catalog on occasion to look up information; sometimes it is faster than trying to find it online. Michael said that as he receives input from everyone he will put together a proposal for Graduate Council to review.
5. Remarks by Katie Tadlock
A. Named Fellowships: Katie informed members that the Graduate Studies website has a link for the fellowship information. She added that all graduate students received an email from her yesterday informing them about the fellowships. Katie said that she will be sending an email to graduate chairs today about some more information about the process. The deadline for submitting nominations is March 15th.
B. SIS replacement project: Katie encouraged members to attend the overview session that the second vendor will be conducting next week. She said that various offices on campus use many different systems that somehow connect to information that is housed in the SIS. SIS is an old system and has limited capabilities. She said that both vendors have clients among our institutional peers.
6. Recruitment and Admissions Requirements Committee (Catherine Axinn):
Julia said that she appreciates the work that the committee has put forward towards Gary Ginther’s case. Graduate Council approved the modified recommendation.
Graduate Council also approved the modified policy on Conflict-of-interest reviews for librarians applying for advanced degrees in their area of specialty. Katie confirmed with Graduate Council that cases that fall directly under this policy can go through the expedited process. Carolyn noted that some other people could find themselves in similar situations and this might be a good time for departments to think about it. Katie said that coaches applying for programs in coaching education could be one such example.
7. New Business
Katie drew the attention of members to the last handout, Language Coursework and Transfer of credit. Discussion ensued about whether departments can waive the language requirement. Chester asked if the reason for having the language coursework in place is to fulfill credit hour requirement for their degree or to demonstrate competence in that language. Members agreed that it might be worthwhile for the Policies and Procedures committee to look at the transfer of credit policy to try to make the language a little more flexible.
The meeting was adjourned at 4 pm. The next meeting is on March 9th, 2007 in the Governance Room in Walter Hall from 2 to 4 pm.
