Attendance: Dominic Barbato, Patricia Beamish, Duncan Brown, Angie Bukley, Carolyn Cardenas, Donna Conaty, Aimee Howley, David Juedes, Hans Kruse, Christine Mattley, Michael Mumper, Chester Pach, Animesh Rathore, Joe Rota, Susan Sarnoff, Nihar Shah, Robert Staron, Katherine Tadlock, Maureen Weissenrieder, Yingjiao Xu, and Bill Rhinehart for Julia Zimmerman.
Excused: Catherine Axinn, Josie Bloomfield, Lee Cibrowski, John Day, David Drabold, Judith Edinger, Tim Heckman and David Mould
Convened: The meeting was convened at 2:10PM.
1. Approval of October Minutes:
Minutes of the October 13, 2006 meeting were approved. Duncan thanked Lisa Michna for doing an excellent job.
2. Chair’s Report (Duncan Brown)
- November Schedule: Duncan noted that the reason the November meeting is scheduled today instead of November 10, 2006 (the second Friday in November) is because November 10th was the holiday for Veterans Day. He said that this is a particularly bad time of the quarter for most faculty because of it being final’s week. He added that last year also Graduate Council faced the same issue of low attendance like today. He asked members if they were aware of the rule that was followed in identifying a day as a holiday for Veteran’s Day (November 11th) if it falls on a weekend. Angie said that she believes that if Veterans Day falls on a Saturday, then the preceding Friday is declared a holiday, whereas if it falls on a Sunday, the following Monday is declared a holiday. If Veteran’s Day falls on any other weekday, then that day is observed.
- Chair for January Meeting: Duncan informed members of his absence for the January meeting due to a conflict in his schedule. He will be away at a conference. He added that Chester will chair the meeting.
- Proposed Provost’s Visit: A potential visit by the Provost has been scheduled for the February meeting. Duncan said that some of the topics for discussion or questions of the Provost could focus on the Vision Ohio initiatives. He said that personally he would like to ask the Provost about the use of ad hoc committees versus existing committees. He noted that the institutional memory that Graduate Council possesses by virtue of its members is lost if all the committees are comprised of new members.
- Seven Year Reviews: An expedited seven year review was conducted for the first time. Duncan will send a letter to UCC noting the acceptance of the review. Duncan said that the procedure is not clear in the case of non-acceptance of a review. He said that he would try to glean some nuggets of information relevant to graduate education to better serve the interest of Graduate Council. He added that an item of interest in the review of Civil Engineering was the lost money; they lost a half time administrative position and one faculty line. In response to Maureen’s question, Duncan said that he was informed by Marty Tuck that the trustees now receive the entire packet not just the executive summary as was the custom in the recent past.
- Conflict of Interest: Duncan said that Julia informed him via email that the process to deal with the current case (Gary Ginther) is standard procedure. It has been dealt with in the past and there will be similar ones in the future as well, she added. Carolyn said that the way faculty senate drafted specific language about Group 1 faculty not being able to receive a terminal degree from their own college; perhaps there is a need to draft a policy about this as well. She added that once we have that, we could disseminate this to inform hiring; ensuring that we are being judicious in promising the kind of degree a future employee can receive. Duncan agreed and added that this might be a useful thing to do since these employees are a part of the administrative senate. Katie said that such cases have come up previously, where there were coaches supervising Graduate Assistants and the Environmental Health and Safety employee who had responsibility for all computer labs on campus.
3. Remarks by Michael Mumper
A. Recruiting: Michael informed Graduate Council that the recruiting season is now ending and the focus is now shifting to admission. He said that the focus will now be on the impact of the recruiting process. There was a 30% increase in the number of new students, but the data from Institutional Research does not match this. They will now look at the statistics country by country. Maureen asked about the criteria for choosing venues for recruiting. Michael responded that it is a combination of two major factors, departmental feedback and fair sites. He said that the process began by identifying four or five major geographical areas, East/South East Asia, Africa, India, China & the Middle East. The next step was to pick locations to fit our budget. Michael said that he knows that departments are interested in recruiting in Africa, but there are no tours or fairs in the countries that we want to go to. He said that he has had many conversations with Steve Howard about initiating a program there. Michael said it is critical to have an optimal balance among the target areas, our budget and departmental interests. Maureen asked if there is some information about interest in certain programs. Hans asked if there were any plans for looking at the success rates of the recruited students.
