Bylaw Amendment: Graduate Council Charge
4. Graduate Council
b. Responsibilities







Promote, review, and evaluate graduate programs to ensure vitality, currency, and quality;
Review and make recommendations on all requests for new graduate programs, for
deletions of programs, and for curriculum additions or changes by departments and schools;
Consider suggested changes in Graduate School regulations;
Consider issues raised by graduate students relating to regulations of specific graduate
programs or their welfare;
Initiate and supervise Oversee interdisciplinary graduate programs housed in the Graduate
School; in response to national, regional, or state needs, or to the desires and needs of
sufficient numbers of graduate students;
Allocate awards and scholarships conferred by the Graduate School;
Decide on substantive matters Make recommendations to the Senate regarding standards
and policies relating to graduate programs, curricula, general Graduate School regulations,
awards and scholarships, etc., and communicate those standards and policies to students,
faculty, and the Administration.
Rationale
The Graduate Council (GC) proposes to amend its bylaws to clarify its role in developing Graduate
School (GS) policy relative to that of the Faculty Senate (FS). Current bylaws confer decision-making
authority upon the GC. This appears incongruent with FS Article III which states that "The Senate may
establish committees composed of its membership or of the members of the faculty to assist it in the
discharge of its powers and duties". The existing GC bylaw is also at variance with those of the ASCRC
and University Library Committees, which serve in an advisory capacity to recommend, rather then
decide policy. The GC proposes to likewise assume an advisory, rather than a decision-making role, to
better align its role with the spirit of faculty governance embodied by the FS. Other proposed changes
to GC bylaws are intended to eliminate redundant (with respect to changes in GS regulations) and
superfluous (" … in response to national, regional or state needs …") text and to clarify the role of the GC
in oversight of interdisciplinary graduate programs housed in the GS.