Minutes University Graduate Committee January 11, 2017 Members Present: Karen Applequist (Educational Specialties); Brittany Blanchard (Ex-officio: Library); Julie Brown (Music); Colleen Byron (Chair-Elect, Presiding - Administration); Cornel Ciocanel (Engineering); Dot Dunn (Nursing/Faculty Senate Representative); Julieta Fernandez (English); Peter Friederici (Sustainable Communities); Evie Garcia (Educational Psychology); John Georgas (Informatics); Oneil Guthrie (Communication Sciences and Disorders); Karla Hackstaff (Sociology); Anthony Hessel (Graduate Student Government); Stephanie Hurst (Chemistry); Lynn Jones (Criminology and Criminal Justice); Tom Kolb (Forestry); Alan Lew (Geography, Planning & Recreation); John Masserini (Ex-Officio: Graduate College); Mary Anne Reynolds (Nursing); Nancy Riggs (School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability); Derek Sonderegger (Mathematics and Statistics);; Kerry Thompson (Anthropology); David Trilling (Physics and Astronomy); Maribeth Watwood (Ex-officio: Graduate Dean); Petra Williams (Physical Therapy) Members Absent: Michael Amundson (History); Emily D. Babcock (Physician Assistant Studies); Tim Becker (Bioengineering); Angelina Castagno (Educational Leadership); Yuly Asencion- Delaney (Global Language and Culture); Jim Hilliard (Business); Ann Huffman (Psychology); Astrid Klocke (Ex-officio: Extended Campuses); Gretchen McAllister (Teaching and Learning); Linn Montgomery (Biological Sciences); Stephen Nuno (Politics & International Affairs); Rich Rogers (Communications) Guests: Laurie Dickson, Vice Provost Office of Teaching, Learning Design and Assessment Melinda Treml, Director Office of Teaching, Learning Design and Assessment Graduate College: Kelly Janecek The meeting came to order at 3:04pm UGC Chair Colleen Byron opened the meeting and welcomed everyone back from the break I. Welcome and Introductions A. Associate Dean s Remarks All degrees for Fall 2016 have been posted. Low grade notices went out to students on Monday, January 9 th. Dr. Masserini asked that if you have plans to dismiss a student to please call him first so that we
can assist you through the process. The Graduate College is moving forward with its plans to go paperless and the Registrar s Office is moving forward with an electronic method of approving and processing transfer credits. We re hoping to have that in place by Fall 2017. The ability of the university to post degrees more often than once a term is still being explored. We are hoping a pilot will be launched soon. Graduate College website changes are continuing and Dr. Masserini is heading up this effort. He has placed our new logo on all letterhead and forms. As a reminder, there are fillable word forms for all Graduate College related documents: dissertation committee form, defense form, candidacy, etc. The Deadlines page has been updated as well. Dr. Masserini asked that faculty take a look at the degrees and programs pages and to please let him know of changes that need to be made. The 3MRP/Grad Poster Symposium will be held at the High Country Conference Center this year. We re anticipating 60-80 poster submissions. We need faculty to help judge the event. Dr. Masserini will reach out to the UGC for that help. It is likely that each judge will only evaluate about 10 posters and that the judging can be done electronically. With the Dean of Students and upon the directive of the Academic Standards Committee, Dr. Masserini is continuing to work on policy and language for students facing Academic Integrity Hearing boards. Dr. Masserini is also working on revising the grade appeal policy with the Associate Deans and the Office of Legal Affairs. In particular, he is tackling the issue of when a student does not reply or comply with requests for information. It is the judgement of the Office of Legal Affairs in these situations, the student waives their right to an appeal. Dr. Masserini is working to formalize that language for the official policy. He will send links to all policies to UGC. Dr. Masserini sent the Graduate College checklist for departments to Roy St. Laurent and asked for the checklist to be placed on our website. In the past, changes would come through UGC. That is no longer the case. Please look over the list and get updates/thoughts to Dr. Masserini. He asks that UGC members share the checklist with faculty and chairs. B. Dean s Remarks Dean Watwood emphasized our priorities for the semester. She would like to see more applications for Presidential Fellowship Awards. We have made 6 awards for next year, but we have up to 15 to award. She asked that faculty reach out to colleagues from other institutions to put forth names of worthy students. The Graduate
