Graduate Council Meeting Minutes 2/1/12
GBB 202, 12:10-1:00 p.m.
Members Present: R. Arouca, A. Borgmann, D. Campbell, D. Erickson, J. Hodgin, J.
Hunt, K. Swift
Members Absent/Excused: J. Halfpap, A. Heavy Runner-Rioux, R. Judd, M. Mayer, H.
Naughton, C. Palmer, S. Ross, J. VanDyke
Ex-officio members Present: S. Sprang
The meeting was called to order by Chair Elect Borgmann at 12:10 p.m.
The 12/7/11 minutes were amended and approved.
Communication

Chair Palmer spoke to the Chair of the Modern and Classical Languages department.
Other than including the response with the Council’s program review document sent
to the administration, no other action is required.

A revised non-profit management proposal has not been received. The collaboration
efforts between Political Science and the School of Business are not as optimistic as
reported in December. Chair-elect Borgmann read from the email correspondence
between Chair Palmer, Professor Tompkins and the Provost. This will be sent to the
full committee. The Deans have yet to meet. The Council agreed to make a
determination based on academic merit once a final draft is received. Professor
Tompkins will be notified of this.

Associate Provost Sprang discussed the proposal to enhance graduate TA support
with the academic deans. He will incorporate the Council’s specific criteria as well
as language to address Professional Schools’ concerns regarding support for students
that support programs but do not teach. Graduate Council will be copied on the final
draft. Ultimately, the Provost will determine whether the proposal is adopted.
Business Item
Curriculum Review Follow-up
 The co-convening courses LING 472/572 and 478/578 that were pending from the
fall have been withdrawn.

LING 575 was approved by the Council to co-convene with LING 475. However,
LING 575 is an existing course- Preceptorship. Linguistics prefers to change the
course number for the Preceptorship course to LING 559 to allow alignment of the
co-convening courses. The Council approved the course number change.

The title for NRSM 515 was listed incorrectly on the consent agenda. The program
submitted a revised form with a different title that was not updated in the
subcommittees list. The title was listed as Multiparty Negotiation and Facilitation
and should be Environmental Negotiation and Mediation. The Professional Schools
did not notice this change, but did not have an issue with the title. The correction will
be on the February consent agenda.

The Council briefly discussed the Sociology Program Review document.
Suggestions were made for minor revisions. Professor Campbell will revise the
document for the Council to consider.

The co-convening workgroup is unclear about its charge and requested clarification
from ECOS. The assessment requirement for co-convening courses was suggested
by a workgroup of Graduate Council. This likely was recommended as a way to
determine whether UG courses should be eliminated in the future. Although coconvening courses were not officially allowed until last year, several courses have
existed under the radar. Now that courses have been approved for co-convening and
there are criteria and a Banner attribute, the unofficial courses will need to be made
official. Last year the Registrar’s Office ran a list of courses that met in the same
room. These departments will need to be contacted to inquire about the nature of
these courses and whether they meet the co-convening criteria to be included in the
list of courses for tracking purposes. It is expected that there could be legitimate
reasons for the appearance of co-convening that are exceptions. Professors Campbell
and Hodgin will draft a memo to be sent to the departments for the Council to
consider next week. The current co-convening course list will be updated with
courses approved in the fall and compared to the Registrar’s list.
After responses are received from departments with unofficial co-convening courses,
the Council will decide how to proceed with assessment. The assessment should
determine whether co-convening courses are working, can they work for all UG
courses, and whether there is adequate oversight and tracking. It was questioned
whether the tracking is a responsibility of the Council or the Registrar’s Office. Given
that one of the Council’s responsibilities is to “promote, review, and evaluate
graduate programs to ensure vitality, currency, and quality” the co-convening and UG
system are its challenge to monitor.

The Council briefly discussed whether it is necessary to have a travel procedure.
Academic Affairs has student enrichment opportunity funds that are split between
graduate and undergraduate students. The Council requested that Graduate Directors
be notified of these funds. [The funds have been expended for FY11-12, so the
announcement will go out next fiscal year.]

Possible changes to the program review process were discussed. Academic Affairs is
aware of the issues and will be evaluating how to make improvements. Associate
Provost Sprang has made arrangements for two external reviewers for some of the
large departments that are under review. The expense of the second reviewer will be
charged to Academic Affairs. The assessment efforts related to strategic plan
alignment will likely be incorporated into program review. The administration is
waiting for the results of this project prior to making significant changes to program
review. The Board of Regents’ are also discussing the need for a more
comprehensive picture of what programs are doing. Any action by the Council
should be delayed until the overall process is revamped.
The meeting was adjourned at 1:00 PM.