Attendance: Catherine Axinn, Sergiu Aizicovici, Joseph Bernt, Rathindra Bose, John Day Howard Dewald, Judith Edinger, Kamile Geist, Jennifer Hines, David Juedes, Tracy Kelly, Hans Kruse, Jody Lamb, Wanda Weinberg for Jan Maxwell, William Shambora, Katherine Tadlock, Dan Weiner and Peter Wickman.

Excused: James Archibald, Gary Chleboun, JoAnn Dugan, Andrew Escobedo, Keith Gilland Jennifer Horner, Aimee Howley, Brian McCarthy, David Mould, Stephan Oechsle, Jim Rankin, Robert Staron, Gary Weckman.

Guests: Jeff Giesey

Convened: The meeting was convened at 3:10 pm.

1.     Approval of Minutes of the May 8^th meeting

The minutes from the May 8^th 2009 meeting were approved.

2.     Chair’s Report (David Juedes)

1. Graduate Commencement: David informed members that he forwarded the memo regarding potential changes to Graduate Commencement for this year to the Provost.  He added that due to the lack of time before the ceremony for this year, the appropriate changes to the commencement ceremony and the Graduate Diplomas will be made next year. 

2. New TOEFL policy and Bologna Accord Degrees: David said that he has sent a memo to the Provost regarding these two policies.  He added that in the memo he indicated that the Graduate College planned to implement the changes immediately unless there was an objection from the Provost. 

3. Q2S Issues: David said that he has invited Jeff Giesey, one of the coordinators of the Q2S to the meeting today; adding that feedback from the Council will be helpful to the Q2S transition team. 

3.     Remarks by Jennifer Hines and Katie Tadlock

Tuition Scholarship System Recommendations: Jennifer Hines informed members that Rathindra has put together a committee of Associate Deans of Research to look into the issues pertaining to tuition scholarships.  She drew everyone’s attention to the document in today’s packet that outlines the implementation plan.  She encouraged everyone to look at the report to understand why the committee came up with these recommendations.  She said that the first item has been implemented. 

Discussion ensued about the standardization of the 695 and 895 courses.  Jennifer Hines pointed out that these call numbers are not used consistently across the programs.  Joe Bernt said that some students in Journalism take 895 in the first quarter of their program.  Jennifer Hines said that that is why the standardization of course designations would be helpful.  She said one model could be that students take courses designated as 695 pre-candidacy and 895 post-candidacy.  She said that she is aware that standardization involves procedural as well as curricular issues.  Pete Wickman said that many students do not enroll over the summer because the fees are too high and the stipend does not offset a lot of those fees.  He also added that some students would stay for the summer if it was possible for the nine month stipend to be paid over a 12 month period. 

Jennifer Hines said that one another item that the ADR subcommittee would review is the Graduate Faculty status.  She added that this was one of the recommendations of the task force for the establishment of the Graduate College.  Howard noted that Graduate Faculty status is handled differently at all institutions.  At some places it is merely in name, whereas at others it is very elaborately described.  It seems to come across as divisive sometimes, he added.  Rathindra noted that at most institutions individual units or departments developed their guidelines within the purview of the prevailing academic culture.  He said that there are sometimes three categories of Graduate Faculty status: provisional (all new faculty fall under this), full, and senior.  He added that it is thus a very inclusive process.  He said that at Northern Illinois University, they had a very centralized graduate college of 6500 students.  However, at OU there is a greater degree of decentralization.  Joe Bernt said that it might be helpful to have a discussion about this at the Council meetings rather than just the Associate Deans deciding the process.  Rathindra reassured members that the idea is not to bypass faculty in this decision making process.  David Juedes suggested that for the next academic year, a subcommittee of this body could look at this issue.  In response to David Juedes’ comment about Faculty senate not having a policy about this, Joe Bernt responded saying that this policy exists in every college.  David Juedes added that Jennifer Horner found a memo about this from 1989 noting that the Provost approved that each College would keep this information about the roles and responsibilities of graduate faculty.  Joe Bernt added that sometimes it is the perception of how a process takes place.  Having something like this be built from ground up is better; hence the talks should begin at faculty level.  Rathindra said that there is no intention to force the outcome upon faculty; this will be accomplished through a legitimate process with ownership of the details at the unit level.     

Jennifer said that over the summer she will send emails to all departments about the enrollment capacity analysis.                

4.     New Business

1. Recruitment and Admissions Requirements Committee (Catherine Axinn)

Graduate Council voted in favor of accepting the committee’s recommendations about Lori Lammert’s conflict of interest case with the correction of the spelling of her last name.    

2. Planning and Strategy Committee (Hans Kruse)

Resolution regarding continuity of Graduate Council Functions

Hans clarified that over the summer many faculty do not have appointments so it is hard to find members to continue the functions.  Graduate Council voted in favor of the resolution brought forward by the committee pertaining to the functions of the council over summer. 

