Wednesday, September 4, 2019

 
Council in Attendance:
Wade Hill (Nursing)
Brock Smith (Agriculture)
Dennis Aig (Arts)
Sobia Anjum (Student Representative)
Lisa Davis (Letters & Science)
Christopher Livingston (Architecture)
James Becker (Health & Human Development) 
Michael Brody (Faculty Senate)
Robert Rydell (Letters & Science)
Craig Ogilvie (Dean of The Graduate School) 
Que Vo (International Programs)
Sara Mannheimer (Library)

Also in Attendance:
Lauren Cerretti (Graduate School)
Emily Peters (Graduate School)
Mark Ranalli (Dean of Business)


Absent:
Ahmed Al-Kaisy (Engineering)
Marc Giullian (Business)
Tena Versland (Education)

Meeting started at 1:04 pm

Approval of April 22, 2019 Minutes

Motion to approve made by Aig, 2nd by Becker, unanimously passed

Announcements

Dean Ogilvie Welcome

  • Big theme is connecting graduate students and land-grant mission
  • Working on partnerships with Center for Faculty Excellence, recruiting, improving graduate student services

Welcome New Members: Lisa Davis (Sciences), Wade Hill (Nursing), Michael Brody (Faculty Senate), Que Vo (OIP)

Faculty Senate Update (Brody)

  • Getting started for the semester—will be meeting every other Wednesday

New Business

MS of Innovation & Management(Livingston)

  • Dean Mark Ranalli provides overview of program proposal
    • New MEM (Master of Engineering Management) program – these types of programs have shown success. The idea is to address that undergraduate students are delving deeper in stem fields. Employers say we’re producing intelligent, capable students, but these students don’t understand what’s important to the employers – many students later get an MBA. These MEM programs provide a 4+1 intensive year to learn about business.
    • Cohort model, in a classroom the entire time – learning about corporate finance, strategy, marketing. Students will build a business plan and present to a group of venture capitalists. Based on feedback, students will either go deeper into their plan or start over with a new plan.
    • Program will better prepare students for faster career development and provide the skills to start their own business
    • Hoping to have program proposal to BOR by November meeting
  • Discussion:
    • Q: Is a representative of faculty available to answer questions?
      • A: No, Marc Giullian is teaching and unable to attend the meeting
    • Faculty believe this is a good idea, positive about the proposal, but there are some concerns
    • Faculty input is important—appreciate if faculty could be brought to answer questions. Some concern has been raised that faculty have not been involved enough with the process.
      • A: State law requires faculty votes are not anonymous. We did require faculty to fill out a ballot and faculty counted the votes. It was brought to our attention that if the Dean’s office saw the votes, it would reflect on the voters. To accommodate concerns, a faculty member counted the votes.
    • Q: Students in this program would be supported by endowed gifts?
      • A: High confidence in securing donations for this program. Support has been built.
        • Open discussion on funding. Goal is to secure funding for a director, marketing, general program costs, course development, and 5 years of scholarships for tuition/room and board for approximately 25-35 students.
    • Q: This program will be taught by non-tenure track faculty?
      • A: Accreditation by AACSB necessitates certain hours of tenured faculty teaching in the classroom. Currently under the threshold for undergrad. Giving up the accreditation is not an option. There are 2 paths we can consider with this program – MEM programs (of which this MSIM would be classified) do not need to be accredited by AACSB. If we want it to be accredited, we’ll need 3 new tenure track lines for a program with no students yet. Instead, can allow a 2-cycle window (next cycle is in 2 years). This program will fall outside of the accreditation, which allows 7 years to fix/change tenure ratio. Intention of the program is to include tenure and non-tenure track faculty. For next fall, it is unlikely that more than 1-2 of 10 courses will be taught by tenure track faculty.
    • This raises questions for advising. And, if accreditation standards are waived to start, how will this impact the faculty going forward?
      • Q: Should we lay out what it should look like in 5 years?
      • A: Yes, we will lay out what will need to be reached to get accreditation
    • Heard push back from UM because of their graduate program in Business Administration. We feel what makes the program unique is the potential around our stem focus as an R1 university. We think that could be emphasized more in the proposal. When it gets to OCHE that will be imperative to acknowledge the stem focus. Is there support among the engineering faculty?
      • A: A resounding yes
      • Q: Do you have any evidence?
      • A: Just conversations
      • Letters of support may be helpful
    • More collaboration with faculty would make for a better proposal. Many of your faculty have history with the system
      • Some faculty did step forward to help with this (2 senior faculty). At all points, we have asked faculty to participate. Faculty will be asked to be part of course development
    • Review of timeline for NTT and accreditation. Is accreditation the most important goal?
      • Unanimous support from the college and the university that we want to be accredited.
      • Q: What’s the rush, given this situation? Would it make sense to postpone this until faculty are more on board and accreditation issues are locked down?
      • A: If we did this next year, would have the same issue on accreditation. This program is a path to increase revenue and increase tenure lines. Don’t see an advantage for waiting another year. Issue of faculty being on board, we did hold a vote last week and it was unanimous. There is a dynamic between faculty wanting to be involved and actually showing up to work on it.
      • Q: You said you are going to increase revenue and that will increase tenure lines. Do you have any guarantee of that?
      • A: Faculty lines follow student credit hours
    • Faculty think this is a good proposal but may not make it through the system the way it is now: discuss stem connection, more clarity on funding
    • On behalf of future students, this program would be a very good thing for students
    • Estimated roughly 1/3 non-residents? You mentioned examples of other schools, but what makes this program unique that students will come here for this?
      • A: Looking at our specific market, there is nothing like this in the Northwest. Colorado, California, Washington students. Opportunity to grow international students. Unique – intensive experiential learning
      • Q: You mentioned donors are interested. Is there a timeline for how long that type of support lasts?
        • Discussion of funding possibilities and projections
    • Any idea how marketable students will be?
      • A: Talked with Amazon, Boeing, etc. Companies want students with this and will pay them for it. Really high confidence in demand and premium for these students. Saw this happen at Tufts.
    • Q: Proposal states MUS students will be allowed to “carry” 4 credits from undergrad into the program?
      • A: Yes, same as the MPAc program
      • There’s just a change in language needed. MPAc reserve credits, so they don’t use them for the undergraduate degree.
    • Be more specific about strategic goals in line with strategic plan. With funding issues, addressing resources for staffing. Needs may grow in the future.
      • A: College of Business has its own funding for student services, marketing, etc.
      • Would be good to address this in the proposal. With increased faculty and students, there is an increase on staff.
      • Our accounting grad prog has reduced in size. With the same staff/faculty structure, used to have 65 grad students. 26 in fall cohort.
      • Q: As the program grows, is there the possibility of needing additional staff?
      • A: Yes, over time
    • Does each individual student build their program of study?
      • A: No, everybody does the same, except the electives. All the content is what you need to learn. Integrating with tech transfer – advancing economic development.
  • Discussion of how to proceed
    • Consensus that UGC will request more information from the applicant. Applicant will need to make revisions and resubmit through the CiM system. Updated proposal returns to UGC for a vote.
      • Any additional concerns can be emailed to Livingston as soon as possible
  • Process for other 2 programs: Optics and Photonics next – is it on the same timeline?
    • Don’t know, but the Public Policy & Admin is on the same timeline
  • Send questions for Optics & Photonics to Livingston to expedite
    • Would like the proposer to attend the meeting

 

Adjourned at 2:05 pm

Next scheduled meeting – September 18, 2019 Reid 415