MINUTES of the October 19, 2009MEETING of the GRADUATE COUNCIL

MINUTES of the October 19, 2009MEETING of the GRADUATE COUNCIL

BINGHAMTONUNIVERSITY

MINUTES OF THE October 19, 2009MEETING OF THE GRADUATE COUNCIL

PLACE:Couper Administrative Building - Room148

PRESIDING:Nancy E. Stamp, Vice Provost and Dean of the GraduateSchool

MEMBERS:Jacques Beaumont, Carmen Ferradas, Mark Fowler, Robert Guay, Wayne Jones, William Haver, William Heller, Sarah Lam, Edward Li, Dina Maramba, Pamela Mischen, Chuck Nelson, Beverly Rainforth, Olga Shvetsova, Pamela Stewart Fahs

EX OFFICIO

MEMBERS:Dara Silberstein, Gerald Sonnenfeld,Lindsay Tremain

EXCUSED:Christopher Bishop, Michael Conlon, Susan Currie, James Fang, Brandon Gibb, Stephen Gilje, Wendy Martinek, Max Pensky, Nan Zhou

ABSENT:Andrew Merriwether, Debi Mishra,

  1. CALL TO ORDER:

Vice Provost and Dean Nancy Stamp called the meeting to order at 3:00 pm.

  1. MINUTES:

The minutes of the September 21 2009 were approved as written.

  1. COMMITTEE REPORTS:

Curriculum Committee

This Committee met on Monday, October 12, 2009. The committee approved the following

proposals:

1) Proposal for new Graduate Courses in Public Administration:

a. PAFF 516, Performance Analysis

  1. PAFF 520, 21st Century Governance
  2. PAFF 526, Managing Information and Technology
  3. PAFF 536, Managing Networks
  4. PAFF 553, Nonprofit Innovation & Social Enterprise
  5. PAFF 554, Strategy Development in Nonprofit Organizations
  6. PAFF 580, Introduction to Local Government Mgt & Leadership
  7. PAFF 581, Local Government Financial Mgt
  8. PAFF 582, Emerging Issues in Local Government Mgt
  9. PAFF 590, Praxis Through Case Studies
  10. PAFF 591, Problem Definition

2)Proposal for new courses in Social Work

  1. SW 580B - Evidence Based Mental Health Practice
  2. Mental Health Practice with Home-bound Elders
  3. Trauma Recovery
  4. Psychopathology
  5. Death and Dying and Bereavement in Social Work Practice

3)Proposal for new course in Biology

  1. Biology 580, Topics in Molecular Medicine

4)Proposal for new course in Student Affairs Administration Program

  1. SAA 527 Foundations of Multicultural Education

5)Program revisions for two current programs in the School of Education

  1. Childhood Education: MSED
  2. Inclusive Childhood Education: MSED
  3. Instructional Approaches in Mathematics for Special Education

6)Program Proposal for History Department

  1. PhD Field in Imperialism and Colonialism

The motion was made to accept the course and program revision proposals and all were in favor.

Prof. Michael Pettid gave an overview of the formal proposal for a new degree program in Asian & Asian American Studies. This program will cover six fields: Chinese Studies, Japanese Studies, Korean Studies, South Asian Studies, Asian American and Diaspora Studies, and Global Asia Studies. The department will change the proposal to reflect each field having 32 credits. All were in favor of approving the proposal and forwarding it to SUNY-System.

Grievance Committee

The Grievance Committee met on October 5th to reviewand update current grievance appeal procedures. In addition to clarifications, the Grievance Committee decided it is no longer necessary that the Grievance Appeals Committee hold a hearing; instead the committee may consider the appeal based on the written appeal and evidentiary documents. All were in favor of accepting the clarifications and procedural change for review of appeals.

Academic Standards Committee

This committee has not met.

Advisory Committee on Scholarship and Research

This committee met and discussed the American Competes Act requirement of NSF (National Science Foundation) to mandate more responsible conduct of research training for undergraduates, graduate students and post doctorate associates. Along with federal agencies, BinghamtonUniversityis interested in the best practice in terms of responsible conduct of research training for everyone. The committee will be reporting recommendations to Graduate Council in the near future. Gerald Sonnenfeld, Vice President for Research, stated that the University could set a template for trainingthat everyone would follow, and each department would then add to the template making it discipline specific. The committee may implementa survey of departments and programs about what they are doing in terms of responsibleconduct and research. Gerald Sonnenfeldmade the announcement that any survey will have to be reviewed by the University’s IRB. The committee also discussed fostering interdisciplinary research and how other universities are handling this.

Budget Advisory Committee

This committee has not met.

Clark Fellowship Advisory Committee

This committee has not met.

Strategic Planning Committee

The Strategic Planning Committee will meet following the Graduate Council meeting today. John Meador, Director of Library Services, will be speaking regarding the changing world of IT and how it will affect our scholarship and research. The committee will continue to look into ways to prepare our graduate students for the IT skills for research and scholarship.

Dean Stamp stated that the University’s Division of Academic Affairs sub-committee for the Middle States Self-Study has mentioned some of these concerns. Professor Mark Fowler suggested that an important issue for the Strategic Planning Committee to discuss was the use of open access journals and the impact this would have on researchers at various stages in their career.

  1. NEW BUSINESS

Dean Stamp discussed the recruitment of the millennial generation. A survey of BinghamtonUniversitygraduate students indicated what they thought about the information that was available to them when they applied to the graduate programs at BinghamtonUniversity. When the survey was first conducted in 2003, the University’s average grade was a C in terms of what the graduate programswere providing applicants. Some of the questions on the survey were.Was there information about: placement of graduates, time to degree, and what the program required. The survey was conducted again this fall, and across the university, departments scored lower than the 2003 survey. The messages are that departments need to have the information that students are seeking more visible on their websites. Departments need to reflect the accomplishments of their department and make that information easily accessible to the student. Websites need to show their graduate students finding employment after graduation and what types of employment. Also, websites need to represent graduate education well on the front page. Dean Stamp stated that the GraduateSchool is using Intelli-response (self-service question and answer) which is on the website, so students can get answers to commonly asked questions.

  1. ADJOURNMENT:

The meeting was adjourned at 4:32 on a motion by Professor Lam and seconded by Professor Heller.

______

Minutes recorded by Cheryl McGowan,

Secretary to the Vice Provost and Dean

of the GraduateSchool

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