Graduate Council Meeting Minutes
October 10, 2008
Attendance: James Archibald, Catherine Axinn, Joseph Bernt, Rathindra Bose, Kelly Broughton, Gary Chleboun, John Day, Howard Dewald, JoAnn Dugan, Judith Edinger, Andrew Escobedo, Kamile Geist, Jennifer Horner, David Juedes, Hans Kruse, Jody Lamb, Jim Rankin, Willem Roosenburg, Josep Rota, and Katherine Tadlock.
Excused: Annette Graham, Aimee Howley, Brian McCarthy, David Mould, Stephan Oechsle, William Shambora, Robert Staron, Gary Weckman, and Peter Wickman.
Guests: Ming Li and Ben Ogles.
Convened: The meeting was convened at 2:10 pm.
1. Approval of Minutes of the June meeting
The minutes from the June 6th, 2008 meeting were approved.
2. Chair’s Report (David Juedes)
David welcomed all members to the first meeting of Graduate Council.
A. Task Force on Centers of Excellence: David noted that as co-chair of this Task Force he has been involved in this on-going effort. He said that he has invited Dean Ogles to the meeting today to provide some information about the progress and plan for evaluation of graduate programs.
B. Graduate College: David informed members that yesterday he had a very productive meeting with Dr. Bose, the Dean of the Graduate College. He said that Dr. Bose expressed his support for this body and would like to see the Graduate Council be more involved in decision making processes regarding the review and evaluation of graduate programs.
C. Business for the upcoming year: David indicated that like other years, this year also there will be some seven year reviews and conflict of interest cases that will be presented to Graduate Council. He added that there is a new international agreement that needs to be reviewed as well. He added that since he did not find out about the final membership of this body until yesterday, it does not leave enough time for processing items that get accumulated over the summer. To resolve that, he recommended two possible approaches. The first approach would be to decide on standing committee memberships for continuing members during spring quarter. That way, if new items needed a vote, they could be voted upon during the first meeting. The second possible approach would be to recommend that Faculty Senate and the President’s Office appoint new members of the Graduate Council during spring quarter.
3. Remarks by Katie Tadlock
A. Preliminary Enrollment: Katie informed members that preliminary numbers show that enrollment is up by 4% from 3149 to 3272 from last fall.
B. RACGS: Katie informed members that the proposal for the MS in Athletic Training is on the schedule for the October meeting.
C. Associate Dean: Katie informed members that Dr. Jenny Hines has been named the Associate Dean of the Graduate College. Her first day in this new position was October 1st.
D. Front Desk: Katie informed members that Malinda Handy, who used to be the front desk staff person at Graduate Studies has accepted a position at another institution. So, at this point in time, the office is operating without a designated front desk staff person.
E. Initiatives for 2008-2009: For the upcoming academic year, there are a few new initiatives that the Graduate College is seeking to implement. One of them is an online tracking system for applications; the other is to move to a paperless system by adopting the OnBase Scanning software. The third one involves a difference in the way international transcripts will be processed. The materials will be sent to departments without a GPA calculation. The preliminary evaluation will include information about degree equivalencies, whether documents are official or not, and if the institution attended is accredited in the home country or not. Once the department has a short list of applicants they are interested in, they can request a GPA calculation. This will facilitate a faster turnaround time from the Graduate College to the departments.
Joe Bernt expressed concern about this, since some transcripts are not very easy to read, given all the different systems of education and the various formats of recording courses and grades earned. He added that the GPA is helpful to them in making admission decisions. Rathindra said that this is the norm in many other institutions. He added that since the ratio of the admitted students to the applicants is usually very low, it becomes a very labor intensive process with not the best returns. He added that the Graduate College has lost four staff members in the last couple of years. He said that during Michael Mumper’s term, the office had 16 staff members and now there are 12. Joe Rota said that the most common complaint from international applicants is that they are unable to get a timely response about an admission decision. He said that the departments and the Graduate College need to work together on this to facilitate a quick turnaround.
Howard said that it cannot be a speedy process since many departments like to see the entire pool before making admission and funding decisions. Rathindra said that it can be a two step process where an admission decision is made in a timely manner and the financial decisions can be made a little later. Joe Rota said that this year the university lost two Fulbright students because the decisions were not made soon enough. David Juedes said that if the Graduate College would provide help in evaluating transcripts by making grade scales and the quality of the institution available to departments, it would make it easier for the departments under the proposed scenario. Joe Rota added that this year the number of international undergraduate students increased by 63%, this translates into $2.6 million in revenue for the university.
