Graduate Council Meeting
Minutes
June 1, 2007
Attendance: Catherine Axinn, Dominic Barbato, Patricia Beamish, Josephine Bloomfield, Duncan Brown, Angie Bukley, Donna Conaty, David Drabold, David Juedes, Hans Kruse, Christine Mattley, David Mould, Michael Mumper, Chester Pach, Animesh Rathore, Bill Rhinehart (for Julia Zimmerman), Josep Rota, Susan Sarnoff, Nihar Shah, Robert Staron, and Katherine Tadlock.
Excused: Carolyn Cardenas, Lee Cibrowski, John Day, Judith Edinger, Tim Heckman, Aimee Howley, Maureen Weissenrieder, Yinjiao Xu, and Julia Zimmerman.
Guest: Executive Vice President and Provost Kathy Krendl and Eddith Dashiell, Asst. Provost for Multicultural Graduate Affairs.
Convened: The meeting was convened at 3:15 pm.
1. Provost Krendl:
The Provost thanked members of Graduate Council for inviting her to the meeting.
Provost Krendl said that the Facilities Planning Advisory Council has completed the ten year plan. The plan calls for moving campus transportation routes to the perimeter or the periphery of campus. This will encourage foot traffic for small distances. The Master plan does call for Wolfe Street apartments being razed to the ground. This will facilitate the building of the ‘Clippinger Science Green’. The proposal also includes developing Scott Quadrangle as a learning community. The plan calls for creating a graduate student community at the Ridges. This will ensure that they have a quieter neighborhood on weekends and during evenings. The new community will create more adult living space. She said that the university would work with the community to have a child care facility. It is not a part of the ten year plan, but endorsement from Graduate Council for the creation of such a community can make a difference, she added.
Discussion focused on ways to create a partnership between private enterprises and the University for establishing more housing units. The Provost said that there are lots of options but it would be a good idea to begin by having a demand analysis and then floating the idea to developers. The Provost agreed with David Drabold that we do not have enough transient space to house colleagues and research collaborators who sometimes spend a few weeks in Athens. She asked if we could do a demand analysis by surveying current graduate students about options regarding acceptable space and so on. Chester added that supply would create demand, in that if we had that basic logistic taken care of; faculty would invite their colleagues from other schools to spend time here. The Provost said that these kinds of issues prompted her to conduct an inventory of housing options on campus. She said she found that the apartments housed in various buildings on campus are managed by various university offices. Some of these apartments can be used rent free, whereas some of them cannot.
Joe reiterated the need for fully furnished temporary housing for short term use. Catherine said that the College of Business houses their Executive in Residence at the University Courtyard apartment complex. She said their Executive Advisory Board pays for that. Angie added that the apartment in Stocker is reserved for only ‘Stocker guests’ and it stays empty most of the time. Josie said that the apartment in Voigt Hall that they had used in the past now costs $120 per night and needs to be reserved for two nights at least. This change has come into effect since Bromley took over its management. Prior to that, she said they could rent it for $20 a night. She said they used to have prospective graduate students and/or faculty use that. Now, they cannot use it because it is too expensive to rent it.
Members noted that sometimes the lack of adequate housing and transportation facilities become barriers in recruiting new graduate students. The Provost said that the Housing unit runs as an auxiliary service and that we do not know if a graduate student housing endeavor can support itself. Unfortunately, it is not a part of the master plan. Provost Krendl said that one of the big things on the plan is to create gateways around campus. She said these would be along the lines of the gateway that one sees while approaching campus from Richland Avenue. These will serve to define the border of our campus. Josie and Pat noted that since the graduate housing initiative is not a part of the master plan, then it might not happen at all. Pat added that with the changes that took place at Mill Street, we lost the international community that considered that place home. The new development there does not include a park or playground for children. Provost Krendl agreed that the style of housing that caters the needs of graduate students and of students with families is very different from that of undergraduate students.
Duncan said that the idea of a website to help graduate students find housing is good, but it will take time, effort, and of course money to maintain it. David Drabold said that his friend who is a landlord prefers to rent his property to graduate students. Graduate students, he added are perceived as ‘low risk’ by the local landlords. The Provost asked if OU-COM already has a website, then by recreating that, we are duplicating it. Hans said that landlords who advertise on the OU-COM site have an implicit understanding that they are advertising to medical students. Duncan added that medical students also follow a different academic calendar from the graduate students.
The discussion then focused on the topic of combining the office of Research and Grants with the Office of Graduate Studies. She said that the search for a Vice President for Research is on hold for now and since Michael is leaving, it seems like a good time to have this discussion. She said that like with any such merger, there are advantages and disadvantages in combining the two offices. Members asked about the implications of the decision in the light of the possibility of a graduate college being established in the near future. Susan noted that budgetary concerns would need to be addressed, since the Research and Grants component is responsible for ‘money coming in’, and graduate programs do not necessarily bring in money or at least that kind of money. Angie expressed concern about the person being over extended in that job. She added that someone could be really good at the research and grants component of the job, but might not necessarily be a champion for graduate education. There seemed to be consensus about the importance of the two units working together more closely to facilitate and further the interests and growth of graduate students and graduate programs. However, there was concern that combining the positions might eliminate one site of advocacy for the broad goals of graduate education at Ohio University.
The Provost announced that Katie Tadlock is the new Interim Associate Provost for Graduate Studies. Katie will continue in this position till the end of fall quarter.
