Wednesday, August 28, 2024 

9:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
LJH 325

 

Council in Attendance: 
Marc Giullian (Business) 
Catherine Dunlop (Letters) 
Rob Maher (Faculty Senate) 
Rollin Beamish (Arts) 
Stephan Warnat (Engineering) 
Ezgi Balkanay (Architecture) 
Kari Perry (Student Representative) 
Anna French (Student Representative) 
Craig Ogilvie (Dean of The Graduate School) 
Brennan Reeves (Office of International Programs) 
Katey Franklin (Health & Human Development) 
Amy Reines (Sciences) 
Ryan Thum (Agriculture) 
Sarah Mannheimer (Library) 

Also in Attendance: 
Emily Peters (Graduate School) 
Lauren Cerretti (Graduate School) 

Absent 
Sweeney Windchief (Education) 
Akash Gulati (Student Representative) 
Wade Hill (Nursing) 

Meeting started at 9:32 a.m. 

 

May 1, 2024 minutes 

  • Motion to approve by Beamish, Warnat 2nd, 7 in favor, 0 opposed, 1 abstention 

Announcements 

  • Update from the Dean
    • Last academic year’s graduation numbers: master’s & certificates: 573, DNP: 40, research doctorates: 85
      • New R1 threshold is 70 research doctorates over 3 year average
    • Fall enrollment estimates
    • Joan Lorraine-Graduate Career Services staff member met with over 400 individual graduate students last year
    • Next Wednesday, September 4th at 2pm is first monthly graduate coordinators meeting. Topic is “Mentoring this Generation” 
      • Will forward invite for UGC members to attend
  • Faculty Senate Update (Maher)
    • 1st Faculty Senate meeting is this afternoon
    • Theme this year of elevating engagement 
      • Encourage faculty to attend campus events, defenses, etc. 
    • Q: What is Faculty Senate’s role in hiring of new president?
      • TBD; hiring of MSU president rests with Commissioner of Higher Education
        • Previous procedure involved a selection committee that included faculty and students 
    • 2026 is the semiquincentennial (250th anniversary) of the Declaration of Independence – possible opportunity for programming, classes

 

Old Business 

  • Council Positions
    • Vice Chair position
      • Chair of curriculum committee, stands in when chair is not available, becomes chair 
      • Dunlop nominates Reines as Vice Chair, Beamish seconds
      • Vote: 7 in favor, 0 opposed, 0 abstained
      • Reines nominated as Vice Chair
    • Chair position
      • Leads meetings, input on agenda, presents policies at faculty senate, lead of governance subcommittee
      • Dunlop nominates Warnat, Reines seconds
      • Vote: 7 in favor, 0 opposed, 0 abstained 
      • Warnat nominated as Chair
    • Subcommittee 
      • 2 more voting members needed for Curriculum subcommittee
        • Balkanay and Thum volunteer
      • 2 more voting members needed for Policy and Procedures subcommittee
        • Dunlop and Beamish volunteer
  • Appeals policy 
    • Review revised draft
    • Comments:
      • Suggest adding that members of subcommittee include one member selected from department (not in committee of the student and not department head since appeal has already gone to them), because every department/field has different requirements 
        • Is the subcommittee ad hoc or standing? 
          • Ad hoc makes sense, will vary depending on which college the student is from 
          • Grad rep from the college of the student should be on the committee 
            • Ad hoc committee would include 2 members of UGC (including the rep from the student’s college), a faculty rep selected by the department head, and a student rep from UGC
        • Estimate a handful of appeals a year
      • Suggest policy and procedures take feedback from today and make changes to be discussed at next meeting
      • Important that UGC reps take the proposed policy back to their colleges – communicate with department heads and graduate coordinators in your college 
        • Discussion on best practices for sharing information with multiple departments in larger colleges
          • Communicating information to grad coordinators in your college is key 
            • Suggest getting an email list from your college of department heads and grad coordinators
            • Suggest presenting information at grad coordinators meeting
            • Suggest having chair of policy subcommittee send one email to all GCs and list the UGC contacts for each college 
      • UGC representatives will each send an email to graduate coordinators and department heads in their college for now

 

  • 1 cr ext and in absentia graduation policy 
    • Discuss feedback from JAGS
      • Revisions based on feedback: made 1 credit extension period a fixed amount of time (1/3 of a semester; 5 weeks), also wanted to allow defense in the first 4 weeks of that 5 week period
    • Comments: 
      • One issue with extension over summer is some faculty (g. NTT) are not on contract and are being asked to take time out of their summer
        • One-credit extension is an option, does not have to be used; some departments have their own policy that does not allow defenses in summer
        • Can work with student to complete earlier, if know the one-credit extension will not work for the committee
      • How common is one-credit extension nationally? 
        • Common to have this type of option; ours is very transparent
      • Is it treated as a standard option or only an exceptional practice in emergency cases? 
        • Discussion on situations when 1 cr extension is used 
        • Uses of 1 cr extension can be outlined in graduate handbooks 
    • Can 1 cr ext and in absentia be separated as policies moving forward? 
    • Revisit at meeting in 2 weeks

 

New Business 

  • Scholarly Works Option Formatting Guidelines
    • Issue come up with appendices in thesis or dissertation, some students have been adding a full manuscript to the appendix 
      • Current guidance is that the manuscript should be in the body not the appendix
        • Concerns of adding to the appendix: potentially won’t be covered in the defense, may contribute to time to degree to write entire thesis/dissertation plus additional manuscript
        • Committees have argued that they should decide whether or not it fits into the body of the thesis/dissertation 
      • Comments:
        • Why include in thesis/dissertation instead of just citing it? 
          • There is a scholarly works option – set of separate works with introduction and conclusion tying it together
          • Will be included in oral defense if it’s in the body. Manuscript should be a part of the scholarly argument or not included (just cited)
        • Seems like the only reason you would include is if it’s not available anywhere else, otherwise should just cite it
          • Students have expressed that they did the work as a graduate student want it all represented in their final paper
            • Advise students that you may be doing your work a disservice if you’re just trying to add all your work in
            • Can submit to preprint repository and then cite 
            • In some fields it is common to include the work you’ve done, but this could be cited
        • Could modify language to “should not” include manuscript

 

Updates from subcommittees  
 

Public comment 

 

Adjourned at 11:02 am 

Next scheduled meeting – September 11, 2024