Agenda

Graduate Assembly

March 16, 2010

3:30 PM – 5:00 PM

Willis Building Conference Room

Members Present:

Abrahamson, Karl (for Nasseh Tabrizi); Burns, Colin (for Andrew Morehead); Decker, Jim; Dingfelder, Michael; Eagle, Scott; Fridgen, Joe; Franklin, Richard; Grobe, Bill; Kulas, Anthony; Lamson, Angela; Novick, Lloyd; Parker, Virginia (for Sheila Bunch); Pokorny, Marie; Riley-Tillman, Chris; Shields, Tom; Shores, Kindal; Swanson, Carl; Thompson, Bob; Tucker, Sheila; Vogelsong, Hans; and Terri Woods.

Members Absent:

Barnes, Rick; Batie, David; Benson, Chal; Betrand, Brenda; Bishop, John; Boudah, Dan; Dar, Saeed; Dudek, Ronald; Edwards, Bob; Fonooni, Hamid; Gares, Paul; Glass, Scott; Henning, Sylvie; Hoffman Donald; Hough, Monica; Huener, Thomas; Kasperek, George; Kester, Diane; Murashov, Alexander; O’Halloran, Bob; Prividera, Laura; Schwager, Paul; Williams, Blaise; Wolfe, Linda; Wong, Daniel; and Xioming Zeng

  1. Call to order

3:31 pm

  1. Approval of February 16, 2009 minutes

Approved

  1. International Student Recruitment

Monika Wojciechowski (Assistant Director for International Recruitment)reported to the GA on current international graduate student recruitment and then opened a discussion regarding how the University could better use resources to recruit a greater number of international graduate students.

Suggestions:

  • Use supplemental money from NSF to recruit international graduate students
  • Send advance notice of international recruitment tours to program directors
  • Increase number of tuition waivers
  • Utilize overseas alumni contacts

Dr. Patterson announced the Graduate School would be developing a task to work with the Office of International Affairs regarding graduate school recruitment.

  1. Graduate School Strategic Plan

Dr. Patterson announced the Graduate School is developing a mission statement (driven by the upcoming SACS accreditation) and requested volunteers to work on a task force for this purpose.

  1. Approved Readmission/Leave of Absence Policy

Dr. Patterson presented the approved readmission/leave of absence policy.

  1. Update on Graduate Scholars Awards

Dr. Patterson announced:

  • 12 Graduate Scholar awards have currently been issued (10 on waiting list)
  • Recipients will receive $4,000 per year/$2,000 per term
  • Criteria for the Graduate Scholar is a 3.5 GPA/1100 GRE (or MAT equivalent)
  • If department fails to nominate qualified applicants, award money will be reallocated
  • April 15th deadline to nominate students for the Graduate Scholar award by submitting names to the Graduate School
  1. Progress on revision of electronic application process – Robin Armstrong

Robin Armstrong (Graduate Program Director) announced:

  • Electronic transcript process is currently in place (if a student has attended ECU, an electronic transcript is generated and placed in Xtender) Previous ECU students no longer have to request a transcript from the Registrar. The Graduate School website will be updated to reflect this change of practice. If a student has a hold on their accountthe student will have to request a transcript from the Registrar.
  • Continuing to develop an electronic reference letter automation
  • Student email addresses are changing. Any student admitted (beginning March 17th) will receive a pirate ID that is the student’s last name and first initial along with year of acceptance into the graduate program
  • April 5th –changing all new admits
  • April 9th – changing all current students
  • Old pirate id and address will remain active and in Outlook until September 30th
  • If an email is sent to old pirate ID, the email will be sent to both the old and new email account
  • Change from @ecu.edu to @student.ecu.edu
  • Students sitting out more than 1 semester will receive a new pirate id
  • AW code is now being used
  1. Update on health insurance hard waiver implementation

Robin Armstrong announced:

  • Health insurance enrollment and waiver will open March 22. Students logging intoOneStopwill see a pop-up window providing information about the hard waiver and option to enroll/waive/remind later.
  • Health insurance information is now being included in the Graduate School’s acceptance letter
  • Student questions should be directed to Student Health
  1. Graduate assistantship & tuition remission allocations for 2010/2011 budget year

No new information.

  1. Announcements

Dr. Mageean announced she will be meeting with the Executive Council regarding increasing the amount of graduate student stipends (top priority for the Division of Research and Graduate Studies)

  • Sister institutions offer a better graduate package for master’s degree students
  • Our doctoral program graduate package is comparable with that of our sister institution
  • Graduate enrollment task force will meet with the GA and Executive Council in April to discuss this issue
  • Purpose of enhanced graduate assistantships is recruitment

Dr. Patterson announced:

  • Julie Poorman (Director of Financial Aid) will be able to reserve funds to use federal work study money to fund assistantships
  • Program directors will need to create job descriptions to send to Student Employment
  • The Graduate School is adding information to website encouraging all students to fill out a FASFA
  • Pass/Fail for thesis 7000 or dissertation 9000 needs further discussion.
  1. Adjourn

5:03 pm

Next meeting: Tuesday, April 13, 2010, Willis Building Conference Room