Michael said that it is not easy to identify why a person decided to attend Ohio University, it could be a result of the recruitment efforts or coincidence. Institutional Research has conducted a retention study for the first time for graduate students. Duncan said that the waiver of application fee for students applying through fairs could be a good tool to track the success of recruitment efforts. Michael said that is evidence of direct impact, but a significant amount of indirect impact also takes place. Animesh said that there are a large number of international students, particularly Indian students in the engineering disciplines and asked if OU was engaged in efforts to attract students in other disciplines. Michael said that the fairs are not discipline specific and that historically we have had program specific interests from certain countries.
B. Multicultural Recruitment: Michael informed Graduate Council that the multicultural recruitment efforts (the visitation was November 3rd to 5th) were very successful. He thanked all the departments for helping with it. He said that the visitation was attended by 125 students from 40 institutions. He added that this year the students came from a wider range of institutions than in previous years. Chester asked about the composition and criteria for defining the targeted groups. Michael said the groups are African-American, Hispanic, Native-American, Domestic Asian and Asian-Pacific Islanders. He added that there were not many Hispanics and Asian-Pacific Islanders. The event itself has a history of looking at African Americans, he said but we are expanding the focus. He noted that the idea is to keep up what was good in the old program while adding new dimensions to it. Chester asked about the process to track the recruits. Michael said that this process is easier compared to tracking recruits from international recruitment. For the multi-cultural visitation we have detailed information about everyone who visited the campus, hence making it easy to track them.
C. GERB: Michael told all members that the proposals for funds from the departments should go to the Dean’s Office. Department chairs can talk to their Associate Deans about it. In response to a question about the status of the Sports Administration program in China, Joe said that there has been a request for a site change from Beijing to Hong Kong.
D. Graduate Contracts: Michael said that he wanted to clarify the nature of graduate contracts. He said that there are three 11 week contracts, but some departments have the expectation that students should also work in December. He said that results in students not being paid for their work during winter break. He said it is one standard contract, but it is interpreted two different ways. Maureen said that the issue could be program specific, because if the contract is for a teaching assistantship, then work ends at the end of the quarter. But for something else requiring a lab situation, the work might not end at the end of the quarter. Also, she noted that she views the work performed and remuneration received more as a stipend for professional development and not as paid work. Michael said that departments should explain the contract clearly regarding the beginning and end dates and the nature of the payment.
E. IIP Review: Michael said that the IIP review was written five years ago. He said that before a recent meeting of the trustees he got a call from David Thomas (Chair of UCC) that they were sending that review forward and that in its current form, it would probably be rejected. Michael responded to Tom saying that the IIP has gone through a significant overhaul and that we should have a new review for it. This one would be earlier than the usual seven year period. This new evaluation can depict the changes made. Duncan said as far as he remembers it was the Ph.D. component that had issues, the Master’s program fared moderately well.
4. Remarks by Katie Tadlock
A. Policy on Three Year Degrees: Katie told Graduate Council that she attended a workshop about the implications of the Bologna agreement earlier this month which was sponsored by the Council of Graduate Schools and American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. She said that there is no consensus in Europe and U.S.A. regarding the evaluation of the new three-year bachelor’s degrees from the European Union. All U.S. schools are currently looking for direction in this matter from CGS and AACRAO. This is a bigger issue than it seems because it also has implications for the three year bachelor’s degrees from countries like India, Canada and Australia. Katie noted that one of the key things to remember is the difference in evaluation a degree for equivalence versus evaluation for admissibility. She said that this difference in the interpretation can be looked at in terms of someone who has a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from the US might be able to switch to a graduate program in say, Political Science because of the completion of general education requirement in the Bachelor’s degree. But, if a person has a three-year degree in a specific discipline (which is the case with the European degrees); it is harder to make the switch. There isn’t much difference in the fields of study pursued at the Bachelor’s level and wanting to pursue at the graduate level. Katie added that the decision made by Graduate Studies has implications for undergraduate studies as well because of the variance in secondary school credentials. The Bologna accord, on the one hand seeks to remove disparity in educational degrees in different regions of Europe as they become a cohesive federation. On the other hand, it leaves the U.S. schools to interpret these degrees as they deem fit for admitting students to their institutions. So far, there is no standardized response to this issue in the U.S. Maureen asked about the use of experimental evidence in resolving this issue. She noted that maybe some universities in the U.S. have demonstrated that certain degrees proved to be more adequate than the others. Katie responded saying that some schools have created new rules like having 1% or a certain number of admits can come from non-standardized educational credentials.
