Attendance: Dominic Barbato, Patricia Beamish, Josephine Bloomfield, Duncan Brown, Angie Bukley, Lee Cibrowski, John Day, Judith Edinger, Aimee Howley, 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, Katherine Tadlock, Maureen Weissenrieder, and Yinjiao Xu,.
Excused: Catherine Axinn, Carolyn Cardenas, Donna Conaty, David Drabold, Tim Heckman, and Julia Zimmerman.
Guest: Angie McCutcheon
Convened: The meeting was convened at 2:10 pm.
1. Approval of Minutes of the April meeting
The minutes from the April meeting were approved.
2. Chair’s Report (Duncan Brown)
A. Michael Mumper: Duncan congratulated Michael for accepting a new position outside of OU and said that everyone would miss him.
B. Revision in IELTS scores: Duncan informed Graduate Council that after last month’s meeting, Scott Jarvis revised the document and it is in today’s packet. He added that Katie will send it to all the graduate chairs and will incorporate it in other relevant print and web documents.
C. Program Reviews: Before the June meeting the program review for Philosophy will be available online.
D. MBA program in China: Duncan informed members that the Registrar’s office will be able to make a notation on the transcripts that the program was not conducted in English.
E. Multicultural Visitation: At the June meeting, Duncan informed members that Eddith Dashiell will provide an update about the multicultural visitation. Chester asked if we have any data about the number of applications received and number admitted. Michael said that we have data and that he will ask Eddith to bring that. He added that we have data going back several years.
F. June Meeting: Duncan reminded members that the next meeting will be on the first Friday and it is from 3 to 5 pm.
G. Membership: Duncan told members that those members who have served one three year term are eligible for an extension. The Chair of the committee on committees of the Faculty Senate is responsible for appointment of members to Graduate Council.
H. Graduate Affairs and Fellowships: Out of the seventeen nominations received for named fellowships five winners were announced last week. In response to questions about the amount of the scholarship, Katie said that there is a proposal to underwrite the general fees for all of the winners. That will amount to about six thousand dollars.
3. Remarks by Michael Mumper
A. Update about replacement: Michael said that he will be leaving at the end of June. He said that the Provost has said that she will make an announcement about someone taking over as interim for six months. She will then have a search in the Fall to fill the position from January 1, 2008. Michael also said that this brings to light another issue that has been talked about in the recent past. He said that there are three possible ways to handle the administrative structure, first is to continue with the present structure, second is to merge the research operations with graduate studies—the way it was in the past, and third is to create a Graduate College and the Dean of the College would then report to the Provost, like other Deans do. Chester asked if this decision will be made independently by the Provost. Michael said the creation of a Graduate College cannot be accomplished without the approval of the Board of Trustees, but the Provost does have the authority to change reporting lines. Chester asked if there had been any more discussion about the creation of the Graduate College. Michael said that creation of the College comes with a price tag and there are all the issues about graduate stipends, housing problems, and high health insurance.
B. Budget update: Michael said that the most recent article in the Post about funding from the GERB was a little misleading. He said that three competitions were held. The money allocated for the future growth fund was allocated as decided. The funds for program development were all disbursed per plan. The major initiatives are on hold, because of the budget shortfall. Other than that, everything went as planned.
C. Fee waivers: He said that we need to rethink the way we grant fee waivers. We need to make adjustments in the process to ensure that we do not spend more than the allocated budget on fee waivers. Angie asked if we would have the same amount of money to make offers towards tuition scholarships for next year. She added that if departments are encouraged to recruit, and if we do not have enough money to offer assistantships, it makes it difficult to do so. Michael said that he did not think that the amount offered for assistantships would change. He said that the two areas where we overspent are the non-resident surcharge and fee waivers for research scholars. Discussion ensued about how departments could find out the money they have to offer to graduate students. That is important information to have while writing contracts. Joe said that Graduate Council can bring to the attention of the Provost about recruitment costs. Our numbers are up and more students means more services, and issues about retention and it is not possible to continue recruitment initiatives based on one time only monies.
D. ETD: Michael said that Angie McCutcheon is here today to provide an update on the ETD process. He said that the name is being changed to Thesis and Dissertation Services, given the larger role of the unit in that process. And, that the unit is moving to Haning Hall in June. Josie asked if a Graduate College is created, would it still be located at McKee and would it be possible to have all functions in one location. Michael said that the discussion about having a Graduate College has never reached a point close enough to where it was felt that space issued needed to be addressed.
4. Remarks by Katie Tadlock
A. Graduate Student Orientation: Katie informed members that the new graduate student orientation will be held on August 30th, 2007. She said that we will follow the same format like last year, where we had an information session and then a service fair. The Service fair will run from 12 to 4. Katie said that she will send information to all graduate chairs in the coming week about it. She said that in the first week of July all departments will receive a list of their admitted students. This will help identify any students who were admitted, but decided not to come and informed the department and not Graduate Studies.
