Graduate School Administrative Board Meeting

Monday, October 22,  2007

3:30 pm

Greenville Centre

Small Conference Room

MEMBERS PRESENT: Alligood, Martha; Eakins, Stan; Eastman, Brenda; Ericson, Richard; Griffin, Linner; Holte, James; Hough, Monica; Kasperek, George; Knight, Sharon; Kramar, John; Newton, Ron; Nolan, Todd; Pellicane, Patrick; Reis, John; and Ries, Heather.

MEMBERS ABSENT: Bland, Sharon; Mott, Vivian, Patterson, Belinda; Rouse, Art; Taggart, Mark, and West, Terry.

AGENDA

1) Call meeting to order (Pellicane)

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

2) Approval of the minutes of our Oct. 8th meeting (Newton)

The minutes were amended:

Item 3d – the fourth sentence of the paragraph should be removed – statement is incorrect.

Item 4, page 2. The date of the Graduate Curriculum Meeting should be changed from September 24th to Sept 19th.

Item 4b, page 2 – the word “approved” should be changed to the word “approval.”

3) Approval of the most recent Graduate Curriculum Committee meeting minutes (Knight)
No minutes were provided – committee had not met since the previous GSAB meeting

4) Information items:

a. Research and Creative Achievement Week (Newton)
The Second Annual Research and Creative Achievement Week event will be held during the week of March 31 – April 4trh of 2008. The theme will be “Students Exploring the World.” Undergraduate and graduate students are invited to participate either in an oral or poster format. A call for abstracts will sent out to students sometime in December. Awards will be given. Expert speakers will be featured, and distinguished faculty will be honored.

b. Tuition remission memo (Pellicane)

We received the memorandum from the General Administration. The legislature had provided funding for additional tuition remissions. The tuition remission allocation for ECU was 6. Universities with large STEM-discipline graduate programs received the greater share of the remissions. We were disappointed in the allocation number; we were expecting a lot more that.

c. Proposed Visit by Judi Bailey (Pellicane)

It has been proposed to have our consulting enrollment manager, Judi Bailey, address the GSAB on issues centering on experiences of students with the financial aid office during registration in the fall semester. If GSAB members have specific items that they want to present to Dr. Bailey for her response, send them to Dean Pellicane. Discussion items concerning enrollment and the undergraduate focus penchant versus ignoring graduate programs and graduate students have already been mentioned.

d. Upcoming GSAB Steering Committee Meeting (Pellicane)

The Steering Committee will be meeting this week to address graduate governance issues.

5) Final Draft: Graduate Faculty Policy (Pellicane)

The final draft of the Graduate Faculty document as approved at the previous GSAB meeting was provided. A discussion ensued that revolved around the following questions: How does policy concerning graduate issues become realized? Is it the purview of the GSAB and/or the Graduate Assembly? This issue will be addressed by the GSAB Steering Committee.

6) Discussion of the proposed Graduate Teaching Policy: Eligibility to Teach Graduate Courses (Pellicane)

It was moved and seconded to accept the proposal with the understanding that opportunity for amendments is provided upon discussion of each section.

Discussion of Section A. In the third sentence, the word “are” should be inserted as a substitute for “may be.” The phrase, “If compliant” should be inserted as a substitute “as being compliant.”

Discussion of Section B. It was stated that professionals come in to campus and teach a course (example: a judge may teach a criminal justice course). A final sentence should be inserted as in stated in Section A, thus indicating that programs can impose additional requirements. The language in Sections A & B should read the same, i.e. “Individual programs may impose additional program-specific requirements for teaching graduate courses.”

It was stated that the requirements for teaching at the master’s and doctoral level are the same here at ECU. The number of years for approval of this teaching status will be 5 years. Adjunct faculty status terms will be the same as those for tenure-track faculty.

What is the status designation? i.e. what is the title of this document? We need a title – this is important. It was determined that this designation can be discussed and determined at a later date.

Discussion of Section C. This section is operational and is about the process of determining the status of the faculty member. It was recommended to insert the term, “current curriculum vita,” for the terms “credentials” and “portfolio.”

Who and what entities are involved in the approval process? If the unit chair approves, then, does it have to go to the director of the school, dean of the college? It was stated that approval at the school/college level was perhaps not needed. Do we need to dictate a procedure for all the colleges? Or should we let each unit or college determine their own procedures for approval prior to it being received by the Graduate School?

On page 2 the statement, “All members of the graduate faculty are approved for teaching,” should be moved to the front of the document. Also, may want this to be a part of an additional section (i.e. Section A) by qualifying the statement with additional narrative.

The intent of the document is to insure quality teaching; this may require different levels of approval. The approval process is going to be different in different units. The ultimate goal is to be that a faculty member is qualified to teach the content specified.

This policy applies to those faculty who don’t have to be designated with Graduate Faculty status as described in the previously written document.

Does this body (GSAB) and the Dean of the GS have the authority to address unit recommendations where it is believed that the qualifications are not evident?

Further discussion was ceased.

7) Adjourn

The meeting was adjourned at 5:04 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Ronald Newton, Recorder