Graduate Faculty Assembly Minutes
September 15, 2014
Union 237B
3:30 pm – 4:30 pm
I.
II.
The Graduate Faculty Assembly meeting was called to order by the Director of the
Graduate School and International Admissions, Tina Church-Hockett at 3:30 pm on
September 15, 2014.
a. Based on request the GFA will meet twice a year in the fall and spring semesters.
b. Follow-up from the spring GFA meeting, the Scholarly Activity Fund will
combine funds with other units to make a total of $1,200 available to faculty and
faculty will have one common application to request funds across campus.
Graduate Council Chair, Dr. Anna Oller introduced to current Graduate Council,
members who were present: Dr. Alan Zabriskie, Dr. Jose Mercado, pat, Dr. Odin
Jurkowski, Dr. Mahmoud Yousef. She then opened the floor for discuss of the motion
put forth last spring by M. Yousef; Motion hooding is optional for colleges, hooding
at graduate ceremony for doctoral students.
a. One catalyst that has created a need for change is the huge influx in graduation
participants, it was estimated that over 400 graduation applications will be
submitted for the upcoming semester. The increased amount of applicants is both
domestic and international graduate students. An additional concern is the
capacity of the lineup areas causing a safety violation if an emergence were to
occur. Another pressing issue that has caused a need for change is the length of
the ceremony. The conversation of making changes to the undergraduate and
graduate ceremonies has been a topic of discussion for the University
Commencement Committee for the past two years. Issues with the hooding on
state were also discussed.
i. Faculty Ideas were proposed:
1. Graduate program hoodings/private ceremonies outside of the
university graduate ceremony – possibly by college so deans would
be able to attend
2. Move the hooding process from serial to parallel (comparable to
the University of Missouri)
3. Hosting a Graduate Ceremony Saturday night
4. Two graduate commencements like the undergrad ceremony on
Friday night
5. Hosting a summer commencement ceremony
6. Combined undergraduate and graduate ceremonies at the college
level
7. Reduce/eliminate the events prior to and during the ceremony
8. Simultaneous ceremonies across campus
9. Consider ceremonies on Sundays
ii. Discussion:
1. Need of administrative presence at all events
2. By choosing not to hood a reflection of the student commitment
could be at risk
3. What is the time threshold we are willing to sacrifice?
4. With simultaneous ceremonies you would lose the president to
one?
5. What would the number of participants look like if we had
combined undergraduate and graduate by college?
6. Combined ceremonies could give the undergraduate students
something additional to aspire toward.
7. There is a desire from summer students to participate in a
commencement ceremony. Around 80 summer graduates elected
to walk in the spring ceremony and around 30 elected to walk in
the fall ceremony.
8. GFA provides a recommendation to the Graduate Council, who
will send out the recommendation to the Provost regarding
graduate commencement.
iii. A. Zabriskie motioned to table the current motion (APPROVED)
iv. A. Zabriskie then motioned to undertake the commencement divination
issue, to consider for ceremonies by college of undergraduate and graduate
students. (APPROVED)
1. This will mean a format change for ceremony to have two lines of
graduates to process onto the stage.
2. Logistically, the university will need to have three ramps to be
ADA compliant