Graduate Council Meeting Minutes

Coastal Carolina University

January 18, 2006

Members Present: Elsa Crites (Humanities and Fine Arts), Wink Prince (Humanities and Fine Arts) Kevin Godwin for Eric Wright (Natural and Applied Sciences), Susan Libes (Natural and Applied Sciences), Mark Mitchell (Business), Dennis Rauch (Business), Emory Helms (Education), Joe Winslow (Education), Brenda Sawyer (Registrar)

The meeting was called to order at 11:30 AM by Dr. Wink Prince, substituting for Dr. Dennis Wiseman, in the Dawsey Conference Room, E.M. Singleton Building

The first order of business was the approval of Graduate Council minutes from the November 16, 2005 meeting. With no changes being recommended, the minutes were approved as distributed.

New Business

The Council had two items of business to consider, both submitted from the Spadoni College of Education as identified below.

Spadoni College of Education

The Spadoni College of Education proposes the following changes in the admission requirements to the Master of Education (M.Ed.) program and the Master of Arts in Teaching (M.A.T.) program.

1. All Master of Education (M.Ed.) programs

Recommendation: Discontinue the admission requirement expecting applicants to have a passing score on the Miller Analogies Test (MAT) or the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) and add a minimum undergraduate GPA admission requirement of 3.0.

Rationale: The M.Ed. program at Coastal Carolina University is a professional development program designed to enhance the pedagogical skills of current teachers in Horry County and other school districts. In order to increase the number of teachers enrolled in the program and improve the pedagogical skills of more teachers in local school districts, the faculty recommends that both tests be removed as entrance requirements, and, in lieu of these tests, the admission requirement of a minimum undergraduate GPA of 3.0 be added.

2. All Master of Arts in Teaching (M.A.T.) programs

Recommendation: Discontinue the admission requirement expecting applicants to have a passing score on the Miller Analogies Test (MAT) or the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) and add a minimum undergraduate GPA admission requirement of 2.75 in the applicant’s content area in addition to the current requirement of a minimum 2.5 GPA for all undergraduate coursework.

Rationale: The M.A.T. program at Coastal Carolina University is an initial licensure program that leads to teacher certification. The M.A.T. degree is a terminal degree and does not regularly qualify students for a doctoral program. Because of the nature of the degree, the faculty recommends that both tests be removed as entrance requirements, and, in lieu of these standardized tests, the faculty recommends the entrance requirements include a minimum 2.75 GPA in the content area in addition to the current 2.5 GPA requirement for all undergraduate coursework.

Discussion: The items of business from the Spadoni College of Education were taken together and were introduced by Dr. Emory Helms and discussed at length. As identified in the rationales for both items, it is felt that raising the expected entry level GPA of undergraduate study as an entry requirement, as opposed to maintaining a standardized test entry requirement, will serve the College and programs better than the current standardized exam approach. Dr. Helms noted that the current exams appear to have no predictability of a student’s future success in the program. Additionally, it is the feeling of the College faculty that some potentially successful degree-candidates are not admitted in the program due to difficulty in achieving a minimum qualifying score. During the course of the discussion points were raised concerning the recommendation reflecting a possible lowering of entry standards into the programs and the potential lack of preparedness of candidates to take graduate course work in particular disciplines without validating their readiness through achieving a minimum qualifying score. The possibility of removing the standardized test requirement for M.Ed. programs and not the M.A.T. programs also was explored. At one point during the discussion the motion was made and seconded to table the recommendations for future consideration. The motion to table failed. Following the motion to table, the motion was made and seconded to pass the two items. The motion passed.

There being no further items of business, the meeting adjourned at 12:15 pm.