DOCUMENTS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE GRADUATE ASSEMBLY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN February 4, 2015 Agenda

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1 DOCUMENTS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE GRADUATE ASSEMBLY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN February 4, 2015 Agenda The third meeting of the Graduate Assembly for the academic year will be held on Wednesday, February 4, 2015, at 2:15 PM in the Harry Ransom Center, Tom Lea Room, Order of Business I. Approval of the minutes of the October 1, 2014 and November 12, 2014 meetings II. III. IV. Report of the Graduate Dean (Judith Langlois) Report of Chair (Jay Hartzell) Academic Committee (Maria Juenger) A. Proposal to create an option III degree program leading to the Master of Science in Identity Management and Security (pending) B. Proposal to create four graduate certificates in Advanced Practice Nursing (Family Nurse Practitioner, Family Psych/Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, Pediatric Nurse Practitioner, and Adult Gerontology Clinical Nurse Specialist) (pending) V. Administrative Committee (Eileen Kintner) A. Recommendation on the minimum number of members who should serve on dissertation committees and composition of students committees. VI. Admissions and Enrollment Committee (Dan Knopf) A. Recommendation to approve GRE/GMAT waiver for MS Business Analytics Option III program. B. Recommendation to approve GRE waiver for Advanced Practice Registered Nursing certificate program (pending) C. Introduction of proposed guidelines for future standardized test waiver requests. VII. Graduate Student Assembly (Brian Wilkey) VIII. Adjournment 3205

2 Summary of Proposal to Create an Option III Degree Program: Master of Science in Identity Management and Security (MSIMS) The importance of identity belonging to an individual, an organization, or a device and the management of those identities has become a critical issue for all aspects of our society. Organizations from almost every market sector imaginable -- consumer services, financial services, education, healthcare, energy, military, law enforcement, to name a few -- collect Personal Identifiable Information (PII) and use it to uniquely identify people, corporations, government agencies and sometimes devices. With the growth of e- commerce, social networking, online banking, electronic health records, and the increased presence of government agencies online, the issues surrounding identity authentication, authorization, and management are growing quickly, as is the need for professionals trained to address those issues. The School of Information, in conjunction with the Center for Identity, is proposing the creation of an option III (non-formula-funded) Master of Science in Identity Management and Security (MSIMS) degree program that will produce graduates who are well versed in the technology, policy, law, business practices, societal factors, and communication skills needed to guide companies toward stronger identity management, security and privacy practices. The program will be targeted towards working professionals in roles that address identity management and security, or those wishing to develop the expertise to obtain such roles. Courses comprising the 30-hour program of work will be taught by tenured UT faculty and qualified industry practitioners. As with other option III degree programs, the MSIMS program will be offered in a nontraditional format with classes meeting on the weekends. A synchronous online option utilizing teleconferencing technology will also be offered in order to maximize flexibility for working professionals. The primary educational objective of this advanced degree is to educate professionals who are responsible for identity management and security at all levels of responsibility by offering a holistic, interdisciplinary education ensuring that professionals from multiple market sectors, roles, and levels of responsibility acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to be effective stewards of Personal Identifiable Information (PII) and leaders of technological, policy, legal and societal initiatives to advance identity management, security and privacy. The proposed program will leverage the depth and breadth of expertise that exists across multiple fields of study at The University of Texas at Austin in order to deliver an interdisciplinary program that addresses all aspects of identity information management and security. The program is proposed with the support of the Dean of the School of Information, Andrew Dillon; the Director of the Center for Identity, Suzanne Barber; the University s Vice President for Research, Juan M. Sanchez; and faculty from the School of Information, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; and the Department of Communication Studies. A complete copy of the proposal is available in the Office of Graduate Studies. Contact Michelle Broadway, Assistant Dean, at mbroadway@austin.utexas.edu or for additional information. 3205a

3 Advanced Practice Registered Nurse Graduate Certificate Programs Proposal Summary According to the Department of Health and Human Services, Texas ranks 47 th in the country in the number of primary care physicians and the majority of counties in Texas are designated as medically underserved. A regional coalition of educators, researchers, and practitioners, The Texas Team: Advancing Health Through Nursing (tasked with implementing the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine report on the future of nursing), reports that any solution for this epidemic lack of primary care must include highly educated Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs). APRNs can fill the role of primary healthcare providers and can address shortages and accessibility issues for those in need of a health home and professional, high-quality care. According to the Office of Rural Community Affairs, all but ten of 254 Texas counties are designated partially or completely medically underserved and Texas ranks appallingly low in access to primary health care with no primary care providers at all in 25 counties. An increase in the number of well-trained APRNs is critical to addressing these staggering health needs of Texans. The School of Nursing has been educating non-degree seeking post-master s students in the APRN tracks (Family Nurse Practitioner, Pediatric Nurse Practitioner, Family Psych-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and Clinical Nurse Specialist) for over 20 years. Requirements within the nursing profession allow a student with a master s level degree in nursing to complete the requisite courses within an APRN track as determined by a GAP Analysis (the gap between what was taken in the previous master s degree program and what is needed for the APRN track). When the student has completed the required APRN courses, the director of the APRN program submits the paperwork to the national credentialing body to allow the student to sit for national certification. When national certification is achieved, the nurse applies for Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN) status with the Texas Board of Nursing (BON). When APRN status is granted by the BON, the nurse can practice as an APRN. As mentioned, this has been in place for over 20 years; however, it has come to the attention of the University of Texas at Austin, that students in these tracks are not eligible to receive federally-backed student loans since they are neither degreeor certificate-seeking. Thus, the School of Nursing is seeking to establish formal graduate certificate status for the post-master s APRN programs so that these non-degree seeking students may be eligible for federally-backed student loans. This is particularly important since the vast majority of our post-master s students are working professional nurses who want to further education and to do so, must leave their work role or greatly reduce work hours. Thus, federally-backed loans are crucial to their ability to maintain financial solvency and simultaneously further their education to help meet the needs of the medically underserved in Texas and the nation. A complete copy of the proposal is available in the Office of Graduate Studies. Contact Michelle Broadway, Assistant Dean, at mbroadway@mail.utexas.edu, or for additional information. 3205b