B. Graduate Student Housing Deposit: Katie said she wanted to let Graduate Council think about the need/feasibility for a housing deposit from admitted graduate students. She said that all new freshmen are required to pay it. Transfer and local students are exempt from this requirement. If the housing deposit is not paid, undergraduate students are not sent pre-college and other information. Katie said that by 2008 all undergraduates will be required to pay an enrollment/housing deposit. She said that it could be one of the items that Graduate Council could look at.
C. New Catalog: Katie informed Graduate Council that since this is the catalog revision year, more information on this issue will be coming soon.
D. Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools: Katie said that she has brought along nomination forms for the MAGS outstanding thesis awards.
5. Graduate Student Child Care Needs
A. Child Care Needs: (Wayne Chiasson represented the newly formed committee) A committee chaired by Terry Conry was formed by Provost Krendl to research childcare needs of faculty, staff and students. This is in response to the needs expressed by several Vision OH committees. Contact with the Chamber of Commerce and COAD (Corporation for Ohio Appalachian Development), which collects data on childcare in and around this area, was initiated. Human Resources will be posting a link for COAD on their website. Wayne said that most of the information that the committee has is anecdotal, like the waiting list at CDC. Soon, a survey will be distributed to assess the child care needs and the current situation. He added that another sub-committee is looking at RPFs of other proposal out there, like having a community forum attended by local providers and other interested parties. Wayne said that they have engaged in talks with the CDC and the College of Health and Human Services. He clarified that the committee is not trying to suggest competition with the CDC but to actually assess the need. Chester said that he is sure that there is a need, but is data being collected to assess the extent of that need. Wayne said they were hopeful of gathering that data and are planning on meeting with providers in our area. Chester also noted that the focus should not be the availability of services, but the cost and whether they would be affordable to graduate students. He also said that we would also need to look into the role the University can play in this matter. Hans brought up another relevant issue, location. If the facility is not easily accessible, it loses significance for graduate students. He also asked about the process in which the survey will reach graduate students. Katie said that the survey can be sent (electronically) to graduate students using her list.
Carolyn asked about the criteria to get on the CDC waiting list and the process in which the queue is maintained. She said that some people have talked about favoritism as well. Wayne said that this committee is independent of the CDC. Also, it is important to remember that the CDC is a teaching facility. Katie added that it is a laboratory operation versus a private daycare. To enhance and fulfill the teaching experience, the CDC needs to ensure that it has a wide representation of children of all ages. Hans also noted that another important aspect with the waiting list is that the graduate students do not have the luxury to plan ahead. They usually move into town a few weeks before the beginning of the quarter and are faced with the challenge of finding adequate child care. Wayne said that new faculty and administrators face the same challenges as well. Chester asked about the charge of the committee, besides collecting this very important data. Wayne said that the committee is supposed to make recommendations to the Provost about trying to fill a niche/need as identified by the data. In response to questions about the timeline, he said that they expect to have the survey completed by the beginning of March and then shortly thereafter make their recommendations. Duncan thanked Wayne for coming to the meeting and wished the committee well.
6. Recruitment and Admissions Requirements Committee
Conflict of Interest (Gary Ginther): Graduate Council discussed Gary’s case, which was not addressed at the October meeting. Maureen asked if Gary hires the student assistants who work in the department. Bill responded saying that for student hiring the budgets are allocated at the Dean or the Associate Dean level. Gary does not develop the budget, he authorizes time sheets. Carolyn noted that it was their understanding that Gary does not have the authority to hire students. Bill added that one student could potentially work in many different departments in the library, hence could have more than one supervisor. The overlapping supervision reduces the likelihood of anyone trying to misuse their supervisory power. Graduate Council approved Gary’s case and noted that the committee could work with Julia on creating some guidelines about similar cases to guide future course of actions.
7. Curriculum Committee
Graduate Council approved program reviews for Civil Engineering, Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, and Physical Therapy. Discussion centered on the new expedited process used to accomplish this. Hans said that there might be some merit in pulling out some nuggets of specific information that might be beneficial to the reports. Chris noted that it also might be beneficial to revisit the reviews at the end of this year to look for any emerging patterns.
Adjourned: The meeting was adjourned at 3:50pm. The next meeting is on January 12, 2007, from 2 to 4pm in the Governance Room in Walter Hall.
