Graduate Council Meeting Minutes 3/21/12 GBB 202, 12:10-1:00 p.m. Members Present: R. Arouca, A. Borgmann, D. Campbell, D. Erickson, J. Hodgin, J. Hunt, M. Mayer, C. Palmer, L. Stanhope, K. Swift Members Absent/Excused: R. Judd, K. Wu Ex-officio members Present: S. Sprang, S. Ross The meeting was called to order by Chair Palmer at 12:10 p.m. The 3/7/12 minutes were approved. Communication Items The Bertha Morton Deadline in this Friday, March 23rd. It is hoped that materials will be posted on Moodle Monday. Camie will send a confirmation message to members. There will not be a Council meeting next week to allow members to review the materials and subcommittees to organize. Chair Palmer responded to a concern from DBS regarding the change in the number of nominations. The Geosciences program review materials are available. The Science subcommittee should complete the review by the end of the semester. The Academic Curriculum Review Committee is looking to redesign the curriculum forms to be completely electronic. Graduate Council is supportive of electronic forms/ signatures. The Systems Ecology proposal approved fall 2010 is now planning to offer one of the courses fall 2012, but never submitted a course form (Fundamentals of Ecosystem Ecology). The program sent a copy of the proposal which included course forms but this was not the copy archived from the review. The program was advised to offer the course with an experimental number. Business Items Five course forms were submitted in response to the co-convening letter (4 in Journalism and 1 in Computer Science). The subcommittees will review these for approval this spring. The Council reviewed the Individualized Interdisciplinary PhD (IIP) program student status report. There are 16 active students. It was noted that there was an error in the Banner report which did not include Ann Cook. She was on the previous report and is now teaching in Psychology. There is currently no reporting method to assure students are making progress. Chair Palmer will contact the students to find out how many credits have been completed beyond the masters’ degree, whether they have submitted a prospectus, and whether their defense has been scheduled. The Oversight Committee should have access to the curriculum plan with mile stones to verify that progress has been made. The Graduate School and the Oversight Committee should be formally notified of students’ passing the qualifying exam. Procedures /forms will be completed once the director is hired. The Graduate School is currently working on completing the job description in preparation for the recruitment. Associate Dean Ross revised the policies. These will be sent to the Council to review. It is important to note the date of substantive changes. The meeting was adjourned at 1:00 PM. 32 Campus Drive, University Hall 221 Missoula, MT 59812 March 7, 2012 Graduate Council Review Proposal to create a Masters in Nonprofit Management The Graduate Council has reviewed and discussed the Level II proposal to establish a new Masters of Nonprofit Management degree program at some length. Proposal authors Jon Tompkins and Andrea Vernon visited with the Council on two occasions to present the proposal and answer questions. The Council has also reviewed information provided by the Masters of Business Administration committee and the Executive Director of the Montana Nonprofit Association. The Council is convinced that there is a need for a master’s degree program in nonprofit management, administration or leadership. The Level II proposal provides convincing documentation of this need, which is evidenced by the lack of any such programs in the region, the waiting list of students who would like to enroll in the program, and the support of the Montana Nonprofit Association. This demonstrated need outlined in the proposal has generated significant enthusiasm for the proposed program, and ultimately, the Council would like to support its creation. The Council is responsible for evaluating and ensuring the academic quality of proposed programs. It is in this regard that some significant concerns with the proposal remain. Many of these concerns are related to the lack of presently available resources committed to the program. Although these concerns are significant, the Council believes that remedies might exist that would facilitate eventual approval of the proposal. For example, insufficient resources might be addressed either through committing new resources to the program or through making better use of resources already available on campus. In summary, despite the documented need for the Master’s in Nonprofit Management and the substantial enthusiasm among Graduate Council in support of the program, the Council can not recommend the program for approval in its current form. Specific concerns and issues that the Council feels need to be addressed before the proposal can be recommended are: - The proposed program consists of 34 credits and a final Portfolio. It is unclear whether the Portfolio serves as a Thesis or Professional Paper to be evaluated through examination by a committee of faculty and submitted as an Electronic Thesis, Dissertation or Professional Paper (ETDP). o If the Portfolio is intended to serve as a Thesis or Professional Paper (exhibiting such substance and quality as to warrant eventual publication or exhibition), then the proposal needs to specify that a defense and examination is required and indicate what faculty will serve on the examination committees. o If the Portfolio is not to be