F. MAGS: Katie informed members that so far we have received three nominations for the Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools (MAGS) Distinguished Master’s Thesis Award. These nominations will be forwarded to the members of the Graduate Affairs and Fellowships Committee for review. The nominated thesis will then be forwarded to MAGS.
4. Task Force on Centers of Excellence
Ben Ogles presented an update to members regarding the Task Force. He said that the Provosts of all 13 state universities are working with the Chancellor towards clarifying the details about the Centers of Excellence. They are working on budget planning as well, since graduate programs are expensive to run. He added that last fall this group was put together to lead this process at OU. The eight voting members represent all Colleges. The group was chaired by an executive committee, with Ben, David Juedes, and Jeff Connor as its members. All programs have or are conducting self studies. The packet that members received today includes all the comments regarding the reporting mechanisms for the self studies, that were received and how they were addressed by the Task Force.
Ben said that out of the 87 programs about 50% have submitted their self-studies and they have been reviewed at the college level. Soon, all of these programs will be reviewed by the Task Force and each of these will be categorized as excellent, good, satisfactory, limited, or new. He said there is some concern about the rating process, but they expect that to be resolved soon. He added that there might be a way to contest or appeal the rating that a program received. He said that they do not have that finalized yet. The initial report will go to the Deans and the Provost and the Task Force would like to see some good conversations as a result of this process. He added that what happens in terms of resource allocation etc, will be for the programs, departments, and Deans to decide and not the Task Force. In response to a question by Rathindra about the connection between the Centers of Excellence and the OBOR, Ben responded that this conversation feeds into that and informs the state level discussion. Ben thanked everyone for their work regarding this.
5. Dean of the Graduate College
Rathindra informed members that this is his third month at OU and he is still learning the processes at the graduate college part of his job. He said that the Research side pretty much follows a similar path in most institutions. There are the pre and post award issues and compliance issues etc. At the graduate college side, however, there are a few models that are easily identifiable. There is a centralized model, a decentralized model, a hybrid model and then the no model at all. He said that at Kent State, they followed a hybrid model, where the larger colleges had Associate Deans and smaller colleges relied on the administrative support from the Graduate College. The graduate college facilitated rigorous reviews of the doctoral programs. This involved outside reviewers as well. At NIU, he added, the graduate college was completely centralized. The Graduate Council comprised of 33 members and seven students. There were seven to eight sub committees and they met for three or so hours monthly. They discussed everything from approval for new programs, to stipend issues, to admissions issues. He added that all admissions processing is done online, no paper documents are sent back and forth.
He said that for the graduate college at OU he envisions a complete electronic admissions process to happen over the next two years. He also added that a policy is required to be in place for tuition waivers. He added that tuition waivers account for $20 to $25 million in the budget and to make it a meaningful process, some guidelines need to be adhered to. He said that Howard and Jim are helping formulate some structure, which will then be presented to Graduate Council. He added that we are not nationally competitive with our stipend amounts. He said that at Kent State even though each college received its allocation for stipends, but the graduate college had the flexibility to use stipend money not used by a college to support a student from another college who was not being funded by his/her college. This helped increase enrollment. He added that this by no means implies that the college and the Deans did not have the authority to make those decisions. It was only extra money that was handled this way. He also said that we need some structure and guidelines for establishing interdisciplinary programs as well.
He informed members that at NIU a part of the graduate application fee went towards supporting programming for graduate students. One of the popular events was the colloquium, where they brought nationally and internationally known speakers. He said that this was a student sponsored resolution that facilitated these colloquia. He noted that there needs to be a closer connection between Graduate Council and Graduate Student Senate.
In continuation of the discussion regarding processing international admissions, he added that the recommendation of forwarding all materials to the department, and doing GPA calculations for the short listed applicants was made by Dr. Bradley Bond, from NIU who conducted a retreat for the staff of the Graduate College. This recommendation was made to help with the work load of the staff.