3. Policies and Regulations Committee (David Juedes for Jennifer Horner)  

i.      Minimum hours for Masters and Doctoral programs under semesters: Members discussed the issues regarding providing clarification in Graduate Catalog regarding minimum hours enrolled per semester.  Howard said that the 45 hours and 135 credit hour requirement is seen across many programs.  Catherine Axinn added though each program has its own requirements, enrolling in 15 credits per quarter is pretty standard.  Joe Bernt said that Faculty Senate approved that the undergraduate classes will be three credits worth.  Jeff Giesey said that no standardization has yet been established for graduate courses and the three credit hour applies to undergraduate courses on the Athens campus.  Joe Bernt said that even if the credit hour requirement is set, making a schedule is difficult.  Jeff Giesey said that a UCC group is working on that issue.  Discussion focused on the loose and/or ambiguous nature of the course credits.  Rathindra said that there are many issues that come into play regarding setting the number of credit hours for a course.  It depends on the faculty work load, availability of class rooms, specific course requirements, etc.  

Hans and others brought members attention to the language in the memo in the packet for today stating that it should not read, ‘be it resolved’.  He added that since this will be in the catalog, it does not need to note that.  However, it was eventually concluded that the term “be it resolved” referred to the corresponding Faculty Senate resolution, and that the original wording should remain unchanged.   Howard said that the catalog is not consistent about noting the 135 hour requirement for a doctoral degree.  Dan Weiner asked if the 45 and 135 hours are considered a good standard for masters and doctoral degrees respectively.  Hans said that they are fairly common in schools that run on a quarter system.  Rathindra said that 30 and 90 hours respectively are usually considered the standard in schools that operate on a semester system.  Members voted in favor of suspending a second reading of this to enable a vote today. 

Graduate Council voted in favor (15-1) of the memo noting the minimum hours required for masters and doctoral degrees to be 30 and 90, respectively.  David asked that the minutes include a note concerning the wording in the Graduate Catalog for semesters.  David said that the wording in the Graduate Catalog should indicate that these are absolute minimum values, and that many graduate programs require more than the minimum number of hours.  

ii.     Responsible conduct of Research/Thesis scans for copyright material: David clarified that this is an informational item only.  He added that this has been talked about at earlier meetings and a subcommittee will be looking at some of these issues like electronic checks for copyright violations.  It will be helpful to have a central repository of documentation of such actions.   

4. Q2S Discussion:  Jeff Giesey informed members that the transition team has not focused on graduate courses and graduate degree programs at this point in time.  Rathindra asked members if they had heard concerns about change in the way yoked courses are offered.  He said that some program chairs have indicated that the number of cross-listed courses offered will be reduced.  That will compromise the ability of the programs to address the needs of their graduate students.  John Day said that this seemed like an issue about offering service courses.  In response to questions about the distribution of workload for such courses Jeff Giesey said that sometimes the graduate class is offered as one more credit hour than the undergraduate class.  Joe Bernt added that it also pertains to the number of contact hours and the graduate students will typically have an extra hour for a seminar.  He also noted that the switch to semesters will involve a lot more pressure on our resources.  Dan Weiner noted that these concerns should be expressed to UCC and this seems like an opportunity to resolve some issues.   David Juedes noted that many of these types of issues are the purview of UCC who approves the specifics of individual courses.

David Juedes said that there will be some scheduling issues as well.  He said that classes that do not fit the one and a half hour class twice a week or one hour classes three times a week, are probably going to get a lower priority for classroom assignments.  Hans Kruse said that most of the classes in his department are four hour classes.  Jeff Giesey suggested that having a joint committee of members from UCC and the Graduate Council might be helpful in this regard.  He also said that most of these issues are department and school based.  Dan Weiner said that it is however, important to remember to take into account interdisciplinary programs in this transition.  He added that the issue of service courses is of more concern to these programs.  Howard added that since the number of times a course is offered will be reduced and Master’s students might have to wait a whole year before they can take a specific class will have implications on stipends as well.  Hans Kruse added that currently it is possible to complete their program in one year, but with the switch, it will take a year and a half and to be able to fund students for the entirety of their programs will reduce the total number of students who can be funded. 

Hans Kruse said that there should be an appeals process in place for students who feel that the transition hindered the completion of their program.  All of these items will be taken up for discussion during the next academic year.  

The meeting was adjourned at 4:55 pm. 

Tentative Dates, time and locations for meetings for the 2009-2010 year:

10/9/2009 Fri	2:00 PM	4:00 PM	BUC 239
11/13/2009 Fri	2:00 PM	4:00 PM	BUC 239
1/15/2010 Fri	2:00 PM	4:00 PM	BUC 239
2/12/2010 Fri	2:00 PM	4:00 PM	BUC 239
3/12/2010 Fri	2:00 PM	4:00 PM	BUC 239
4/9/2010 Fri	2:00 PM	4:00 PM	BUC 239
5/14/2010 Fri	2:00 PM	4:00 PM	BUC 239
6/4/2010 Fri	3:00 PM	5:00 PM	BUC 239