Graduate Council Minutes
Thursday, 3:15 pm, September 10, 2015
Present:
Steven Banks, Francesco Barioli, Marisa Colston, Morgan Cooley, Beth Crawford, Christopher
Cunningham, Jessica Etheredge, Jan Evans, Kevin Ford, Tammy Garland, June Hanks, Joanie Jackson,
Rebecca Jones, Barry Kamrath,Theresa Liedtka, Susan McDonald, Dana Moody, James Newman,
Elizabeth O’Brien, Linda Orth, Shikha Patel, Brad Reynolds,DavidRausch, Joanne Romagni, Carolyn
Schreeder, Nur Sisworahardjo, Randy Walker, Dalei Wu
Members Absent:David Edwards, Rebecca Jones, Barry Kamrath, Abdul Ofoli, Carolyn Schreeder
Guest: Yancy Freeman
Summary
I.
Welcome: Tammy Garland called meeting to order at 3:15.
 Approval of minutes for previous meeting 9-10-15. Correction of
the word “intergraded” to “integrated”. The minutes were then
approved.
II.
Old Business:
1. Recruitment Committee Report
Randy Walker
 Discussions were concerned with the processes and how to plan
for a coordinated recruiting program with the colleges. The
College of Arts and Sciences with Marcus Mauldin’s leadership
have performed a formal assessment of recruitment activities for
their college. Marcus agreed that his material could be shared
with the committee. There were a number of different ideas of
how we might move forward assessing what we do and what is
best practice. More to come in the coming months.
2. Recruitment Flyers
Amy Campbell
 To be ready for the Graduate Fair on the 7th of October, all
information on the flyers is due by the 30th of September. The
Graduate School is paying for 300 of these flyers; if you want
more you will need to contact April Cox and reorder as needed.
III.
New Business:
1. Mocs One
Yancy Freeman
 We began about a year ago looking for a central location for
services on our campus. Functional offices will include
admissions, financial aid, records, and graduate school. The
center will assist with the enrollment process and Bursar’s
Office tasks. The Chancellor created a committee who made
visits to Georgia State University, which has been recognized
as a national best practice site. We also went to look at the
University of Cincinnati to study what they do as well.
Currently we are trying to make the process of registering
easier for students. The Records Office has been moved to the
University Center to provide a more seamless transition for
students.
 The Chancellor had two recommendations for Enrollment
Services: start a summer bridge program for
underrepresented students, and the second create a one-stopshop center that would be a centralized location for students.
This is for students who have questions about financial aid,
records office and the bursar’s office. This will be open and
ready in mid-November. Please come by and take a look at the
space. Coming very soon, we will have an open house.
2. Best Practice
Dr. Elizabeth O’Brien
 The university really does not have a true definition of
candidacy, but a draft has been created for us (see attached).
Please review and let us know if we should retain this
definition and vote to adopt, or if the committee should
revise? What prompted this is that we now have an electronic
graduation application process, whereas prior to that we had a
combination application for graduation and an application for
candidacy in one form. When we started with the online
forms, it separated this process. The definition of candidacy
means the student has completed all his/her coursework and
has passed preliminary or qualifying exams and is now ready to
move forward with the dissertation. This definition does not
fit us very well, thus we need to come up with a better way for
the students to understand.
 Discussion points from Council: The use of the word majority is
not clear, and we should probably include the word “core” in
the definition somewhere, for example “Completing the core
course work”. We also need to look at what THEC requires at
the master’s level, a definition may already be available. We
could put in projects as determined by your department. The
candidacy form is an audit for the liaison, they make sure all
courses/requirements are complete.
 The committee will work on this and bring back changes at the
next meeting.
3. Recruiting Fairs
 Atlanta University Center- October 1
 Dalton State- October 5, 2015 11:00-2:00
 UTK- October 30, 2015 9-4:30
Dr. Randy Walker
4. Graduate School Recruitment Fair
Dr. Randy Walker
 October 7, 2015 from 3:00-6:00 in the Chattanooga Rooms.
Please advise your students that if they apply on that day the
fee will be waived.
5. Graduate Student Association
Shikha Patel, President
 I am still looking for first semester graduate students, so if you
have any body in mind please let me know. I am establishing a
group to give me input on any issues they may have had while
applying to UTC within the admissions process.
 We had a social event this past week and had a good
considering it was the first event. We are having another
event each month. A tailgate at our homecoming game on
October 31st, thus please let your students know about that as
well.
IV.
Announcements:
 The library manages the UTC scholar, which is where the final
copies of all theses and dissertations are stored. In the past
month we received two requests from students to change typos
that they discovered in their theses, and another case that had
actual data problems. This is a larger issue than just the Graduate
Council but I wanted to say that maybe by next week we (the
library faculty) will bring a proposed policy to discuss and resolve
as a campus how we want to deal with these issues. An initial
survey from the library, and in general conversations with Dr.
Romagni and several other faculty, we are not going to change
typos. However, we should address corrections for bad data since
this may have an impact on UTC’s reputation. We are correcting
the data error, and clearly documenting the original data and the
date of correction. We just wanted you all to know how these
issues are currently being handled.
 Next Graduate Council Meeting is October 8th, 3:15 in the Signal
Mountain Room.