Graduate Council Meeting Minutes
September 12, 2007
GBB 202, 12:10-1:00 p.m.
Members Present: L. Ametsbichler, R. Baker, R. Bolton, D. Erickson, C. Fiore, T.
Herron, S. Hurin, D. Potts, J. McNulty, G. Stanley, C. VonReichert, C. Winkler
Members Absent/Excused: M. DeGrandpre
Ex-officio members Present: Dean Strobel
Chair Erickson called the meeting to order at 12:10p.m
The minutes from 9/5/07 were approved.
Communication:
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Provost Engstrom and Associate Provost Arlene Walker-Andrews will join the
Council on 9/26/07 to discuss program review and other items.
Council members are invited to the Senate Reception tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. in the
Gallagher Business Building Piazza.
David Oliver, one of the candidates for Graduate Dean will be on campus October
29th to meet with the new Provost and respond to the new vision for graduate
education on campus. The search committee would also like him to meet with the
Graduate Council.
Dean Strobel is willing to give a presentation to the Council regarding the new
strategic goal related to graduate education. Discussions are in the early stages and
could change.
Over the summer, Dean Strobel met with the Graduate College in Bozeman to
network regarding best practices. UM is working to adopt Bozeman’s graduation
template because the current graduation application process is problematic. After the
first semester students will be required to meet with an advisor and put a plan
together according to a template. This plan is submitted to the graduate school for
approval. The plan can change, but courses that count toward the degree must be
documented and accurate. The hope is to make the process electronic.
Business Items:
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Professor Potts volunteered to serve as the IIP Oversight Committee Chair. The
Oversight Committee consists of members of Graduate Council that are active in PhD
programs. The oversight process was modified and streamlined starting last year.
There are approximately 22 students in the program.
Professor Stanley agreed to serve as interim chair-elect, meaning he will stand in for
the chair this semester if needed. No one volunteered to serve as chair next year.
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Professor Baker agreed to serve on the Continuous Enrollment Workgroup. The
group needs to meet soon. The Graduate School also gathered data over the summer
for the group to review. The Council is uncertain whether the results and
recommendations from the study should go to the President or the Provost. The issue
should be addressed when the Provost attends the meeting on September 26th.
New Admissions Policy
 Dean Strobel proposed the change to the policy because the baby boom retirement
group is starting to show an interest in returning to academia after successful careers
and proven success in advanced degree programs. The best indicator of success in a
program is success in a program and not a standardized test.
The President prefers the GRE as a default with specific criteria for when the GRE
would be waived – when taking the GRE doesn’t make any sense, such as the
example above. Other indicators could be a portfolio, resume, and writing sample.
The Council would need to approve each exception.
The Council established a workgroup made up of the chairs of the curriculum
subcommittees to draft a set of criteria that will allow for special needs to
communicate to departments.
The Council agreed that the proposed exception submitted by the Master of Public
Administration Program was thin. The documentation should specify that the
advanced degree be from an accredited institution and the work experience should be
specified at an appropriate level.
Improvements to Bertha Morton Procedures
 Last year’s changes to the Bertha Morton procedures were explained for new
members. Previously all applicant materials were ranked by all members and the
awards were determined by number distribution (usually average scores). However,
many members commented that they did not have enough knowledge about
disciplines outside there own to fairly rank the materials. There was concern that the
candidates close to the cutoff may not have been treated fairly. So, a system was
devised in which specialist (within discipline area- humanities, science, schools, and
social sciences) and generalist (outside discipline area) rankings would be looked at
together and separately. The candidates that the two groups disagreed on would be
re-ranked after discussion and then combined to make the final list. The cut-off line is
determined by the number of available awards.
Then the nomination allocations per department were reviewed and the number of
total nominations available increased. So in an effort to reduce the work load the
application materials were reviewed by three specialists and two generalists.
Last year the committee ran out of time and did not have adequate discussion
regarding the disagreement list in order to re-rank the materials. Therefore one
suggestion was to change the deadline date to March 1st. Another was to establish a
subcommittee made up of faculty not on Graduate Council to either determine the
awards or serve as a screening committee. Dean Strobel recommends a simpler, more
streamlined approach.
The discussion will be continued next week.
The meeting was adjourned at 1:00 p.m.