Meeting Minutes, August 23,
2005
Members
Present:
Kathryn
Obenchain, Chair and
Matt
Leone, HCS
James
Sundali, Business
Tracy
Veach, Medicine
Andy
Trzynadlowski, Engineering
Donica
Mensing, Journalism
Stacy
Gordon,
John
Nelson, COS
Ron
Phaneuf, Faculty Senate
Glenn
Miller, Agriculture
Ed
Johnson, GSA President
Susan
Henthorne, GSA Advisor
Michael
Peters, Recorder
Old
Business
1. The Chair called the meeting to order at 2:30. MOTION: (Nelson/Sundali) To approve the
minutes of the previous May 12, 2005 meeting.
Motion passed unanimously. The
Chair then invited the council to introduce themselves and welcome the new
members.
2. The Chair indicated the council still needed
a member to serve as liaison for the EECB External Review committee. Stacy Gordon volunteered and was accepted by
the council.
3. Report from the Chair: The Chair introduced a number of issues for
consideration by the Council as a means of “upping the ante” of graduate
education at UNR. These included
- Re-visiting Graduate Faculty
status: Is it still relevant? Should there be established policies
regarding periodic review of graduate faculty status? How is this handled at other
doctoral-extensive institutions?
Evaluating off-campus cohort
programs: developing guidelines to ensure comparability with on-campus courses,
etc.
Roles and responsibilities of
Graduate Directors; Michael Peters will prepare informational paper.
Intellectual property: specifying
rights of advisor, student in the development of intellectual property.
Academic Integrity: guidelines for
sanctions for instances of plagiarism, etc.
Chair
encouraged council members to contribute other ideas/issues for discussion
during the school year. (See attachment
– Graduate Council Policies)
Standing
Reports
4. Associate Dean: Read reported that Dr. Mark Brenner, the new Vice President for
Research and Dean of the
5. Faculty Senate Liaison: Phaneuf reported that at the next meeting
the senate will review the draft video surveillance policy as well as the final
report of the faculty morale committee.
6. GSA Report:
Ed Johnson introduced himself as the new GSA president and briefly reviewed GSA
initiatives including looking into greater opportunities to provide graduate
student housing. He also indicated the
on-going success of the household goods donation program and encouraged
interested faculty to participate by donating furniture, kitchenware, etc.
7.
C&C Report: Read explained
the new procedures for Graduate Council review of graduate courses and
curriculum changes. That is, the
sub-committee (Obenchair, Read, and Nelson) would meet to review all proposed
changes and identify those which could be approved via a “consent agenda” and
those which should be reviewed by the entire council. Consent agenda items would be available on
the web for all council members to review prior to the general meeting. C&C issues of council-wide interests
(particularly new programs and major changes existing programs) would be
presented to the entire council for review.
8. The council adjourned at 4:05. The next meeting will be on September 27 (fourth Tuesday of the month),
2005 in the Student Union.
1 Atch: Graduate Council
Policies
GRADUATE COUNCIL POLICIES
Potential graduate council policies for consideration by the council in the 2005-2006 academic year:
I. Quality Assurance of degrees awarded by UNR
A. Who teaches graduate level courses – is it acceptable to have graduate students teaching other graduate students?
Brief background: There are courses being taught by “senior” graduate students to “newer” graduate students in the same discipline; there are
Instances where instructors are MS only for 700 level courses. Is this acceptable? How extensive are these practices? What policy should be established relative to this issue?
B. What is the currency of the degree?
Brief background: There a time limits on course work towards the degree (6 years for a master’s degree and 8 years for a PhD degree). Approximately 5-10% of the applicants for graduation in any graduation cycle will request an exception to the time limit policy. At present this is almost always approved. These request sometimes ask for approval of anywhere from 100% of the course work to 5% of the course work listed on the program of study. The intent of the degree is to assure that the candidate being awarded the degree is trained at the cutting edge of their particular discipline. To approve out of status course work negates this principle. Graduate Council needs to consider policy on a) how many credits (% of credits) can be approved as out of status, b) how the currency of approved out of status courses is “revalidated” and c) should transfer credits be excluded and routinely rejected if they exceed the time limit.
C. Who is serving as major advisors for graduate students
Brief background: Some years ago, the graduate council ceded the responsibility of determining which faculty would hold graduate faculty status back to departments/programs. The status graduate faculty is very loosely coordinated between graduate programs and the graduate school. Issues that arise from this decentralized model include a) maintaining current lists of graduate faculty members for each program, b) of the graduate faculty who are active and who are not really active in the mentoring of graduate students, and c) is there any quality control at the department level to assure that graduate faculty remain active in graduate education in order to retain the status of graduate faculty.
D. Should the 700 credits, or the majority of the required 700 credits be from UNR?
Brief background: With the policy that 9 credits can be transferred in from another institution, we are finding that in some cases, more than 50% of the required 700 level courses are being transferred in rather than being earned at UNR. Is this appropriate? Should the limitation on transfer credits also address the number of transfer credits that may be used to satisfy 700 credit requirements?
II. Impact of New Faculty Workload policy on graduate education
A. The workload recognizes the intensity of doctoral education through a teaching load reduction mechanism
Brief background: The nature of faculty and the nature of a research institution is to seek out teaching reductions in order to focus more on research. How will the new workload policy balance with the demands of teaching associated with our growing undergraduate numbers? How will the workload policy impact those programs with master’s only programs – will there be a push to move them to the doctoral level prematurely? Will there be consistency across campus of what constitutes sufficient doctoral education involvement to warrant a teaching load reduction? Should these issues be discussed more widely?
III. What are appropriate responsibilities for 20 hours a week on a teaching assistantship?
A. There is no consistency or guidelines on what constitutes a “teaching assistantship.”
Brief background: There is considerable variation in how a teaching assistantship is used at the department/program level. These range from being totally responsible for a course (e.g. English, math) to being supervising a laboratory section (s) (e.g. biology, chemistry, physics) to being a grader and an occasional substitute instructor (e.g. sociology) and there are blends of these (teach a course and serve as a grader or handle a lab section). There are no guidelines on what constitutes a 20 hour work week for teaching assistants. Consequently, complaints arise from graduate students who compare themselves with other teaching assistants. Perhaps there should be an attempt to provide some broad guidelines for teaching assistants. In addition, there is no way to track whether or not a graduate assistant is teaching as an LOA at one of the local community colleges. Should this be monitored?
IV. Academic Integrity/Plagiarism
A. There is a sense that graduate the instances of academic dishonesty/plagiarism is rising at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. There is also a sense that the issue of academic dishonesty is more serious at the graduate level than the undergraduate level.
Brief background: As noted above there is a sense that the issues of academic dishonesty/plagiarism are creeping into graduate education. The university has a policy for this that is couched primarily in the undergraduate context. For instance, there is no mention among the penalties for academic dishonesty of dismissal from the program, yet this may be the desired penalty at the graduate level. There is also a sense that the “definition” of academic dishonesty/plagiarism is culturally based and may be interpreted differently among our international graduate students. Does the graduate council see a role in provide guidelines on academic dishonesty/plagiarism including perhaps the concept of creating a central repository of incidences as they occur?
V. Miscellaneous items
A. Degree completion. Some schools require students to actually be completed and have all degree requirements checked before the student participates in commencement. Is this something UNR is interested in?