MINUTES

Graduate School Administrative Board Meeting

Monday, April 14, 2008

3:30PM
1511 Greenville Centre

MEMBERS PRESENT: Alligood, Martha; Bland, Sharon; Eakins, Stan; Eastman, Brenda, Ericson, Rick; Fonooni, Hamid; Griffin, Linner; Holte, James; Kasperek, George; Kramar, John; Mott, Vivian; Newton, Ron; Patterson, Belinda; Pellicane, Patrick; Ries, Heather; Rouse, Art; and West, Terry.

MEMBERS ABSENT: Eastman, Brenda; Hough, Monica; Knight, Sharon; Nolan, Todd; and Mark Taggart.

1. Call meeting to order (Pellicane)

The meeting was called to order by Dean Pellicane at 3:35 pm.

2. Approval of the 3/24/2008 GSAB minutes (Newton)

The GSAB minutes of 3/24/2008 were approved as written.

3. Approval of the 3/19/2008 GCC minutes (Kasperek)

• Social Work submitted a revised master’s program including a single concentration and new course proposals.
• Department of Technology Systems proposed a new curriculum and a new masters program.
• Department of Health Services and Information Management submitted proposals for a new certificate program and new courses.
• The Department of English revised the MA in English to include concentrations instead of “areas of interest.” The ethics course was removed and the content was integrated into another course.
• The College of Health and Human Performance submitted a new course proposal and a revised MS program in Exercise and Sport Science.
• Library Studies submitted a course revision.

The submitted proposals and plans as recommended for approval in the minutes of the Graduate Curriculum Meeting on Mar 19 2008 were approved by the Graduate School Administrative Board.

4. Approval of the 3/26/2008 GCC minutes (Kasperek)

•  Department of Business and Information Technologies Education submitted revisions in the MAEd program and revisions in the MS in Vocational Education and MS in Counselor Education program.
• The Department of Library Science submitted revisions in the Master’s in Library Science curriculum.
• The Department of Special Education submitted curriculum revisions.
• The Department of Exercise and Sport Science submitted revisions in their MS program.

The submitted proposals and plans as recommended for approval in the minutes of the Graduate Curriculum Meeting on Mar 26 2008 were approved by the Graduate School Administrative Board.

5. Information items

a. Assessment

In concert with the SACS Review, it has been recommended by Research and Graduate Studies that we are to assemble a team to address assessment issues at the graduate level. Dr. Pellicane will be appointing faculty to serve with Newton and Pellicane who represent the GS administration. Two representatives from the GSAB will be appointed as well as 2 unit program directors.

 

b. Resource allocation

The Graduate School is not optimistic about the probability of receiving additional dollars for in-state tuition remissions.

 

Dr. Pellicane will soon be sending out the specified 2008-2009 allocations for each unit.

 

c. Course add date

The Graduate School has met with representatives from the cashier’s office, enrollment management, the registrar’s office, and financial aid to address issues surrounding graduate student tuition remissions, course schedule changes, and student financial aid.

 

It was discussed that we’ve been both flexible and lax in adhering to the course add-date as publicized. These impact the amount of financial aid and the tuition remission assigned to the student.

 

Most graduate students become involved with these university units because they are forced to add classes after their schedule has been dropped. Most of these course schedule changes also impact the tuition remission that has been given to the student. It was stated that in this semester, the problems were more magnified than ever before.

 

d. Reaffirming student financial account responsibility

Students are not aware of their financial responsibility when these changes are made. They need to know that they are accountable if there are significant changes in their course schedule. Many students are not aware of whom they are to pay, and can’t access those who can help them with their problem. Oftentimes, the student doesn’t know that a problem exists.

 

The date of final adjustment to a student’s financial accounts needs to be determined.

6. Electronic Thesis/Dissertation (Patterson)

The Task Force has worked on this very well and diligently. The process is on schedule, and the procedures and operations are undergoing a live, pilot test. This will help to establish some in-house administrative procedures. The TF will be working to get a diverse set of students to participate in the fall. A guide for the electronic submission process will be prepared. The TF will initiate a publicity campaign in the fall, and will have a “help-site” in place. The TF will have some workshops for students and faculty. The goal is to make the process optional in spring of 2009 and mandatory in fall 2009. Students will make their own decision relative to the embargo procedure. The university will have the electronic version as well as Pro-Quest; therefore, they can distribute the document upon request, subject to the embargo restrictions imposed by the student. The document will be searchable through Google. Original signature pages will be used in-house only; Pro-Quest will not be placing them in their archives. We hope to have some software developed by ECU that can immediately identify problems with a document’s format. It is anticipated that software will also be developed so that the final document format will be compatible with the present ECU thesis/dissertation template.

The report and recommendations submitted by the Task Force were approved by the GSAB.

7. Responsible Conduct of Research (Pellicane)

National legislation requires that all students comply with the language of RCR training. We presently have a faculty member who teaches the 2 cr course. The course has an interdisciplinary student population. It is reported that students like this diversity. It is a 7000 level course aimed for doctoral student with special permission for enrolment of ms students. The course is limited to 30 students. There is some discussion about making it a 3 cr hr course. One course makes it difficult to meet the needs of the diverse student population that we are now serving. It is possible to integrate the ethics requirement into an existing course.

What do we want to do? How do we want to meet the spirit of the legislation? There are some students who are not taking the course, and are not meeting the requirement. May want to leave this to the respective programs to decide how they will meet the requirement. Each unit will have to figure out how they will do it. Do we want to include master’s level students? Is this policy going to be for all graduate students? Dr Pellicane will provide the language for a policy statement and submit it the GSAB for consideration at a later date.

8. Policies for further discussion (Pellicane)

a. Language Requirement

Standard American English is the phrase to be used, and needs to be inserted in to the current document. The document was amended as such.

 

May need other means other than TOEFL to substantiate language proficiency. In some cases, the TOEFL does not work adequately to differentiate a student’s command of the language.

 

The policy statement was approved as amended.

 

b. Scholastic Standards

Will be considered at a later date

 

c. Termination or Continuance of Graduate Study

Will be considered at a later date

The meeting was adjourned at 5:55 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

R J Newton

Recorder