Graduate School

University of Nevada, Reno Graduate Council
Meeting Minutes, November 27, 2007

Members Present:
Donica Mensing, Chair and Journalism
Mark Brenner, Graduate Dean
Marsha Read, Associate Graduate Dean
Don Hardy, CLA-Humanities
Roberto Mancini, COS
Dale Rogers, Business
Kathryn Obenchain, Education
Victor Vasquez, Engineering
Paul Devereux, HHS
John Louie, COS, Mines
Barbara Walker, CLA-Social Science
Jamie Benedict, CABNR
Rebecca Bevans, GSA President
Michael Peters, Recorder

Members Absent:
William Courchesne, Medicine
Sandra Ott, Faculty Senate
Duane Karna, CLA – Fine Arts

Guests:
Greg Nuttle
Stacy Burton
Maureen Cronin, Enrollment Services

Old Business

1.  The chair called the meeting to order at 2:35 and introduced Dr. Stacy Burton from the English department who then introduced a Council of Graduate Schools resolution regarding graduate scholars, fellows, trainees and assistants.  This resolution requires students accepting an institution’s offer of financial support after April 15 to commit to that offer and not accept an offer from any other institution without first obtaining a written release from the institution to which a commitment has been made.  Institutions are likewise bound not to accept commitments from students without written release from any institutions to which they had previously committed.  To this end, a copy of the resolution would accompany every offer of financial support.  Discussion ensued.  MOTION (Bevans/Walker) To adopt the CGS resolution as a matter of policy for UNR graduate program.  Motion passed unanimously.

2.  The chair invited a motion to approve the previous meeting’s minutes.  MOTION (Read/Obenchain)  To approve the October, 2007 meeting minutes.  Motion passed unanimously.

3.  The chair then invited continued discussion of priority items identified at previous meetings.  Read discussed adding non-faculty experts to graduate advisory committees; specifically, that such individuals could be approved on a case-by-case basis to serve as an additional “inside” member, but could not serve as the “outside” or graduate school representative member.  Obenchain explained that the College of Education was developing a memorandum of understanding to more explicating define the roles of advisory committee members such as the time to be allowed to review research proposals, comprehensive examinations, or draft theses or dissertations.  Brenner indicated that these items should be included in the roles and responsibilities document authored by the GSA, specifically, timely notification of thesis defense dates, time to review drafts, etc.  Louie indicated that the Geology department had a policy and procedures manual for graduate students that specified responsibilities and expectations.  Mensing suggested that these kind of documents be identified by links from the Graduate School webpage and requested programs send any appropriate graduate student handbook-type links to the Graduate School.

New Business

4.  Access to Campus Services by Extended Studies Students:  Read explained that these students do not pay the additional fees associated with regular enrollment and do not register via EPaws.  The question then is, Can students who wish to pay such fees and access those services?  Read proposed a subcommittee to examine this issue.  Devereaux, Benedict, and Mensing volunteered to work with Admissions & Records and Extended Studies to examine this issue.

Standing Reports

5.  Graduate Dean:  Brenner reported that he would be attending the Council of Graduate Schools annual meeting in Washington, D.C. next week.  He also reported that President Glick would be holding open forums regarding upcoming budget challenges and encouraged faculty participation in these discussions.  Regarding research issues, Brenner reported that data available from the Office of Sponsored Projects regarding proposals, grants, etc. may not have been thoroughly edited and may contain errors.  Louie volunteered that the data is valuable enough even with possible errors and that the faculty would be happy to have it.  The VPR Office will work on correcting data and will be providing this at a later date.  Finally, Brenner reported that an automated proposal submission system that had been under consideration would be adopted and should be available in January, 2008.

6.  Associate Dean:  Read distributed a draft listing of proposed metrics for graduate programs which included such items as increasing student diversity, decreasing time-to-degree, and increasing the number of graduate assistantships.  Additionally, she reported that she had already submitted a proposal to the administration requesting additional research assistantships.  Last, she reported that a speaker, Sheila Tobias, would be on campus next week to discuss professional science degrees and encouraged interested faculty to attend with the idea of considering developing such programs for UNR.

7.  Courses and Curriculum Report:  No report.

8.  Graduate Student Association:  Bevans reported that the GSA food pantry would start up next year with expanded space in the new union.  She also reported that GSA does provide emergency funds for graduate students in need and encouraged faculty to direct any such students to GSA.

9.  There being no further business, the council moved to adjourn at 3:25.  The next meeting will be held Tuesday, January 29, 2008 at 2:30 in the Joe Crowley Student Union, Rita Laden Senate Chambers, Room 356.