Graduate Council Meeting
September 20, 2013
Minutes
In attendance: Joe Hornak (Chair), Hector Flores, Andreas Savakis, Jayanti Venkataraman,
Carol DeFilippo, John McCluskey, Marla Schweppe, Jim Perkins, Jack Beck (for C.
Sheffield), Deanna Jacobs, Linda Underhill, Thomas Trabold, Agamemnon Crassidis.
The meeting started at 10:03 AM.
Policy Changes Process, by J. Hornak
Small teams should put together a brief proposal to make changes to graduate policy.
Proposals should have four parts.
1.) A statement of the need for a policy change
2.) A review of the current policy
3.) A description of the proposed new policy
4.) Proposed wording for new policy.
Proposals will follow the following general path.
1.) Proposal presented to grad council
2.) Council members share proposal with constituents
3.) GC discusses comments and suggests changes.
4.) Amend (if necessary)
5.) GC votes on proposal.
Members signed up for teams. (See separate list.)
Joe Hornak will distribute information on the history of the change to each team.
Strategic Plan for Graduate Education at RIT, by H. Flores and A. Crassidis.
H. Flores: There is urgent timeline for finalizing the Strategic Plan for Graduate Education
at RIT by November. This is an opportunity to include Graduate Education as a component
of the new Strategic Plan for RIT that will be developed this academic year.
The approach to developing the document was based on S.O.A.R. method as follows:
What are the strengths?
How do strengths translate to opportunities?
What aspirations do these strengths/opportunities reflect?
What results could come out?
The cost model for graduate education (cost-neutral) is of most concern. We do not have all
the model assumptions.
A. Savakis: Can you give us some insight on the MS and PhD programs?
Dean Flores: All MS programs (~70) have revenue of $6 million per year.
All PhD programs (6) have deficit of $7.5 million per year.
A. Crassidis: The Ph.D. cost model includes tuition revenue even for courses that are offered
anyway for MS programs.
L. Underhill: MS programs are raising revenue but are not getting enough attention.
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T. Trabold: Was there any benchmarking of the PhD cost model?
H. Flores: There was extensive benchmarking. Out of the $7.5 million, about 20% is from
grants and 80% comes from RIT. This is consistent with other universities, except for
schools like MIT and Stanford that have huge endowments. RIT’s Graduate Education
portfolio is $20 million, including tuition, scholarships, faculty time, etc. About $12 million
of the $20 million is on scholarship allocation. The assumptions are not well understood.
More information on RIT’s PhD program costs will be circulated.
C. DeFilippo: This is a big issue that needs to be put forward.
A. Crassidis: There is confusion about the cost model. We need to get the trustees thinking
about graduate education and establish graduate culture.
C. DeFilippo: Is there a no-cost model?
H. Flores: We can be more efficient. Culture change can bring a lot of results. Resources
for Graduate Program Directors vary across the institute. We would like to have the Office
of Graduate Studies to follow up with graduate program alumni.
J. Beck: How are the graduate faculty different?
Dean Flores: We need to define the role of graduate faculty and their workload. We also
need a campus wide definition of the role of the Graduate Program Directors. We also need
training of new Graduate Program Directors. In the next meeting, should we discuss the
Strategic Plan for Graduate Education at RIT theme by theme?
J. Hornak: What can we do to expedite the process?
A. Crassidis: A theme driven discussion.
The meeting concluded at 10:55 AM.
Respectfully submitted: Andreas Savakis
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