Ex- Officio: Gaurav Mathur, Assistant Dean, Graduate School. Also Present: Carol Erting, Caroline Finklea, Wednesday Luria

Transcription

1 Council on Graduate Education Agenda for Meeting 9:00 to 10:45 a.m., HMB S415 Members: Thangi Appanah, Department of Education; Benjamin Bahan, Department of ASL and Deaf Studies; Frank Duffy, Department of Public Affairs; Linda Lytle, Department of Counseling; Beth Betman, Department of Social Work; Deborah Chen Pichler, Department of Linguistics; Lawrence Pick, Department of Psychology; Brenda Seal, Department of Hearing, Speech, & Language Sciences; Christopher Stone, Department of Interpretation ExOfficio: Gaurav Mathur, Assistant Dean, Graduate School Graduate Student Representative: Gregory Farber Also Present: Carol Erting, Caroline Finklea, Wednesday Luria Absent: Frank Duffy, Gregory Farber Meeting start time: 9:08 The following text reflects a summary of discussions and/or comments made during the meeting. Introductions Minutes from September 24, 2013 Chair received minor feedback on the minutes from Appanah and Mathur. Bahan proposed to accept the minutes. Seal seconded. Minutes Approved (6 yeas, 0 nays, 0 abstained) Office of the Graduate School Mathur hopes to release several curriculum proposals to the curriculum committee on Wednesday, Oct 23. Luria thanked all the graduate departments for their support in facilitating the graduate open house. The event was a great success. Chair s Report The fall University Faculty meeting is Monday, October 28. The next faculty Senate meeting is November 11. The last opportunity to submit action items is October 28. Curriculum Committee No report. Policy Committee

2 Bahan announced that half of the committee met last week to begin a review of the student appeals policy. Duffy will create a flowchart to provide the committee a visual representation of the proposed revision related to procedures and timelines, and then the committee will convert the flowchart into text. Bahan hopes the committee will be ready to submit the revised appeals process for CGE review in 2 weeks. Bahan also mentioned that he was involved with an ad hoc student appeal committee. From this experience, he learned that departments need to be clear regarding their process for expulsion, probation, dismissal, etc. Seal added that the HSLS department has national accreditation that requires their program to have an explicit appeals policy. Thus, HSLS has tried to develop a clear policy. In addition, HSLS is required to display the policy on their department website, in the program handbook, and in each course syllabus. Stone added that the Interpreting department a pretty clear appeal process. Bahan asked Seal and Stone to bring the language written by their department to the next policy committee meeting. Student Concerns Committee No report. Committee on Distance Learning (Liaison Report) Chen Pichler reported that the CDL met on Wednesday, October 9, and discussed about half of the items on the agenda. They discussed the process of approving online courses. There are two different categories of online courses: traditional courses converted to online courses and newly created online courses. With existing courses, there is a proposal to simultaneously develop both the online structure and the course content. Thus, the proposal would not need to go back and forth between the ODL and CGE. The new process for course approval would define two new categories of courses: mature online courses and new online courses. Mature online courses are courses that have already been taught online. New online courses are courses that have not been taught online at GU to date. Mature courses already have approved content, so they only need to go through a peer review regarding design and presentation of information. The process for new courses is still under deliberation. Seal asked about the qualifications of people who will be part of the peer review committee. Chen Pichler said that people on the committee will be required to take the four online training courses: Curriculum, Rubric, SloanC, and SloanC elective. They will have a list of 14 areas to evaluate, and focus on delivery and presentation of the information, rather than the actual content. In addition, reviewers are required to collaboratively review 10 courses and will be paid $100 per course, for a total of $1,000. However, there are

3 currently not enough people who have completed all of the training modules. The goal is to have a total of 10 reviewers. Finally, the deadline for faculty members offering online courses to complete their training has been postponed to Old Business Faculty Bylaws Review (Continued) Item 5B o For item 5Bii, Seal suggested that the wording new graduate programs be changed to new graduate program proposals because programs that are in their first few years of existence are still considered new graduate programs. o Stone asked why the word establish was included since CGE is not responsible for establishing courses or programs. o Erting added that the confusion probably stems from the combined impact of policy and curriculum needs. CGE can create new policies but cannot create new curriculum. She suggested that the wording be changed to receive curriculum proposals, and either receive or develop new policies o Lytle suggested that there be separate items for policy and curriculum: Item B and Item C. Bahan agreed with this idea. o The council agreed to create separate items for degree and certificate programs since they have different requirements. o Betman pointed out that the word establish applies to the last three lines in Item 5B, so maybe Item 5B can be split into different parts. o Mathur suggested that the first three lines in 5B be grouped together and the last three lines be grouped together. The council agreed to split item 5B into two parts: curriculum and policy. Item 4A/5B o Mathur noticed an overlap in these two items as both include language about nondegree credit. o There was some confusion about what exactly nondegree credit courses are. Erting explained that this category includes special topic courses, as well as departments that do not have formal graduate programs, but offer occasional graduate level courses. For example, the English department offers a few graduate level courses, but does not have a graduate program. o Bahan added that the students will still get credit for taking these courses, but the credit will not count towards the degree requirements. For example, if a student needs 48 credits to graduate with a certain degree, and s/he takes a nondegree course, then the credits will not count toward the degree requirements. o The reason that nondegree courses need to be approved separately is because courses that are part of a program proposal are approved at the same time as the program. Item 5C

