Attendance: James Archibald, Catherine Axinn, Sergiu Aizicovici, Joseph Bernt, Rathindra Bose, Gary Chleboun, John Day Howard Dewald, Judith Edinger, Kamile Geist, Jennifer Hines, Jennifer Horner, Aimee Howley, David Juedes, Hans Kruse, Jody Lamb, Jan Maxwell, Brian McCarthy, David Mould, Stephan Oechsle, William Shambora, Robert Staron, Katherine Tadlock, Gary Weckman, Dan Weiner and Peter Wickman.
Excused: JoAnn Dugan, Andrew Escobedo, Keith Gilland and Jim Rankin.
Guests: Robert Judd and David Koonce
Convened: The meeting was convened at 2:10 pm.
1. Approval of Minutes of the April 10th meeting
The minutes from the April 10th, 2009 meeting were approved.
2. Chair’s Report (David Juedes)
- Task force on Centers of Excellence: David informed members that he sent a memo to the Provost about the availability of the report of the Task Force online. The final report is posted on the EVPP web-site and will be available till the end of May. Per Graduate Council’s motion of last month, the report has been taken off the Graduate College website.
- History of the Graduate Council and the Graduate College: David mentioned that over the past month, he has had a chance to examine some of the history of the Graduate Council and the Graduate College. He mentioned that the University Archives contains a number of documents related to the old Graduate College and the Graduate Council. David mentioned the following bits of information regarding the Graduate Council and the Graduate College from the 1970s. First, David mentioned that in the 1970's the members of the Graduate Council were selected by the committee on committees in consultation with the Dean of the (old) Graduate College. David also mentioned that in the 1970's, the Graduate Student Contract Grievance Board was a standing committee of the Graduate Council. Finally, David mentioned that, in the 1970's, the criteria for being a member of the Graduate Faculty listed education, scholarly attainments and research, and experience.
- Graduate Commencement: David informed members that he has forwarded the resolution passed at the last meeting to the Provost.
3. Remarks by Rathindra Bose, Jennifer Hines and Katie Tadlock
- Student Recruitment: Jennifer Hines informed members that efforts are underway to increase diversity in the graduate student body. She added that Brian Bridges is working on that and Dan Weiner is involved with the efforts for increasing international enrollment. To further the goals of increased enrollment via recruiting, she added, she is discussing options with Andrea Gibson to create some unified recruitment materials. These could be in the form of e-brochures or paper materials.
- Application Restructuring Process: Jennifer Hines informed members that Katie is heading the application restructuring process at the Graduate College. It is anticipated that Contact Manager—a document tracking software will be ready for use by summer. This software uses the College Net online system, which we use for the online application.
- E-Admissions: Jennifer said that even though the e-admissions project received the highest priority rating by ATAG, we have still not been able to get started. She said that the technology team that is supposed to be working with us is currently completing a project and once that is done, they will be able to start ours. The e-admissions process will make the entire admissions process paperless. All the documents received by the Graduate College will be scanned and thus will be available electronically. Jennifer said that the staff at the Graduate College is working on cleaning out old files, so that they can be scanned and appropriately archived. She said this will be very helpful when the staff moves to RTECH in the fall.
- Newsletter: Jennifer informed members that a newsletter for graduate students is underway and Andrea Gibson is working with focus groups of students about what they would like to see in that.
- Call numbers for courses offered at the regional campuses that are not part of an approved outreach program: Jennifer informed members that the RD (resource distribution) call numbers for programs and courses offered at the regional campuses are generated by the Graduate College. Katie added that during Michael Mumper’s last year as Associate Provost, the Provost had asked him to work with the regional campuses to streamline and centralize the process of assigning call numbers for the courses offered by them. Rathindra said that it is important for the Graduate College to capture student data, even if the class is offered online and it is important to have oversight to ensure quality control. In response to Howard’s question, Jennifer said that about two to three requests are received every quarter for individual courses that are not part of an approved outreach program and are not workshops. She added, that is best to have a mechanism in place and a process that is clear to everyone involved. David suggested that the Policy and Procedures committee look into this issue and develop a policy for the Graduate College to follow.
