GRAD COUNCIL MINUTES
April 16, 2014
Attendees: Joe Hornak, Don Wilson, Linda Underhill, Carla Williams, Carol De Filippo, Andreas Savakis,
Marls Schweppe, Hector Flores, Christine Licata, John McCluskey
Joe Hornak announced that no nominations have been received to serve as Chairof Grad Council next
year. Since there were no volunteers, Joe agreed to continue to serve as chair. Several members of
Grad Council thanked Joe for volunteering.
Joe discussed the Grad Council meeting schedule for the rest of the semester. Only four more meetings
are scheduled and there are several items that could potentially be added to one of these four
meetings. It was decided to add a discussion of “job definitions for Graduate Assistants” to the agenda
for our meeting on May 7th.
Most of the meeting was dedicated to a discussion of revisions to RIT policyD1: “Policies for Curriculum
Development” dated April 3, 2014. A question was asked about the intent of section II-A-2-a of the
policy which seems to imply that the Provost would need to approve any new course in a program.
Chris Licata replied that this section of the policy, along with several other sections, has been revised
and a new draft of RIT policy D1 is now available. Chris commented that the ICC made a significant
number of changes to policy D1, many of them to clarify the logical flow of information from the various
units involved in the curriculum development and approval process. “Who does what” was often not
clear in the April 3rd version of the policy.
Section II-D-3-a “Intercollege Curriculum Committee and Graduate Council” describes the cases when
the ICC and Grad Council need to meet jointly. Is a joint meeting needed when a proposal is made to
join together an existing BS program with an existing MS program?
Section V-D describes the composition and responsibilities of Graduate Council. There was considerable
discussion on section V-D-1, bullet #1 which states the Graduate Council should be composed of “one
from each college of the university, each to be elected by his or her collegial faculty.” Several members
of Grad Council recommended that this bullet be changed to “one faculty member from each college
with experience in graduate education shall be elected by the full-time faculty in that college.” There
was also considerable discussion of the sentence in this section that read “Each college representative
shall be a voting member of the curriculum committee or committees of that college.” Does this imply
that the individual elected to Grad Council should be a member of the college’s graduate curriculum
committee or can the individual be a member of any curriculum committee in the college?
Joe volunteered to rewrite section V-D-1 to incorporate the comments from members of Grad Council.
Members of Grad Council thanked Joe for volunteering to do so. These changes follow.
D3.0 V D. The Graduate Council (Underlined text has been changed.)
1. The graduate council is a standing subcommittee of the Academic Senate. The Graduate
Council shall be composed of:
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one faculty member with experience in graduate education from each college of
the university, each to be elected by his or her collegial faculty
three members at large elected by the Academic Senate,
the dean of Graduate Studies (ex-officio, voting):
the provost or his or her delegate (ex officio, voting);
a graduate senator from Student Government serving as a graduate student
representative.
Each college representative shall be a voting member of the curriculum committee or
committees of that college that deal with graduate issues. Terms of representatives excluding
the graduate student representative shall be for three years, with the terms staggered so that
approximately one-third shall expire each year. The graduate student representative shall
serve for a term of no longer than one year. Faculty representatives may be reelected.
The Graduate Council shall be presided over by a chairperson elected by the assembly of
Graduate Council representatives with a term of no more than two years, normally. The
chairperson will be elected from one of the faculty representatives of the Graduate Council
assembly. The chairperson of the Graduate Council shall have the authority to call and chair
regular and special meetings and oversee the Graduate Council functions.
2. Functions of the Graduate Council
Graduate work at the university shall be governed by the Graduate Council. It shall make
proposals to the Academic Senate for graduate curriculum approval or discontinuance.
The primary function of Graduate Council, along with the academic deans, shall be to
promote the development and maintenance of high quality educational programs at the
graduate level at RIT and to see that the policies and procedures of the university regarding
graduate studies are carried out effectively.
The Graduate Council shall:
a.
b.
c.
d.
Study graduate curricular proposals from a university-wide perspective,
Maintain appropriate intercollege relationships with regards to curriculum,
Define the essential character of graduate study at the university,
Continuously review and coordinate existing graduate programs.