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Graduate Council Minutes

May 16, 2013

MEMBERS PRESENT

Voting: Professors T. P. Cronan, N.D. Dennis, A. J. Dowdle, P.M. Hewitt, V.H. Hunt, J.T. Scott, P.R. Selvam, T.G. Shields, J.D. Wiersma; Ms. M.M. Hui; Mr. C. Stoudenmire

Non-Voting: Professors J. Ganson, P.R. Koski, M.T. Miller; Ms. Harwood-Rom

MEMBERS ABSENT

Voting: Professors M.S. Bradley, R.M. Costrell, A.E. Ellstrand, F.M. Scheide

Non-Voting: Professors C.H. Adams, A. O’Leary-Kelly, L.J. Robertson

GUESTS Professors N. Arenberg, A. Ferguson, P. Harrington, A. Hoyer, D. Hughes, B. Madison

SECRETARY Ms. T. M. Fisher

The meeting was called to order at 2:00 p.m. by Chair Patricia Koski

  1. Minutes for the April 18th, 2013, Graduate Council meeting stand approved, as no changes were suggested. (The minutes of the Graduate Council may be found at http://grad.uark.edu/dean/gradcouncil/minutes/).
  2. The Council endorsed adding a statement to the Graduate Catalog similar to that found in the undergraduate Catalog of Studies: “Courses not marked in the course description as eligible to be repeated for degree credit may be included in this total only once.”
  3. Professor M.T. Miller announced that Chase Stoudenmire, a student representative to the Council, has been awarded the National Security Education Program Boren Fellowship for 12 months of intensive Georgian language study and research. The Council congratulated Mr. Stoudenmire.
  4. Professor Koski reported that, since our last meeting, the Academic Appeals Committee has heard several cases by e-mail.
  5. There was no old business.
  6. New Business:
    1. Professor P. Harrington presented a proposal to require the GRE for admission to the M.S. degree in Mathematics (MATHMS) (Attachment A). Following discussion, this proposal was approved and will go to the Faculty Senate in September.
    2. Professors P. Harrington and B. Madison presented a proposal to add an area of study in Mathematical Education to the Ph.D. degree in Mathematics (MATHPH) (Attachment B). Following discussion, the proposal was approved and will go to the Faculty Senate in September. No off-campus approval is required, since this is an area of study rather than a concentration.
    3. There was no representative from the Department of Music, so the proposal to add a concentration in collaborative Music to the M.M. degree was deferred to the June meeting.
    4. Professors N. Arenberg and J. Hoyer presented a proposal to combine the M.A. degree in French (FRENMA) and the M.A. degree in German (GERMMA) into one degree, which will be an M.A. degree in Modern language (MLAN), with a concentration in German or French (Attachment C, Attachment D, Attachment E). Following discussion, the proposal was approved and will go to the Faculty Senate in September and then to the Board of Trustees and Arkansas Department of Higher Education.
    5. Professors A. Ferguson and D. Hughes presented a proposal to offer a combined JD degree in the School of Law and an MSW degree in the School of Social Work (Attachment F and Attachment G). Following discussion, the proposal was approved and will go to the Faculty Senate in September. No off campus approval is required.
  7. Discussion: Professor Koski asked the Council to consider mandating plagiarism checking for theses and dissertations before they can be submitted to the Graduate School to meet degree requirements. The Council has debated this issue before but deferred until plagiarism checking software was in place. The University now has a license for Turnitin.com for graduate student work as well as SafeAssign, so we are positioned to consider this proposal. Professor Koski asked the Council to poll their constituencies about this issue.
  8. The course change report contained in Attachment H was approved and will go next to the Faculty Senate.
  9. The graduate faculty recommendations contained in Attachment I were approved.

There being no other business, the Council adjourned at 2:50 p.m.