4 o Pick asked if the members wanted to clarify the language on non- degree credit or eliminate it based on the previous discussion. o Mathur suggested language like graduate courses not leading to a degree. o Erting suggested, graduate courses that are not part of an approved degree program. This language was agreed upon by the members. o Bahan asked why the issue with nondegree credit courses is under the CGE s purview since it seems more like an issue for the Registrar s Office. o Stone asked about the criteria for selecting courses. Is it part of CGE s responsibility to follow up with departments about their rationale for offering specific courses? o Bahan said that Item 5C is not about special topic courses but courses that are in the catalog. o Seal added that CGE does not actually do the things described in Items 5C, 5D, and 5E. o Lytle agreed and said CGE does not have any procedures in place to act in compliance with the current language. She suggested that either the language needs to be removed or procedure needs to be established. Item 5B iii o Erting explained that this language is related to department requests for program review or closure. o Pick added that from the perspective of NPR, all newly formed programs will need to be reviewed following a sunset policy and procedures. Currently, Pat Hulsebosch s office is drafting language regarding sunset policies and procedures. They hope to discuss with CGE, but at this time the role of the Council is unclear. o Erting said that any new program that goes through NPR will need to go through a sunset review. o Seal said that the bylaws need to represent shared governance of the sunset review process. o Erting suspects that the final sunset review procedure will include several different committees. The NPR will use data from the Institutional Review Office and the Office of Academic Quality to determine if a program is viable Item 5B iv o Erting stated that at one point the CGE tried to clarify criteria for graduate faculty status, but it did not pass at the Faculty Senate level. Duffy was involved in the writing of that language. One of the problems with the current graduate faculty status form is that responsibilities can change from semester to semester. For example, some individuals shift between graduate and undergraduate courses. o Also, it is not clear how active program of scholarly activity is defined. Does it have to be research projects/publications or do other things satisfy these criteria?

5 o Pick added that there may need to be discussion regarding how temporary graduate faculty status applies to predissertation/thesis committees. The Bylaws review will continue at the next meeting. New Business Syllabus Template Review After discussion with the CUE chair, Pick related that this document is not meant to be a template, but a checklist of required syllabus elements. Appanah has feedback from two faculty members regarding the document. One faculty member liked that it addressed accreditation in a way that is clear for students. The other felt that it was not allowing students to be accountable for their work. Lytle felt that the document should have been initially reviewed by the curriculum committee before the Councils. Chen Pichler explained that she is currently teaching a duallisted PST/LIN course and the PST department is very strict with their syllabi. Teachers have to follow their template exactly, and submit it to PST for approval before distributing it to the students. Stone recommended that the curriculum committee create an actual template for syllabi. Bahan disagreed because he felt that it inhibited originality and creativity. Mathur agrees that the curriculum committee should be responsible for the syllabus template review. He wanted them to keep in mind that MSCHE requires all syllabi to explicitly explain how the course adheres to the stated credit hours. They need to show how much time will be spent in class, and how much time outside of class will be spent on coursework. He thinks that just listing the hours is too simple, and it should be broken down to describe required time for each assignment. Part of the approval process should be to see if the credit hours stated actually match the work assigned. Seal added that the problem with explicitly stating how much time should be spent on each assignment does not apply to every student. She has been asking her students to record the number of hours spent on all of her assignments and she has always seen a wide range of time. For example, her students spent between 3 and 15 hours working on her most recent assignment. Perhaps that range should be reflected in the syllabi. Chen Pichler mentioned that last semester the curriculum committee was reviewing MASLED courses, and were provided detailed information on how much time each assignment should take. However, the committee had no way to know if the suggested times were realistic because there is no data on the average time students take to do certain assignments. Pick suggested that there may be a need for separate checklists for undergraduate and graduate courses. The council decided that the curriculum committee would discuss the new document and report back at the next meeting.

6 Meeting end time: 10:58