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Graduate Council Minutes 9/4/13
GBB 205, 12:10-1:00 p.m.
Members Present: M. Alwell, D. Biehl, I. Crummy, L. Frey, L. Gray, N. Hassanein, J. Johnson,
A. Kinch, A.McKeown, S. Sprang, E. Stone
Members Absent/Excused: D. Campbell, K. Swift
Ex Officio Members Present: R. Arouca, B. Brown, N. Hinman, J. Laine, S. Ross
Committee members introduced themselves and new members were welcomed.
The 5/8/13 minutes were approved.
Communication Items
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Members were reminded that the deadline for submission of curricular change forms is
September 27th, a week later than last year. The new e-curr electronic approval system will
be used for all course forms. Subcommittee chairs might want to create a rule in Outlook
that automatically places emails from ecurr@umontana.umt.edu into a folder. The system
sends an email to the subcommittee chair after the form is approved by the dean or the last
signer in the approval sequence. Subcommittee chairs should not approve the course until the
subcommittee has reached consensus.
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The following information was distributed to members as an update on the status of the
Graduate School’s self-study.
To assess and improve graduate education at the University of Montana,
The Graduate School is conducting a self-study. This includes assessing its role in
graduate education, activities performed, current and past staff composition,
student service, current needs and direction to the future.
Three documents are being used to guide the self-study. These are The
Council of Graduate Schools’ Organization and Administration of Graduate
Education (2004), Oregon State University’s Support Unit Program Review
Graduate School self study (2007), and The University of New Hampshire’s
Graduate School Self-Study (2013).
To date, we have deployed a survey for both Graduate Program
Coordinators and Administrative Assistants that will be used to assess Graduate
School processes, program needs, and part of the institutional climate. We also
conducted an internal survey of how the Graduate School staff views graduate
education and the responsibilities of the office. We have started gathering
information about the Graduate School budget for the last 10 years as well as the
staff present at the graduate school during different times and their job functions.
We are also examining the trends for the past 10 years of graduate education at
UM. This includes applicants to graduate programs, admission, enrollment and
graduation rates overall.
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We hope to have outside evaluators to review the Graduate School selfstudy. We also anticipate Graduate Council’s collaborative support in this effort.
We will provide details of the self-study at a Graduate Council meeting later this
fall.
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The Council will discuss the review process once the self-study has been completed.
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The update from the Graduate School Web Committee was postponed. Kelly Speer
will be invited to present the Committee’s recommendation next week.
Business Items
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The following subcommittee chairs were confirmed.
Humanities
Linda Frey
Professional Schools
Morgan Alwell
Science
Jesse Johnson
Social Science
Neva Hassanein

The membership list showed four members on the IIP Admissions Committee.
Usually such committees have an odd number to avoid ties. The IIP Oversight
Committee members present agreed that the IIP Admissions Committee should have
five members. The IIP Oversight will need to decide on a chair as well.
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Election of Chair-elect was postponed. The two members that volunteered to help
chair the meeting in the chairs absence are applying for sabbaticals next year.
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Subcommittees will decide on the primary reviewers for the pending program reviews
There are review materials for two departments in the Social Science and Science and
once from Professional Schools. Programs are allowed to substitute accreditation
reports for self-studies. Often these include much more information, but don’t
necessarily cover the same information and the structure is very different. The
Council would like to insure that the process ads value and doesn’t simply duplicate
the external reviewers or accreditation agencies comments. It should review
programs with research and mentoring activities. The review of Public Health was
placed on hold due to missing report from the accreditation agency.
There is a problem with the timing of the program review process. The materials now
available to the Council are from programs that had external visits last March and
April. The Provost Office would like the process to take no more than one year. A
revised schedule was distributed.
The meeting was adjourned at 1:00 p.m.