GRADUATE COUNCIL MINUTES FOR 13 APRIL 2011
Present: Byron Burnham, Frank Caliendo, Scott DeBerard, John Elsweiler, Keith
Grant-Davie, Paul Johnson, Derri Dee (DD) Leonard, Shelley Lindauer, Glenn
McEvoy, Gene Schupp
Excused: Steve Beck, Richard Cutler, Trevor Nelson, Bart Smith, Dennis Hassan
Visitors: April Fawson, Shawn Fisher (subbing for Dennis Hassan)
Minutes for March approved.
INFORMATION:
1. Public abstract deadline begins fall 2011 – help get the word out.
Graduate Council members were asked to assist in informing others about
the deadline. Graduate Program Coordinators have been notified and
are aware.
2. Commencement – Faculty Marshals; 11:30 am lunch SGS. Richard Cutler
and Bart Smith will serve as faculty marshals. If a member of the Council is
not available to help hood students, please find a substitute and let DD
Leonard know who that person will be. Gene Schupp would like to walk
with a PhD student and also hood a master’s student, if it is possible. We
need to let Laura Holley know.
ACTION:
1. R401 English Technical Writing Plan C. The English Department submitted
a proposal to restructure the existing English Technical Writing Program.
The proposal asks to change the 30-credit Plan B specialization in
Technical Writing to a 33-credit Plan C specialization. For many years the
Technical Writing program has been operating, in reality, as a Plan C, not
a Plan B, and students in the program have always completed 33 credits.
It was recommended that an additional explanation be added to the
proposal that emphasizes that all of the students who have received a
Plan C have met the requirements for a Plan C Master’s and now the
department wants to align practices with policies that are on the books or
something similar to this statement. The Graduate Council approved with
the recommended revision.
DISCUSSION:
1. Should we consider late penalties for not submitting
applications/forms/Plan C memos on time? When Program of Study
(POS), Appointment for Exam forms, Application for Candidacy forms,
Committee forms, and Plan C completion memos are not submitted by
the required timelines, extra work is created for the SGS staff and
departments at the busiest time of the semester, and it is frustrating to the
students involved. In fact many times, all of these forms have been known
to come in on the same day for a single student. The resulting problems
can be serious, for example: turning in a POS at the last moment and
then finding out that a committee member cannot be approved, or not
being able to match courses with the POS requiring a student to petition
for an academic adjustment through the Registrar’s Office. SGS wonders
if financial penalties were implemented when deadlines aren’t met, if that
would be a deterrent. Some council members said that submitting POS
early is problematic, that it’s not the student’s fault nor is it necessarily the
departments. Laura Holley reminded everyone that revisions to the POS
are easy. She just needs an email (laura.holley@usu.edu), and she will
make the changes. There were no suggestions for penalties, but it was a
good conversation to have. SGS will meet with staff and see what kind of
an approach to take.
2. Issues surrounding Ed.D. and Ph.D. offered through distance delivery. A
few months back the Graduate Council passed a rewording of the policy
for doctoral degree residency. Degree residency was difficult to define,
but the GC was looking for the “spirit” of what it means. It was
determined that departments could look at the new definition and make
their own decisions, but the ad hoc committee did list recommended
markers to be used in defining degree residency. Recently, there have
been numerous requests to move students from the Ed.D. program into
the Ph.D. program. Dean Burnham wondered if the GC feels concern
that a department may not be meeting the intent of the definition. Dean
Burnham and Shelley Lindauer have thought about making the Ed.D. a
professional degree. This would encourage more of a conscientious
choice early on by students whether to do an Ed.D. or a Ph.D.
3. Tuition award budget. The tuition rates have increased by 9% for the 20112012 academic year. This will substantially impede our ability to provide
tuition awards for quality graduate students. According to our present
budget, we will lose 65 in-state tuition awards and 50 nonresident tuition
awards. Even increasing our budget consistent with the 9% increase will
not remedy the issues. Master’s money has been diminishing since 2004
but now this is the first time the doctoral students are going to be
affected. Two options of addressing the budget issue were presented to
the GC: (1) move all tuition awards to a nomination basis; or (2) limit the
tuition awards to 6 or 9 credits each semester. The Council thinks it would
be easier on students to be limited to 6-9 credits, rather than go to a
nomination process. Current and future graduate students have already
been recruited based on our previous policy which was to fund all
students who qualified. Dave Cowley and Whitney Pugh are aware of the
situation now and Dave will make recommendation to administration to
raise our tuition budget and tie it to the increase of tuition increases. The
Council was asked to share with their colleges to make everyone aware
how serious the tuition award problem is.
4. Dual Ph.D. request. A student asked if it’s possible to do a dual Ph.D. in
Physics and Biology. There is nothing in the catalog about allowing a
student to do two doctoral degrees at the same time. There is an existing
policy which allows overlap of credits from the master’s to doctoral
degrees, but there is no policy that allows any overlap of credits for two
Ph.Ds. If this was allowed, there would be implication with tuition awards
as far as how many credits would be covered. Two separate dissertations
would be required, and a time limit would have to be set. The Council
would like Dean Burnham to see what other institutions may be doing and
then bring back for discussion next fall.
5. Pearson Test of English. Pearson partners with ETS. ETS uses Pearson’s
facilities. They say there is a market for a third test for English. Pearson
launched their English test in 2009 and it is available to USU for the 2012
year. The test begins with a speaking audio file and goes on to speaking,
writing, and reading test sections, approximately 3 hours in total.
Pearson’s provides a scale comparison to TOEFL. They do not charge
extra to send results to as many institutions as desired. The cost should be
comparable to that of the TOEFL exam. The Graduate School will find out
what the cost is. We may want to offer this as another option for
international students. We’ll continue to explore this.