B. Graduate Catalog: Katie informed members that the deadline for the draft of the graduate catalog is June 1st, 2007 and that it will follow the same ACALOG system like the undergraduate catalog.
5. Curriculum Committee (Christine Mattley)
The curriculum committee recommended approval of the review of the graduate part of the Visual Communication program. Graduate Council voted in favor of accepting the recommendation.
Judith reminded everyone that earlier in the year members had talked about identifying recurring themes from reviews to be brought to the attention of UCC. Duncan said that it would be a good idea to follow up and he would do so.
6. Recruitment and Admissions Requirement Committee (Yingjiao Xu):
Yingjiao brought everyone’s attention to the handout in the packet that shows the changes being made to the policy on conditional admission. She said that the main concern of members was that the policy was being interpreted differently and that is why they recommend adding the specific language about consequences if the conditions are not met. Discussion ensued about the time limit that students have to demonstrate that they have met the conditions. Of particular interest and concern are students who test into OPIE and sometimes take only one graduate course per quarter. For such students Chester said it would mean that they are on the conditional status for almost a year. Katie said that admission to a graduate degree program is only good for one year. Also, admission can be deferred for only one year as well. After one year, a new application is required. Joe added that the conditional admit status and admission to OPIE has implications for visa issuance as well. He said that in a recent meeting with a consular officer in Turkey he was told that it is better for an institution to grant conditional admission to a graduate degree program in cases where students require intensive English language training. Admission to graduate programs facilitates visa approval.
Graduate Council voted in favor of accepting the changes made in the language and the inclusion of two paragraphs with the inclusion of the words, ‘after 12 months’ in the last sentence of the last paragraph. It was also decided that the committee could bring the revised wording to the next meeting for final approval.
7. Policies and Regulations Committee (Lee Cibrowski)
Lee brought everyone’s attention to the handout in the packet about language coursework and transfer of graduate credit. David asked about a department’s right over the content relevant to them in the graduate catalog, since the proposed change affects the Center for International Studies. Duncan said that they would ask Drew McDaniel for a letter approving the change. Maureen asked about the call numbers that would be used to designate courses not offered at OU. Duncan said that he would ask Drew for the same as well and that Graduate Council could then take this up at the next meeting.
8. Planning and Strategy Committee (Chester Pach)
In the interest of time, discussion about the graduate housing issue was not taken upon. Chester informed members about the memo in today’s packet that discusses graduate housing. Dominic asked if it would be possible to have some sort of a room mate selection feature on the website that will provide housing information. Judith said that the OUCOM site does not have that feature. Duncan also noted that the memo does not mention the transportation issue. Chester said that he will add that to the document. Josie added that one of the questions that members were going to ask the Provost during her visit was about the recommendation for graduate housing that came from the implementation teams but was not reflected on the master plan.
9. Information Item—Electronic Thesis and Disserations (Angie McCutcheon)
Angie provided an update to members about the ETD process. She said that since it’s inception in 2001, we are now up to 84% of students submitting electronically. She said that a preliminary survey that she conducted of 12 institutions in the sate, 10 of them require their students to file their theses and dissertations electronically. She brought everyone’s attention to the recommendations that she is proposing to streamline the process even further. One of the recommendations is about the $55 UMI fee that the library had been paying so far, but will not be doing so any more. The library is transferring that fee to Graduate Studies. Angie said that she is requesting that students be asked to pay that fee. Another recommendation that Angie said she would like to make is to have one template or one set of guidelines to eliminate confusion for the students.
Discussion about checking documents for plagiarism ensued. Angie Bukley said that the College of Engineering is using software for plagiarism checks and she said that she highly recommends all colleges to do the same. Also, the College of Engineering has since September 2005 required electronic submission of documents. In response to questions from members about online publication of materials and its implications for patents and original research, Angie said that there is a large period of time between the approval of a document and its availability online. She added that dissertations from this quarter will not available online until late Fall.
Nihar expressed dissatisfaction about the recommendation to transfer the UMI fee to students. He added that students already pay many other fees and it is not fair to add yet another fee for them. Discussion ensued about the best possible way to handle the fee. Chester asked if it is possible to have only the students who intend to file paper documents pay it. Nihar said that most students are willing to file electronically and if their departments want to use paper, then the fee should be absorbed by the department.
Michael said that it seems like we should talk about it on campus and get feedback from students and faculty and the administrators in all Colleges. We can then bring it back to Graduate Council for discussion.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:15 pm. The next meeting is on June 1st, 2007 in the Governance Room in Walter Hall from 3 to 5 pm.