4 ! Recommended(Guidelines(for(Future(Standardized(Test(Waivers(( The Admissions and Enrollment Committee believes that it is important for the Graduate Assembly to provide guidelines to programs requesting waivers of standardized exam scores in admissions decisions, and to Admission and Enrollment (A&E) Committee members considering such requests in the future. We note that most of the requests for waivers in the past have come from programs that are not integrated programs. (Integrated programs are those that are available only to our own undergraduate students.) For example, the integrated program in Accounting requires that applicants take the GMAT before applying, recommending that the test be taken no later than December of the applicant s fourth year of undergraduate study. However, the Select Admission Program, an initiative that was created and is supported by the Graduate School and approved by the Graduate Assembly, offers highly qualified undergraduates at UT-Austin a waiver of the GRE or GMAT if approved by the graduate program. This initiative has served as precedent for the recent A&E Committee decisions regarding exam score waivers. We note that standardized entrance exams are intended: (a) to give program administrators an opportunity to evaluate and compare the merit of applicants on a common metric (e.g., GPAs from different universities, programs, or forms of academic preparation are not always comparable), and (b) to measure general and specific academic achievements that are equally predictive across diverse student groups of future performance in a program. We note further that in making admissions decisions, programs should seek to triangulate across multiple data sources. Even if a program does not require standardized tests, students who believe that exam scores would strengthen their applications should not be discouraged from submitting those results. Integrated(programs( For integrated programs, the committee suggests that future justifications for waiving exam requirements include (but need not be limited to) the following considerations: 1. Applicants must have had their most recent four semesters of preparation (graded coursework) at UT-Austin, thus making their GPAs particularly diagnostic for graduate coursework at UT-Austin. 2. Applicant performance should be well known to the faculty in the program, i.e., references should be provided primarily by faculty in the program. 3. Applicants must have outstanding undergraduate academic history, particularly in courses critical to the discipline January 16, 2015!

5 ! Option(III(and(other(programs( For context, we include two excerpts from the Graduate Assembly Option III Task Force final report of April 5, 2013: a. Given the non- traditional nature of these programs both in terms of student clientele and program delivery, flexibility is a key desideratum; however, program quality and academic standards remain the highest priority. b. Applicants to Option III graduate programs should be asked to supply normal test scores (e.g., GRE/GMAT/LSAT/MCAT or TOEFL/IELTS). Option III programs may propose to use alternative measures in place of these standard numeric test scores, when the nature of the specific target audience justifies. Such alternative admission criteria must be approved by the Graduate Assembly as part of the program approval process. We recognize that the purpose of admissions materials is both to identify qualified applicants and to meaningfully differentiate between their prospects for future success. So, in light of the Task Force guidelines above, our recommendations are that future waiver requests include factors comparable to the following: 1. Benchmarked information from well-designed selection/validation studies at peer institutions offering like programs confirm that standardized test scores are not predictive of an applicant s ability to succeed in programs of this type. In such cases, a program may be asked to identify which predictors are stronger. 2. If available, information from a well-designed selection/validation study in the UT- Austin program itself shows that there is minimal additional predictive value in using standardized exam scores to predict success in that graduate program. 3. The program is directed at working professionals who have significant experience in the field.! For(programs(of(any(type,(we(do(not(recommend(justifications(like(the(following:! 1. The program wants to increase the pool of applicants; programs should be of such high quality that there will be an abundance of qualified applicants. 2. The program believes that students don t have time to prepare for the tests or will be distracted from their other studies by having to prepare for the tests. 3. Students have to take the test earlier than those who are applying for graduate admission in their last year of undergraduate studies. 4. Anecdotal or case (i.e., non-rigorous) evidence suggests that the exam scores do not predict success in the program 5. Faculty or program administrators are of the opinion that the test would not be useful (without supporting data). January 16, 2015!

6 Graduate Assembly Administrative Committee Report November 2014 The Administrative Committee was asked to review and make recommendations on the minimum number of members who should serve on dissertation committees. We reviewed the current doctoral dissertation committee composition policy [ and dissertation committee policies of peer institutions for (a) minimum number, (b) composition, and (c) definition of what constitutes an outside member. Recommendation to Members of Graduate Assembly: The doctoral dissertation committee must consist of A minimum of four members At least three committee members must be members of the student s GSC and at least one committee member must be an outside member o An outside member is not a member of a student s GSC. An outside committee member provides an independent assessment of student s mastery of the subject. One supervisor from the student s GSC or a minimum of two co- supervisors 3205d