2. Approval of Minutes of the May meeting
The minutes from the May meeting were approved with a correction on page 4.
3. Chair’s Report (Duncan Brown)
A. New Members: Duncan informed members that there would be six vacancies this fall for the membership of Graduate Council. He said that each member is appointed for three years and has the choice to extend his/her term for another three years.
B. Language requirement for students of Center for International Studies: Duncan informed Graduate Council that he had spoken to Drew McDaniel, the Interim Director of International Studies, who told Duncan that the Heads of the Area Studies programs had approved the revised Graduate Catalog language on this requirement that Graduate Council had proposed earlier.
C. Thanks to Committee Chairs: Duncan thanked all the committee chairs for their work during the past year.
4. Remarks by Michael Mumper
Michael thanked all members of Graduate Council and particularly Duncan for being a great chairperson for the body. Michael said that the major initiative proposals submitted by the Deans for GERB will be sent to be reviewed and ranked. There is no commitment being made about the money yet.
5. Remarks by Katie Tadlock
A. Commencement: Katie reminded members that check in for commencement is at 8:30 on June 8th. She said that this year the candidates will be hooded by their advisors on the stage and will receive their diploma or the cover when they get off the stage. She added that this year the names of the doctoral candidates are not going to be a part of the script. They will be read off of cards being handed to the readers.
B. Graduate Catalog: Katie thanked all who had submitted changes to the catalog and said that those who had not been able to submit changes and updates can still do so by next week.
C. New Position: Katie informed members that a position for Assistant Director of Graduate Student Admissions Operations and Orientation has been posted.
6. Curriculum Committee (Chris Mattley)
A. Seven-Year Review of the Department of Philosophy: The committee recommended acceptance of the review. There were a couple of minor concerns; the course on Continental Philosophy did not meet the expectations, it did not deliver what it advertised. The other concern was about collegiality in the department, one reviewer used the word, ‘bully’. The chair and Dean are aware of it and have said that they will be mindful of that in the future.
B. Overview of the seven-year reviews: Chris brought everyone’s attention to the handout in the packet about recurring themes from the seven-year reviews that were presented this year. She said that she did not include any discipline specific issues. In response to Chester’s question, Duncan said that he will send it to the Provost after the UCC meeting this coming Tuesday.
7. Recruitment and Admission Requirements Committee (Yingjiao Xu):
Revised language on Conditional Admit Status: Members will vote electronically to accept or reject the proposal. The document presented today is not the final version of the proposed policy.
8. Policies and Regulations Committee (David Juedes for Lee Cibrowski):
Thesis and Dissertation Processing Proposals: David said a multiple number of formats for the processing of thesis and dissertations are being used at this point in time. It seems like a reasonable thing to streamline that process, he added. Michael addressed the recently raised issue of paying the $55 UMI fee for each of the dissertations being processed. He said that Graduate Student Services can absorb the cost for this year, but he cannot guarantee that it will be possible to do so the following year. It all depends on the budget he said. Donna said that having one format for all colleges might be troublesome for the students who have to include music notes in their documents. Angie responded that the consistency in the format is only for the front of the document and not for the content. Susan reminded everyone that we need to be mindful of the property rights of these documents. Members of Graduate Council on Michael’s recommendation approved the first three proposals. It was decided to hold off on the fourth one, which would need to be reevaluated next year based on the budget situation.
The three proposals that were approved were:
1. One set of Graduate Studies guidelines for formatting the front matter (for both paper and electronic documents) will be created and agreed upon by all colleges/departments/schools. Thesis and Dissertation (TAD) Services will work through the Associate Deans to create this document and seek approval.
2. Rather than submitting paper documents to Alden Library and electronic files to Graduate Studies, the submission and processing of all manuscripts, forms and paperwork will go through Graduate Studies, TAD Services.
3. To avoid identity theft and fraud issues, stop requiring students to place approval and abstract pages with signatures in the Library print copies and to stop uploading these same signatures to UMI (Dissertation Abstracts) for online viewing. (These same pages, with signatures, will be maintained by each college in the student’s permanent file).
9. Graduate Catalog Revisions (Katie Tadlock):
Katie requested members to look at the handout referring to these changes. She said that the proposal today simply clarifies the existing language and that there is no change in policy. Discussion ensued about the lack of consistency regarding registering for a given number of credit hours for the quarter in which a student is defending his/her dissertation/thesis. Katie noted that she will follow up on this electronically.
10. Multicultural Graduate Student Visitation (Eddith Dashiell):
Eddith noted that a more specialized and focused, discipline specific visitation might yield better results, like the ‘mini’ visitation. Members agreed that smaller groups of students visiting campus would be easy for departments to handle as well. Duncan said that the timing of the visitation usually coincides with the annual national conference of communication scholars. Catherine added that in having a small group come to campus, departments can have more say in who is invited. Hans said that it would facilitate pre-screening and thus help cut costs. Josie asked Eddith where she could have used more support. Eddith said that a full time position and another staff position would be very helpful. It is important to keep the institutional memory.
Michael informed Graduate Council that Eddith has accepted the position of Assistant Dean for undergraduate studies in the College of Communication.
Chester thanked Michael for everything that he had done to further the cause of graduate education in his tenure as the Associate Provost of Graduate Studies.
The meeting was adjourned at 5:15 pm.
Next meeting on September 14th, 2007 in the
Governance Room in Walter Hall.
