DISTRIBUTION DATE:  February 6, 2008

GRADUATE COUNCIL MEETING
February 5, 2008 MINUTES
Robertson Hall, Room 208

All actions taken by the Graduate Council will have a twenty-one (21) day faculty protest period except for new courses, course changes and petitions which will be considered approved by the Graduate Faculty if no written protest is received in the Graduate College within seven (7) days.

Present: Lee Williams, Janis Paul, Sally Beach, Denise Beesley, Michael Bemben, LeRoy Blank, Kari Boyce, Sudarshan Dhall, John Duncan, Charity Gillman, Mary Linn, Maureen Taylor, Theodore Trafalis.

Absent: William Ray, Julia Abramson, Sanaz Aghazadeh, Samir Barman, I-Kwang Chang, Charbel Khoury, Sam Stalcup, Irvin Wagner, Bret Wagner,

General Business

• The minutes from January 9, 2008 were approved.

Committee Reports

• CDRP – Dean Williams reported that the CDRP process continues. The committee has received external reviews for Health and Exercise Science, Social Work, and Human Relations.  It met with Dr. Marcus-Mendoza to discuss the HR self-study and subsequently received additional materials from HR to supplement the report.

• Faculty Senate – Dr. Trafalis reported that the Faculty Senate Journal for the regular session of November 12, 2007 was approved, with an amendment to the eighth paragraph of the Focus the Nation section, beginning with “Prof. Moses.”  The revised paragraph can be found in the minutes of the Faculty Senate. Several announcements were made. For example, President Boren approved the Faculty Senate’s endorsement of the UOSA resolution on climate commitment. With regard to the discussion of recycling, desk-side paper recycling containers will be delivered at no charge. The Faculty Senate presented the names of the faculty and their development awards for the fall 2007 semester. Prof. Bradford announced that The University is putting in a new computer system for student information and he asked for suggestions concerning the features that the faculty would like to have in the new system.  Some of the suggestions up to this point are exporting course grades from Desire2Learn directly to academic records, course scheduling, early progress reports, integration of Degree Navigator and online enrollment, and textbook adoption forms. Prof. Bradford plans to meet with the Parking director to discuss parking issues, for example, the lack of designated faculty parking, the cost of parking, the availability of shuttle service for evening students, and security for students and faculty after dark, in particular in the parking garages.  He also introduced a resolution to express appreciation for the hard work of the health care task force and to make a request to them that they study the retirement issue thoroughly. In addition he explained that the Senate had discussed the recommended Faculty Handbook revision in November (see 11/07 Senate Journal); the change had to do with when faculty should send in a letter of resignation

• Inter-liaison – Dr. Duncan reported that The OUHSC Graduate Council met on January 17, 2008.  During that meeting several additional courses were approved and it was approved that one of the biostatistics courses be dropped and replaced by another course.  The OEH program modification was approved.  Also, several graduate faculty appointments were approved and some were tabled pending further information.

Currently, at OUHSC, there is a program review, department by department, in process.

The committee on the Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) sent out a survey to all of the departmental liaisons and recently had a meeting in which it was recommended that RCR training should be a mandatory requirement for all doctoral candidates.  Masters thesis students should also have RCR training, depending upon their research area.  They are still discussing how best to deliver the programs, although Biosciences already has an RCR program for all doctoral students.  Dr. Tomasek said that the HSC would probably rely upon the Norman Campus for faculty on “ethical decision making.”

There was some discussion about the NIH Clinical and Translational Sciences Award.  To be eligible, the HSC must have at least a Master’s program and perhaps a Ph.D. in CTS.  The committee is currently looking at goals and a target population for the program, which will reside in the Graduate College and draw faculty as needed.

Discussion focused upon the mentoring of graduate students and the problem was raised that occasionally some students have only met with their dissertation committee 10 minutes before the defense.  The Graduate College wants to encourage more participation from the faculty and is considering whether meetings should be an integral graduate college requirement.

Finally, the problem of intellectual property issues for graduate students was raised.  Dr. Tomasek is working with the University on the issue of how to deal with situations when the mentor is using proprietary compounds that are not generally available and leaves the university.  Often, graduate students are no longer able to complete research for their degree.  This will be discussed at greater length in the future.

The meeting was adjourned after light discussion about recruitment, the website and the Graduate Student Association.

Program Modifications

• The proposed Liberal Studies Certificate in Administrative Leadership program was approved.  The 15 hour program will allow non-traditional students to earn graduate level credit without entering a degree program.
• The Graduate Council did not act on the Aerospace Engineering proposed BS/MS Accelerated program modification as all changes were to the undergraduate portion.

Discussion Item

• Dean Williams announced that the OU Regents had approved the change in wording for the University’s graduate certificate policy.  In the past, graduate certificate hours could not be used for a degree program; however, new wording allows for such use.
• Dean Williams presented a draft of the Graduate College guidelines for certificate programs, which will be finalized in the near future.
• The issue of dates on thesis/dissertation signature pages were discussed.  It was decided that since there are several dates involved in completing a graduate degree; date of defense, date of final revisions, and date thesis/dissertation is deposited in the library, adding a date would be confusing and so the policy will remain as is.  Faculty will sign the page but not add a date.
• The issue of holding Graduate Council meetings during times when there are no classes was discussed.  It was determined that future January meetings will be held after classes begin and a June meeting will be determined by the number of members available.
• Graduate Faculty membership renewal was also discussed.  It was determined that the policy will remain as is and regular and re-appointed graduate faculty members will be appointed for up to a seven-year period; special members will be appointed for up to two years.

Information Item

The Price College of Business has requested an expanded major code for the MBA program.  The new coding will establish two codes for MBA students; 0506M F for full-time students and 0506M P for part-time students.  The new codes will better define students for recording purposes and allow program modifications specific to each code.

The following course changes and proposals were unanimously approved.  Only brief information regarding approved changes follows; however, original course change proposals will be on file in the Graduate College through the seven-day protest period if you have questions or concerns about any of the following.  Please contact the Graduate Council Secretary, Clarissa Dobrinski, at 325-3811 if you wish to review any of these materials.

AME G4383. Change prerequisite
AMGT 5013. Course addition
AMGT 5253. Course addition
MGT 6273. Change prerequisite
MKT 6273. Change prerequisite; change long title

With no further business, the meeting adjourned at 4:10 p.m.  The next regularly scheduled meeting will be March 5, 2008.