- Research Expo: Rathindra encouraged everyone to attend the Research Expo next week.
- Migration of student email accounts: Rathindra informed members that he spoke with Brice Bible about the issues surrounding graduate student with respect to FERPA because many current graduate students have teaching responsibilities. Because of that discussion, the process of migration for graduate student email accounts was placed on hold until that issue can be resolved.
- ADR Subcommittee recommendations: Rathindra asked John Day to discuss the recommendations of the Associate Deans for Research committee concerning tuition fee waivers and related matters. The discussion focused on the tuition waiver budget of $1.5 million. It was noted that the money is usually overspent. It was recommended that the amount budgeted for these items reflect the actual usage. John said that the new budget would reflect the non-resident fee waivers that are used every year. There are other enrollment issues that need to be worked out as well. Rathindra said that some institutions have a different tuition rate for post-candidacy students. He said that would not be applicable to students in professional programs. But, a different formula to charge fees to students who are post-candidacy might even work as an incentive to have students complete their dissertations.
John and Rathindra impressed upon members that some of the waiver money is real money and it is important to not overspend on these. Rathindra said that a capacity survey will be conducted for each department. He said that the survey has 14 questions and he would like Graduate Council to look at it before it is sent to the departments. Joe said that in the past it was possible for students to get stipends from administrative units as long as the tuition waiver came from the department. Hans said that many programs like his have a mix of fee paying and supported students and it would not be the best idea to pigeon hole programs either as those that have only fee paying student or those that support their students.
Rathindra informed members that this will be discussed at Graduate Council at length since a multitude of details need to be looked at. He thanked the committee for their work thus far.
- Student Dismissal from an academic program: Katie brought members attention to the issue at hand. She informed members that the procedure that needs to be followed when a student is dismissed is not spelled out carefully in the Graduate Catalog. A standard procedure needs to be in place to ensure due process for the student. Also, a standard for separation dates needs to be in place as well for international students. Judith said that OUCOM has its own policies and that the recommendations made by the Policy and Procedures committee would not be applicable to those students. In response to David’s question about the number of such cases that are handled every year, Katie said that it is usually very few. Rathindra said that this is particularly important in the case of international students since there are SEVIS compliance issues that come into play. Katie said that there are legal implications as well; if a student sues a department then it is even harder to resolve. Howard said that the language in the catalog is long past due for standardization. David suggested that the Policy and Procedures committee look into this issue and develop a policy for the Graduate College to follow. This will likely happen next academic year.
- Signature Pages for Theses and Dissertations: Angie McCutcheon told members that the signature pages in a thesis and dissertation are not really required for the completion of that process. She said that over 90% of their documents are being submitted electronically and moreover 65% of the students are not here when they graduate, thus making the requirement of the signature pages even more difficult to handle. Angie said that the TAD office requests that these two pages be removed from the TAD process; it can still be a part of the process at the academic College, if so desired. She said that eliminating these two pages, will reduce the amount of paper used and will cut down on the number of signatures required from a Dean. She said that the oral defense form is used as the form that signifies complete approval process at the college for a thesis or a dissertation.
The motion to approve the request that the abstract and title pages that require the Dean’s and advisor’s signatures not be required to complete the thesis and dissertation approval process was passed.
4. New Business
- Curriculum Committee (John Day)
i. Master of Engineering Management Proposal: Before John Day discussed the merits of the proposed program, David informally asked members whether anyone knew if the standard for these types of items was one or two readings. David mentioned that he could not find in the minutes from the last several years any new programs that have come up for a vote. He asked Joe if this requires one or two readings at Graduate Council. Joe said that if there are problems and concerns that need to be addressed, then two readings are required, but that normally only one reading was required. John Day then presented the new program proposal for discussion. John mentioned that the Curriculum Committe supported the new program. Dan Weiner asked whether some of the classes were taught by the College of Business. He said that if so, then it would strengthen the interdisciplinary nature of the program. Robert said that the Business Law course will be taught by the College of Business faculty.
Graduate Council voted in favor of the Curriculum committee’s recommendation of accepting the proposal. Robert thanked the members of the committee and Graduate Council for their work.
ii. Seven year review for Chemical Engineering: The Curriculum Committee of the Graduate Council recommended an expedited review for this program. As such, David has forwarded the proposal to UCC without a vote of the council.
