Graduate
Council Meeting Minutes
Coastal
Members Present:
J. Winslow
(Education), J. Navin (Humanities and Fine Arts), D. Wiseman (Office of the
Provost), D. Lawless (Registrar)
Members Absent: W.
Prince (Humanities and Fine Arts)
Guest: D.
Vrooman (College of Natural and Applied Sciences)
The meeting was
called to order at
After calling the
meeting to order, Dr. Wiseman asked for a motion to accept the minutes of the
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Dr. Wiseman referred the members to the listing of Graduate
Program Coordinators that had been distributed with the meeting materials and
noted that Dr. Cobb in the Spadoni College of Education was new to the
institution this semester and would be serving as the coordinator of the M.Ed.
in Elementary Education. Dr. Wiseman
also noted that a new director of the MBA program would be joining Coastal in
January 2007, replacing Mr. Jim Eason who is currently serving as interim
director. The question was raised as to whether
or not each college had a graduate coordinator.
Dr. Wiseman indicated that, at this point, graduate coordinators were
identified as individuals coordinating degree programs, not as individuals
serving as coordinators per college.
Given the growth and impact of the MAT program in terms of its
requirements of courses in the disciplines, the
Dr. Wiseman referred the members to the information sheet provided that summarized Graduate Assistantship awards for fall 2006. Questions were raised regarding the handout and the request was made to modify the handout to clarify that assistantship award figures for research assistantships and assistantships in athletics and bands reflected fall expenditures only. Dr. Wiseman will make these adjustments.
Dr. Wiseman referred the members to the information provided related to summer graduate offerings in the disciplines. The enrollments were broken down by the categories Summer I, Summer II, and additional offerings. Dr. Wiseman noted that many of the courses were MAT-driven and that the MAT enrollments, by program, ranged from a low in music to a high in social studies. Dr. Helms also commented on how courses were requested and chosen to be offered for MAT students. In the course of the discussion questions were raised related to how graduate courses and programs were evaluated, whether or not it would be advisable to have caps on program size based on employment, projected marketability, and institutional resources, and if it would be helpful for advisors to know what “typical” gaps might be found in a student’s undergraduate program who graduated from Coastal to be able to advise such a student on a different selection of electives in route to completing the undergraduate degree. This would be specific to undergraduate students who had decided that they would like to pursue the MAT after receiving their degrees. Dr. Wiseman commented that it would be helpful for the members to have copies of the transcript review guides used by the MAT program in order to see how needed courses were identified. Dr. Wiseman also indicated that he would request information on end-of-course evaluation forms now being used for graduate courses to see how or if they differed from forms being used for undergraduate courses.
Dr. Wiseman referred the members to the information provided on fall 2006 graduate enrollments by program, noting that this was the first semester that the MBA was being offered with 33 declared majors enrolled. Dr. Wiseman also commented that most of Coastal’s graduate enrollments were represented by students in the non-degree student category as teachers taking professional development courses, seeking to keep their certificates active, seeking to add on additional areas of certification to their certificates, or for some other professional or district-related reason.
Dr. Wiseman referred the members to the information provided on fall 2006 undergraduate enrollments by program and suggested that the Council could play an important role in stimulating thinking in the colleges and departments as to possible new graduate programs at Coastal. Such factors as size of undergraduate program by number of majors, number of tenure-track faculty in a department, scholarship of faculty, interest of faculty, student interest, and area need, could be explored when new programs are considered. The discussion that followed helped to focus attention on some of the challenges of the institution in terms of numbers of faculty at certain ranks, determining scholarship, strength of library, etc., regarding studying the feasibility of new graduate programs. The suggestion was made that the Council review the current protocol from the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education (CHE) that is used for program approval. It was also suggested that reviewing current standards of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) also could be helpful to see what expectations are in place by that accrediting body for study at the graduate level. Dr. Wiseman indicated that he would get this information and provide it to the members for the next Council meeting. Dr. Wiseman also distributed the current calendar of dates used by CHE in the program approval process.
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Near the end of the meeting the question was raised as to how graduate tuition is reflected on the University website in terms of full-time or less than full-time graduate students. At this point reference is made to students taking 12 credit hours per semester or more as reflecting full-time status. This information is not accurate as current standards expect 9 credit hours per semester or more for a graduate student to be considered full-time. Mr. Lawless said that he would review the website information to determine if accurate information related to graduate students, full-time status, and tuition, is being reflected and have the site changed if necessary.
There being no further business or discussion, the meeting
adjourned at