In response to Kamile’s question about the role of the Graduate College in recruitment, he said that the entire application fee at NIU stays with the Graduate College. A fixed amount from each application is given to the department to support their recruitment efforts. He added that NIU currently has the largest number of minority doctoral students in the country.
Hans asked about the status of the graduate college. Rathindra said that the Board of Trustees has created the college, but he would like to review the structure and processes in two years. He asked everyone to help in this endeavor. Hans said that the formal recognition of existence of the college is different from the implementation of the college. He asked if there was a projected time line for addressing these issues. Rathindra said that some of the 10 things noted in the Graduate College document can be accomplished easily done, while others require structural changes. He said that he will begin with the non-controversial ones. The ones where it is not clear whose jurisdiction it is, whether the Provost’s, the Dean of the academic college or the Graduate College will be handled as other things fall into place.
Joe Bernt expressed concern about the fact that graduate education always takes a back seat compared to undergraduate education. There is never enough money for the departments to do their jobs effectively, so it is hard to conceive of contributing towards the central pot. Rathindra clarified saying that it is the stipend money that he would like to be available centrally, so that none of it goes unused. He said that he envisions the Graduate College offering administrative support to smaller programs that do not have administrative staff. He added that since his arrival, they have cut down the processing time for a grant from being received to it being disbursed, from 45 days to 11 days. He said he needs the support of the Graduate Council to make changes and improvements in Graduate Education.
6. New Business
A. Standing Committees self nomination: David requested members to complete the self nomination form for the standing committees for this year.
B. Proposal for MSA in Hong Kong: Ming Li informed members of Graduate Council that this proposal has been approved by UIC and UCC. A few corrections had been suggested, which have been made and this document reflects that. One of the words that the partner institution, Hong Kong University had asked to be edited was ‘residencies’. Since the word, ‘resident’ conveys a specific meaning in terms of their immigration law; it would seem confusing to use that in the context of academics. They suggested using either, meetings or conferences to convey the same idea. Ming told members that the faculty responsible for instruction would be from both OU and HKU. He also indicated that the admission standards would be mostly the same as for the MSA in Athens. Regarding the standardized tests, he clarified that the TOEFL will be required from all applicants. However, in lieu of the GMAT, some years of experience will be considered. He said that HKU will provide accommodation, and will coordinate all arrangements, but OU will have control over the curriculum.
Per discussion regarding legal matters, it was suggested that the last sentence on page 2 be deleted and/or edited to reflect the idea that the agreement will be governed by the laws of the State of Ohio. A similar change was suggested for page 13 for the Privacy statement, which would also need to be subjected to U.S. and Ohio laws and not just HKU laws.
In response to a question from Joe Bernt, Ming responded that about 30 to 40 students would be admitted. Responding to Willem’s question, Ming said that the normal teaching load in their department is six classes per year. Faculty members also have the option to buy out a class. Also, he added, that courses would be offered online as well. Joe Bernt said that sometimes teaching online courses tends to be more time consuming than classroom instruction. He also asked about the impact teaching outside of the country and many online courses would have on the research agenda and service commitments of faculty. Ming said that undergraduate students ask more questions and need more direction than graduate students who take online courses. He also added that Graduate Council had approved this same program to be offered in Beijing. This proposal is however, more stringent in requirements than that one. Hans asked about the start date of the program, since the proposal notes September 2008 as the start date. Ming said that at this point, the earliest feasible start date will be sometime in the month of March 2009. Willem asked about the position of the Office of the Associate Provost of International Affairs regarding this proposal. Joe Rota said that he supports the proposal; he added that it will bring revenue to the university and it is also a recruitment tool for us.
Catherine cautioned Ming about potential problems that could arise. She said that it is always better to have more students admitted than the desired number for the cohort to account for adjustment due to students being lost to drops or withdrawals. Ming said that the attrition rate is about 10 to 15 %, so they will take that into consideration. Joe Rota said that instead of setting a price per student, it is better to set the price of the program. In response to Joe Bernt’s question about fees, Ming said that it has been set at $1100 per credit hour. Joe Rota added that a few years ago a resolution was passed that the minimum acceptable tuition is the in-state tuition fee plus 10%. Catherine recommended to Ming to speak with John Day about this, since the College of Business has been offering programs overseas for many years now.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:00 pm. The next meeting is on November 14th, 2008 from 2 to 4 pm, in Baker 239.