evaluated through examination, and the degree is to be a non-thesis degree, then the total number of credits for the program is insufficient and would need to be increased to 36. o If the Portfolio is not to be evaluated through examination then the proposal needs to more clearly define by whom, how, and by what criteria the Portfolio will be used to provide a comprehensive evaluation over the content of the discipline. - - The proposed program does not include a sufficient number of qualified tenure-line faculty to ensure quality instruction, advising, assessment and long-term viability. Rather, the proposal suggests that one or more faculty will be hired after the program has been initiated, and that the program will ultimately be terminated if new faculty are not hired. The Council (and indeed the authors of the proposal) remains concerned that a high quality academic program can not be initiated or sustained without sufficient tenure-line faculty resources or expertise. We believe that this issue could be addressed in several ways, including the hiring of new faculty with the necessary expertise to develop and administrate the program or by taking advantage of faculty expertise already available on campus. Increased involvement of tenure-line Political Science faculty with demonstrated expertise in the area of nonprofit management would represent one way to anchor the program with existing available resources. The relevant expertise of the Political Science faculty who are now listed as program contributors (i.e., Koehn, Greene, Lopach) could be articulated, their roles could be expanded to include advising responsibilities, and their roles in the capstone Portfolio project could be articulated more clearly. Other potential approaches include recruitment of qualified faculty from other units at UM and clear articulation of what these persons roles and contributions to the program would be. It is not clear from the proposal whether students will have an advisory committee of faculty or how they will be advised regarding coursework, the Portfolio, and/or internship opportunities and expectations. Given that the degree content will be delivered entirely online, and that students will be involved in internships at off-campus locations, the Council feels that it is imperative that students be advised and evaluated by an advisory committee of qualified faculty. Again, Graduate Council believes that the potential exists for this advisory body to comprise new faculty as well as existing tenure-line faculty members at the University of Montana. o Considering the 4-credit Internship (PSCI 598) experience specifically, Dr. Vernon commented to Graduate Council that students’ Internship performances would be evaluated. As written, the proposal directs questions about PSCI 598 to UM’s Office of Civic Engagement. Additional information about the experience, including the faculty members who are responsible for it and the guidelines/rubrics for student performance evaluation, is needed. Procedure Number: Procedure: 303.40 WAGS/ UMI Award Nominations Date Adopted: 4/29/09 Last Revision: Reference: Approved by: SRS, 3/7/12 WAGS/UMI Call for Nomiantions Graduate Council The Western Association of Graduate Schools (WAGS) and University Microfilms International (UMI) offer two awards (Distinguished master’s Thesis Award and the Innovation in Technology Award) each year. The call for nomination, published by WAGS in late April of each year, includes eligibility requirements and guidelines. The University may forward one nomination per award. The University’s Nomination must be submitted to WAGS by late August. Students eligible for the award will have received their Masters degree within the period of July 1 of the previous academic year and June 30 of the current academic year. The Graduate School sends out the call for nominations, and application materials to Graduate Program Directors. Each graduate program may select one graduate student for consideration for nomination by the Graduate School. Applications must be received, as electronic documents, by the Graduate School on or before the Monday of the second week in July. Applications will be reviewed by Associate Provost for Graduate Education and the Associate Dean of the Graduate School, who may draw on appropriate expertise if available, to select a candidate for nomination to WAGS/UMI. Nomination materials supplied by the Associate Provost for Graduate Education to WAGS will include: a. b. c. d. e. An original plus eight copies of the written nomination letter from the Graduate Dean cited in the Eligibility Requirements above. The letter should describe the process that was used to select the thesis for nomination. An original plus eight copies of a non-technical summary prepared by the student (1000-1500 words) describing the research and its significance for a general academic audience of non-specialists. An original plus eight copies of the table of contents for the nominated thesis. An original plus eight copies of the letter from the department head or major professor and one additional faculty member. The letters should include information regarding the significance of the thesis, the contribution of the thesis to the program of the degree granting unit, and the impact of the thesis on the knowledge base of the discipline. A CV or resume from the student nominee Applications shall be evaluated according to the following criteria: f. g. h. i. Originality Significance of the study Overall quality Outcomes and accomplishments from the thesis