Invited Guests: Meg Lota Brown and Patricia Stock

Graduate Council Minutes

17 November, 2017

Invited Guests: Meg Lota Brown and Patricia Stock

Attendees:

Walt Klimecki, Emily Butler, Clare Robinson, Eliane Rubinstein-Avila, Jonathan Tullis, Dajun Zeng, Jay Rosenblatt, Anne Rosenfeld, W. Jake Jacobs, Ute Lotz-Heumann, Richard Orozco, Kelley Merrian-Castro, Elizabeth Kline, Mary Staugaard, Andrew Carnie, Janet Sturman

I. Call to Order and Roll Call – Chair Klimecki

II. Approval of previous minutes -

III. Dean’s Report – Carnie

Dean Carnie gave an update on the tax bill that might affect the taxation of Graduate Student Tuition Remission. The House Bill passed with all the provisions. The Senate version does not have the student waiver provision. An email was sent to all DGSs and program coordinators and Graduate students about the university’s position on the issue and with links that people could use to contact their representatives..

Associate Dean's Report – Sturman

The Graduate College hosted its’6th GEM (Graduate Enrollment Management) workshop yesterday. Files and resources from the workshops are available to faculty and staff at: < The final GEM workshop will address the topics of tracking Graduate Success and Post-Doctoral Support.

We discussed the possibility of merging Grad College and GPSC student research showcase events with career fair events. March 19 is the date of preliminary competition round for the Grad Slam competition for the best 3-minute presentation of graduate student research geared for a general audience. March 19 will also be a career day for the University. We hope that participants in each activity will attend both events. We want to bring in potential employers to see the presentations from the different departments so we can show off these students to the local community as well as to other programs on campus.

A New International Student Award form, is now available for departments to help admit international students. GSAS has new instructions for completing the cover page for dissertations and theses. Instead of having the GC store the printed page as a separate file, we will use a watermark to protect the signatures so that the page can be included in the archived document.

Academic integrity issues. If you encounter academic integrity violations by graduate students, please report them first to the Dean of Students office. <

IV. Chair's Report –Kimecki

none

Co-Chair's Report – Field

Not present

V. GPSC Report – Dustin Tran

Working with our counterparts at ASU on the tax issue as well. Trying to see if they can help alleviate the provisions that affect the Grad Students. Planning to do some more socials to help bring the students together.

VI.Action Items:

none

VII.Discussion Items:

Multiple Career Pathways- Brown

The Graduate Center is a clearing house for professional development. On the website there is a list of all the organic PD they produce and put on. Mission is to help develop skills not just for use in Academia.

We have to help the students to translate academic skills into skills that employers understand. Initiatives include the CGS career pathways project, a seed grant program, a science communications badge and trying to change culture on campus.

Time to Degree and Improving Completion Rates- Stock

Grad Syllabus Policy Adjustments – Sturman

in response to some requirements from the Curriculum office and ABOR we have made minor adjustments to the Grad Syllabus policy, clarifying that Learning outcomes and course objectives need to be distinguished and clarifying what is meant by “Workload” (distinguishing it from credit hour requirements)

Transferring Non-UA Medical Courses - Sturman

College of Medicine in Phx would like to transfer and use non-UAcredits. The Council wants the professional schools and graduate programs to define the precise qualifications that a professional course must meet to satisfy graduate credit at the University of Arizona.Then we could use that template to evaluate professional transfer credits and decide which to accept or not.

The bottom-line is that the course must provide a graduate level experience, such as: offering in-depth experience, such as developing: a) mastery in the discipline, b) the acquisition of knowledge of research in the field through study of peer-reviewed publications or the equivalent, and c) initial training in contributing to the development of knowledge in the field. Some first-level professional courses emphasize memorization and a basic acquisition of essential knowledge. Those courses would not be viewed as providing a graduate level experience.