MINUTES

Graduate School Administrative Board Meeting

Monday, September 8, 2008

3:30PM
1511 Greenville Centre

MEMBERS PRESENT:  Susan Beck-Frazier, Sharon Bland, Jim Decker, Scott Dellana, Stan Eakins, Rick Ericson, Hamid Fonooni, James Holte, Monica Hough, George Kasperek, Vivian Mott; Ron Newton, Belinda Patterson, Pat Pellicane, Marie Pokorny, Heather Ries, Len Rhodes, Art Rouse, Marianna Walker, Terry West.

MEMBERS ABSENT:    Sharon Bland, Brenda Eastman, Linner Griffin, Vivian Mott, Hettie Peele, Marianna Walker, and Terry West.

AGENDA

1.    Call to order

The meeting was called to order at 3:37pm by Dean Pellicane

2.  Approval of the 8/20/2008 GCC minutes

The minutes were presented by Scott Dellana.    The GCC minutes of August 20, 2008 were approved as written.

3.  Approval of 8/11/2008 GSAB minutes

The GSAB minutes of the August 08, 2008 meeting were amended as follows:  

A cumulative GPA of 3.0 in graduate-level courses is a prerequisite for the administration of the doctoral candidacy, qualifying, and/or comprehensive examination.”

It was moved to amend the Scholastic Standards policy document with the above paragraph.     The motion was approved.   This new GPA policy will be effective in spring 2009. 

The minutes were approved as amended.

4.  Announcements –

a.  Continuous Registration conversation with GA (Pellicane)

Dean Pellicane had a conversation with Jim Sadler from the DA’s office in regard to having a fee as opposed to a course which would allow for continuous enrollment.  This procedure would be less costly for the student.  Jim Sadler was contacted; he did some homework on the subject, and he thinks that it will be okay.  This topic will be discussed at the meeting of the Council of Graduate Deans in November.  Dr Pellicane will be present.

5.  Discussion of the proposal for the PhD in Curriculum & Instruction (P. Anderson)

The proposal was submitted to the GSAB – Dr. Pellicane indicated that the UNC General Administration is a little uncertain about new doctoral programs.

Patricia Anderson, Sandra Warren, Katherine Misulis, and Linda Patriarca were present to discuss the request to establish a PhD program in CI.  The Department of CI discussed this 5 yrs ago with previous administration officials.  They have submitted their permission to plan already to the GCC and the GSAB.  The Department of CI is one of the largest in the CoE with 82 faculty.  Their strength is the discipline of teacher education.  Their permission to plan document went through ECU and the UNC GA.   The Department was encouraged to focus on one facet, i.e. teacher education.  This is the area where CI has the expertise.  They prepared a curriculum.  Their goal was to have a PhD program rather than an EdD degree.  They wanted to have a strong research orientation with emphases in rural education and distance education.  They proposed three specialty areas in the program:  reading education, elementary education, and special education.  The curriculum focuses on research within a specialty area with an orientation on “how to become a university professor.”  The Department has hired several new faculty with expertise in each of these three specialty areas over the last couple of years.  

There appears to be opportunity for external funding in the area of area of special education.  Some of the participating faculty have already performed applied research supported on external funding, with many of the projects focusing on service-type activities.  It was reported that CI faculty are developing these “service projects” into research opportunities and are publishing their results. 

Sources of stipends will be faculty positions that will be converted.  CI will continue with teaching responsibilities by using adjunct faculty.  The US DoE will be solicited for support in training doctoral students, especially in special education.  Fellowships and tuition support with large training grants will be submitted. The students will have a master’s degree and a teaching licensure as a prerequisite for entering into the program.  It was noted that the teaching and mentoring expectations of the participating faculty are quite high for this program.   Some of the students will be part-time.   At NCSU there are a large number of part-time students, thus their duration of matriculation is quite long.

The Department of CI has had many inquiries about the probability of this program with potential students; the potential students report that they are ready to enroll as soon as the program is initiated.  Thus, there is a demand for the program.  UNC-CH and UNC-Charlotte have a PhD program. 

Discussion was oriented toward the difference between the PhD and the EdD.  The PhD is more theoretical whereas the EdD is more applied.  At ECU, the EdD focuses on leadership whereas the PhD is focusing on the discovery of new knowledge.  The EdD is also viewed to be more “clinical.”

The level of the stipend will be $21K for 5 initial students.  They are expected to matriculate in 3 to 4 years.

One of the objectives is to provide future faculty to meet the teacher education shortage at the university/college level.  

The GCC motion to approve the request to establish a PhD program in CI was amended to include that approval by the GSAB was contingent upon demonstrated support from the present dean of the CoE.   Furthermore as part of the motion, Dean Pellicane would be providing CI with a memorandum addressing the following items:   

I.  Strengths of the Request:

a.  There is a need for the program

b.  The curriculum is strong –

c.   They have hired  new faculty  

d.  Demonstrated congruency with “UNC Tomorrow” strategic plan

II.  Concerns about the Request:

a.  Financial support is minimal.  There is concern about the conversion of faculty positions to stipends as the primary source of support.  There is more explanation needed as to the role of the following funding sources: 

(1) Reallocation

(2) Grants

(3) Enrollment increases with sch generation

 

 b.  They will be supporting students who will be involved in the teaching program; what is the course load expectation for them?

 

c.  There is a high expectation of CI faculty to teach 3 courses per semester;  this will diminish the time available to mentor PhD students 

 

d.    Some concern that faculty with  a 9 mos appointment may not be able to commit to mentoring students 12 mos  out of the year 

 

e.  In five years there is the expectation that the program will have a significant increase in the number of students that could impact faculty workloads – can faculty course loads shift to meet the mentoring demands of an increased enrollment? 

 

f.  There is no evidence of support of this request by previous deans and the present dean.  There is no evidence that resources are being reallocated or that they are being committed by the college. 

 

g.There is concern that the research duration of one year is not sufficient.  More time may be required for the research portion of the degree.

 

h. There is need to demonstrate “research” expertise by the faculty relative to the nature of the funding received;  most of the current funding projects are “service” oriented, and do not reflect a research focus.  

 The amended motion (to be followed with a memorandum from Dean Pellicane) was approved with 7 members voting yes, 2 voting no, and 2 abstaining. 

6.  Policy considerations

The following policy documents will be sent electronically by Dean Pellicane to the GSAB asking for their feedback and critique.

a.   Removal of Incomplete Grades

b.   Change of Grade

c.   Grade Appeals

d.  Course Repetition

7.  Other Business

Dr. Mageean announced that there will be no curtailment of graduate student enrollment for Spring 2009. 

8.  Adjourn

The meeting was adjourned at 5:15 pm 

Respectfully submitted,

R J Newton, Recorder