BINGHAMTONUNIVERSITY

MINUTES OF THE December 14, 2009MEETING OF THE GRADUATE COUNCIL

PLACE:Couper Administrative Building - Room148

PRESIDING:Nancy E. Stamp, Vice Provost and Dean of the GraduateSchool

MEMBERS:Christopher Bishop, Michael Conlon, Brandon Gibb, Robert Guay, Wayne Jones, William Haver, William Heller, Dina Maramba, Pamela Mischen, Chuck Nelson, Beverly Rainforth, Pamela Stewart Fahs, Wesley Saavedra, Gamze Nazen Bedirhanoglu, Kerri-Ann M. Smith

EX OFFICIO

MEMBERS:Elizabeth Brown, Stephen Gilje, Dara Silberstein, Gerald Sonnenfeld,Lindsay Tremain

EXCUSED:James Fang, Sarah Lam, Wendy Martinek, Max Pensky, Nan Zhou, Olga Shvetsova

ABSENT:Andrew Merriwether, Debi Mishra, Mark Fowler, Edward Li, Max Pensky

  1. CALL TO ORDER:

Vice Provost and Dean Nancy Stamp called the meeting to order at 3:00 pm.

  1. MINUTES:

The minutes of the October 19, 2009were approved as written.

  1. COMMITTEE REPORTS:

Curriculum Committee

This Committee approved the following courses:

  • Sociology: SOC 615 The Politics of Neoliberalism
  • Psychology: PSYC 614 Multicultural Psychology
  • Geology: GEOL 514 Climate and Paleoclimate

The motion was made to accept the courses and all were in favor.

Strategic Planning Committee

The Strategic Planning Committee met on October 19, 2009. John Meador, Director of Library Services, spokeregarding the changing world of IT and how it will affect our scholarship and research. The committee will continue to look into ways to prepare our graduate students for the IT skills for research and scholarship. One of the ways to do this would be to provide workshops for graduate students.

Grievance Committee

This committee has not met.

Academic Standards Committee

This committee has not met, however, last spring; the committee addressed concerns regarding the committee page of a thesis or dissertation. After looking into this matter and learning how other universities handle this, it is suggested the following be indicated on the committee page along with a committee member’s name:

1)The role of the faculty member, such as faculty advisor or chair of the committee

2)The institution the faculty member is from

3)If designated as the outside examiner

A motion was made to accept these changes and all were in favor. The GraduateSchool website will be updated to reflect these changes.

Advisory Committee on Scholarship and Research

This committee met and reviewed three proposals for the interdisciplinary symposium fund, two were recommended. The committee will be meeting later in the week to review the proposals for the Excellence Award in Scholarship and Creative Activity.

Budget Advisory Committee

This committee has not met.

Clark Fellowship Advisory Committee

This committee has not met.

  1. NEW BUSINESS

Associate Dean Silberstein discussed the tragic event that happened last week with the violent act towards a professor on campus. In light of this tragedy, we are inviting Liz Droz, Dean of Students, to speak at the next Graduate Council meeting. She will address the issues associated with this event and will talk about how to prepare faculty and TA’s to recognize danger signs.

Dean Stamp discussed the Mellon Foundation’s GEI Study. When studies are published by The Carnegie Institute, the Mellon Foundation, and the Sloan Foundation; The Graduate School summarizes these studies and presents the summary to Graduate Council, Graduate Cabinet and the Provost, so they can understand the current challenges of graduate education and what is happening nationally and internationally. Dean Stamp handed out a summary of the book “Educating Scholars,” about a study called the Graduate Education Initiative (GEI) – to improve graduate education in the humanities in the United Stateswhich was funded by the Melon Foundation. One commonly held belief is that students on fellowships finish their degrees sooner and on time; however, the GEI data did not support that. The study also showed the likelihood of studentsin the humanities and social sciences publishing during graduate school and the number of publications was highest among the students who had time to degree of 5 years. The study also showed that students who finished in 5-6 years were just as likely to get tenure track jobs than those studentsfinishing in 7 years, and students taking more than 7 years were less likely to get tenure track jobs. The study also revealed that students who had guarantees of multi-year support did not have any better record of graduating on timethan the ones that were funded on a year to year basis.

The release of the NRC 2006 doctoralstudy is now projected to be spring 2010.

  1. ADJOURNMENT:

The meeting was adjourned at 4:32 on a motion by Professor Hellerand seconded by Professor Jones.

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Minutes recorded by Cheryl McGowan,

Secretary to the Vice Provost and Dean

of the GraduateSchool