- Graduate Student Affairs and Fellowships Committee (Gary Chleboun):
Gary informed members that 21 nominations were submitted, these were almost twice as many from previous years. David clarified that due to budget constraints this year only four fellowships were awarded, instead of five. Gary recommended that the wording on the information seeking nominations be clarified and proposed the use of ‘department/school’ versus ‘graduate degree program’. The committee also recommended increasing the page limit for the project plan from one to two pages. The committee also recommended posting the specifics of each award on the website.
Jennifer Hines asked about students being nominated for these fellowships if they are enrolled in interdisciplinary programs like the MCB program. Howard clarified that the student always has a home department and they are considered students of that department. Hans said that maybe the more important issue is to identify if each department has a process to handle this. Joe said that the process always begins with a faculty member nominating a student. Brian agreed with that saying that the information is sent to all faculty members, so students enrolled in interdisciplinary programs also have the same opportunities as others.
Discussion also focused on the names of the fellowships and if the names convey an unintentional message of a fellowship being associated with a particular area of study. Howard said that students make these associations and that the names just represent faculty who taught at OU and now they are all deceased. Katie agreed that it is a presumed association on the part of students and that all students have the same opportunities. She added that there is no foundation money associated with these fellowships and that they are a part of the Graduate College operating budget. David said that memos from the Graduate Council have been sent to the Provost annually to increase the amount of these fellowships, but no new money has been added to them. Joe said that this seems like a good opportunity for the foundation to talk to the families of the professors for whom these fellowships are named to see if some money can be raised to add to the existing amounts.
Graduate Council voted in favor of accepting the committee’s recommendations for the awards. The Council also voted to approve the clarification of the language for department versus graduate program and increasing the page limit of the project plan.
- Recruitment and Admissions Requirements Committee (Catherine Axinn)
i. Minimum TOEFL: Catherine informed members that the purpose of the proposed policy is to set a floor for graduate admissions. Discussion focused on students who test twice and do not receive similar scores. Aimee said that it seems that when someone is tested twice we tend to accept the lower score as the real score. She recommended we use an error band around a score. William said that would be feasible if there was no bias. In response to Aimee’s question about bias, William said that cheating on the test would be one. Catherine said that the issue is about replication of the score and students who score 600 or higher usually replicate the score on the second testing as well. Joe said that he uses the verbal score on the GRE score to get some more information about the English proficiency of the applicant. Katie added that the TOEFL test has changed in the last few years and the iBT is a better predictor than the paper based test. The iBT is a combined test, thus it incorporates the writing and speaking components as well. She said that departments retain the ability to retest anyone and to test them for writing as well. Dan said that this process should be standardized at the department level. In response to Sergiu’s question about OPIE courses not counting towards registration requirements for graduate students on an assistantship, Katie clarified that all of those courses are now designated as ELIP courses. Thus, all ELIP courses count towards registration requirements.
Graduate Council voted in favor of accepting the revised TOEFL policy with amendments about retesting. The new language thus reads, “All students may be tested for academic writing proficiency upon arrival. Individual departments may require on campus English proficiency testing for any student for whom English is not a native language. Failure to achieve a passing score may result in dismissal from the program.”
ii. Bologna Accord Degrees: Catherine informed members that many US universities accept the Bologna compliant degrees as US Bachelor’s equivalent. In response to Joe’s question about what signifies compliance with a Bologna degree, Katie said that all students receive a diploma supplement. This diploma supplement provides information about the nature and duration of the program pursued and future admissibility to other programs.
Graduate Council voted in favor of accepting the committee’s recommendation to recognize Bologna compliant degrees as US Bachelor’s equivalent.
- Planning and Strategy: David passed out the draft of a memo to the Provost that detailed suggestions for how to change Commencement to recognize the Graduate College. Hans also presented the first reading of a resolution regarding the continuity of Graduate Council Functions over the summer. This will come up for a final reading at the next meeting.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:10 pm. The next meeting is on June 5th, 2009 from 3 to 5 pm, in Baker 230.