College is resubmitting the NSF Advance grant. This grant promotes and supports women working in STEM disciplines. Pre-approval time period goes until April and we have until next January for the final proposal. The Graduate College will be conducting an inventory to gather information about graduate assistants. Dean Watwood is looking to see how they are deployed so that we have a better idea of distribution. We are hoping to discern if our process is a good one or if it can be improved. We are not looking to take graduate assistants from departments. This is an inventory only. C. Graduate Student Government Report Anthony Hessel The GSG has created a new position, a Diversity Representative. This position will focus on issues that graduate students may face while pursuing their degrees. One of the main responsibilities of the new position will be to work on a strategic plan for food insecurity. Additionally, the GSG will be conducting surveys to get a better understanding for the needs of graduate students: communal work spaces, their opinions on their quality of educations, etc. GSG is centralizing all funding sources for the Travel Award programs. GSG is hoping to expand the awards so that graduate students have an opportunity for career development as well as increase NAU s presence at these conferences. Anthony asked faculty to let their students know of this award opportunity. Students would need to provide documentation to support an award. II Action Items A. Approval of the November 16 th minutes Colleen Byron A motion to approve passes. No abstentions. III Discussion items A. Syllabus and Program Review Process Dr. Masserini introduced Laurie Dickson and Melinda Treml from the Office of Teaching, Learning Design and Assessment. Laurie and Melinda were invited to attend this meeting to answer any questions that the UGC may have over the Syllabus and Program Review process. Dr. Masserini took all the comments from the previous UGC meeting and put them in a document distributed to all UGC. He is hopeful that the document was an accurate reflection of that previous conversation. Laurie opened the discussion by saying that a
strong curriculum design that has learning outcomes explicitly stated support the courses designed to meet those of the degree program. She is asking faculty to consider how a collection of courses helps us to achieve the greater academic good. Dr. Masserini gave a timeline for the process. The forms are due by the end of the semester and then site visits will be conducted in the fall, as well as the program review by the UGC. Melinda added that a syllabus is required for accreditation. Karen Applequist raised the question: How can she be an informed reviewer when she does not understand the field? Melinda responded that a syllabus should reflect the purpose of the course and how it fits into the larger curriculum. An outside observer (faculty outside the field) or a student should be able to see a clear alignment. Melinda went on to say that faculty will not be asked for specifics but more to look at whether the course is designed in a manner to support the program. It is essential that we design it to be transparent about NAU and what our university is teaching. Karen Applequist then asked if the process will be as the Executive Committee first thought: to break people into groups with executive members leading up those groups. Dr. Masserini responded that since this is currently still in a pilot phase, those details may not be ironed out for a while. Laurie reiterated that this is an opportunity to test whether our past design played out how we intended it to or hoped it would. The hope is that the process will allow units to selfdetermine what needs to be reviewed. Dr. Masserini invited UGC members to email him with any questions and he would be happy to articulate the process. Melinda also encouraged members to contact her with any questions of if they need examples of syllabi. She offered her help with curriculum mapping and reiterated that this is a good time to think outside the box. B. Refresh of Doctoral Policies Dr. Masserini spent much of the break looking at graduate policies. He started with researching peer institutions for examples of how those institutions approach issues like candidacy and residency. He then referred to publications and discussion boards by the Council of Graduate Schools. He has compiled this information into two versions: current policies and revised policies. Residency is one current issue in particular that Dr. Masserini feels needs revising. In today s world it seems outdated to require 2 terms of 9 credits on Flagstaff Mountain campus when technology, professional experiences, and cohort involvement allows students and faculty to
be very much engaged. He feels programs should be able to demonstrate how they would like their students to satisfy residency. He would like to utilize the expertise of the UGC and asks that members take these policies back to their departments to review. Much of the original language is intact but he is hoping that the revised policies will prompt conversations in the departments. Dr. Masserini thinks the policies are ready for vetting and would like to put this as an action item for our next meeting. Dean Watwood concluded the meeting by reminding members that we do have a significant amount of money to give to native students through the Betty Quayle Foundation - $90,000 a year. The current framework is divided into 6 awards of $15,000 each. We are also looking for an ability to award part-time students that are often cut out of scholarship opportunities. The student needs to be a member of a recognized tribe. More information can be found on the website. Tom Kolb asked if there was some sort of roll-out to get the word out. The Graduate College is hoping to create an E-News communication rather than emails. The deadline for this year s awards is March 1 st. The meeting adjourned at 4:20pm.