Minutes – Graduate Council Meeting – November 21, 2014

2:00 p.m. – Gillham Park Room

Members Present: Steve Pruitt, Roger Pick, Jane Peterson, Lindsey Williams, Jianping Wang, Karen Williams, Mary Walker, Ed Gogol, Carolyn Barber (for Rita Barger), Michael Pritchett, Baek-Young Choi, Jeff Thomas, Jacob Marszalek

Excused: Louis Imperiale, Lee Rathbone-McCuan, Jim Murowchick

Also present, Denis Medeiros, Nancy Hoover

Guests: Dr. Elizabeth Vonnahme (Political Science), Amy Cole (Registration), Carol Rotach (Financial Aid), Barb Glesner-Fines (Law)

  1. Approval of Meeting Minutes for October 17, 2014. It was moved and seconded to approve the minutes of October 17, 2014. Motion passed.
  1. Announcements
  • Dean Medeiros announced that School of Graduate Studies fellowship applications and research grant applications are due by the end of the day.
  • NathineeChucherdwatanasak, a student in Musicology, was selected for the 2014 Distinguished Master’s thesis award. The title is “Narong Prangcharoen and Thai Cross-cultural Fusion in Contemporary Composition.” Her advisor was Dr. Andrew Granade.
  1. Approval of renaming of the Law School’s general LLM degree program with emphasis areas. The new name will be an LLM in Lawyering and will contain 8 emphasis areas. Jeff Thomas and Barb Glesner-Fines presented the proposal and answered questions. It was moved by Williams, seconded by Peterson to approve the proposal. Motion passed.
  1. Proposal for Dual BA/MA Degree in Political Science.

Dr. Beth Vonnahme presented the proposal and answered questions from the Council. As structured, the proposal is more of a professional master’s degree, offering either a capstone or a thesis option. It was moved by Gogol, seconded by Williams to approve the proposal. Motion passed.

  1. Minimum Hours for a Master’s Student to be considered full-time

Amy Cole from the registrar’s office and Carol Rotach from financial aid presented information and answered questions. Many aspects of the question were discussed by the Council—(1) Deferments vs. taking loans – could these be different statuses?; (2) Do other schools in the system offer deferrals to master’s students?; (3) What about internships for 3 hour credit that require a 20-hour per week commitment? (4) What number of hours of practicum, internships, etc. would be required to allow the detachment? 15 hours for halftime, 30 for fulltime?; (5) Should 899 continuous enrollment be allowed or should the student be 70-80% finished?; (6) A 2-semester limit?

Dr. Medeiros suggested a direct oversight of the master’s detached students by the Dean of the School of Graduate Studies.

The catalog language should be changed as needed to gain unit consistency

  1. Report of Subcommittees on actions taken on pending applications for appointment or reappointment to the Doctoral Faculty, and reports on pending discipline-specific criteria. The following actions were reported:

Natural and Physical Sciences Subcommittee (Mary Walker, Chair

Ashim Mitra (Pharmaceutical Science) – Reappointment to Doctoral Faculty

Social and Behavior Sciences Subcommittee (Roger Pick, Chair)

Diane Filion (Psychology) - Reappointment to Doctoral Faculty

Patricia Alvarez McHatton(Education) – New appointment to Doctoral Faculty

Humanities and Arts Subcommittee (Lindsey Williams, Chair)

No Applications.

Meeting adjourned at 3:20 pm.