Wednesday, September 18, 2019

 
Council in Attendance:
Brock Smith (Agriculture)
Dennis Aig (Arts)
Sobia Anjum (Student Representative)
Lisa Davis (Letters & Science)
Tena Versland (Education)
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)
Gary Caton (Business)
Frank Kerins (Business)
Eric Van Steenburg (Business)


Absent:
Ahmed Al-Kaisy (Engineering)
Christopher Livingston (Architecture)
Wade Hill (Nursing)
Marc Giullian (Business)

Meeting started at 1:00 pm

Approval of September 4, 2019 Minutes

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

Announcements

Faculty Senate Update (Brody): No updates

New Business

Integrated MS in Optics & Photonics (Aig)

  • Suggestion to create a standard process and set of guiding principles since 4+1 programs will likely be growing
  • Review of current policy: up to 9 credits of 4xx level allowed if taken as graduate or reserved as undergraduate
    • This should be clarified; the proposal does not specify how many of the 12 reserved credits can be 4xx level
  • Proposal is asking to double count 6 credits
    • Q: Do they specify why they want to double count?
    • A: Not specified in the proposal, but it is a national trend: affordable and timely for students
    • Q: How does the council feel about double counting?
      • Suggestion: If they are going to be outside of the norm, should they provide reasons?
  • Review of the policies for other 4+1 programs
    • This will come up again, so we should decide our philosophy on this
    • The best undergraduates will be interested in this—will likely be some of our strongest students
    • Discussion of creating a group to review graduate policy
  • Q: Do we want to hold up this proposal, or pass with comments?
    • Q: Are we aware of the immediacy?
    • A: Not necessarily, but there is a push to increase the number of students transitioning from the undergrad to grad
    • Assuming these are MSU Bozeman 4xx level courses? How would this be treated from another university?
      • Discussion on current policy: 4xx level courses reserved at another university are allowed to transfer
    • Concern with Rule #8: states that the 12 reserved credits can also be applied to the PhD
    • Concern with Rule #9: states that students can lose their reserved credits if they don’t complete the program. This is not true; the credits would still be reserved.
    • Concern with Rule #2: would feel better if the 12 reserved credits were made up of 6 credits of 4xx level and 6 credits of 5xx level
      • Could say up to 9 credits of 4xx level, since that would be in line with current policy
      • Could ask them to justify their policy
    • Request a program of study to show example
    • Do we know if the Physics department is involved? Will students admitted to the Physics department be eligible for this program?
  • Consensus to postpone vote on proposal and send back for revisions

Old Business

MS of Innovation & Management(Aig): Dean Mark Ranalli, Gary Caton, Frank Kerins, and Eric Van Steenburg invited into the meeting for Q&A on the proposal. Letters of support from Brett Gunnink (NACOE Dean), Ilse-Mari Lee (Honors College Dean), and Nicol Rae (Letters & Science Dean) were provided to council members.

  • Q: Relationship between tenure track and non-tenure track? Proposal estimates up t0 50 students after 3 years. Graduate School has a policy that NTT cannot chair committees.
    • Review of committee policy. Plan C example: Accounting with a single director.
    • Q: Can NTT faculty members be the chair?
    • A: Chair should be a tenure track faculty member
    • Review MED example: chair would be responsible for reviewing capstone, revolves around research
      • Q: Will Business be doing a capstone or something similar?
      • A: Yes
      • It is a lot of work; 50 advisees, 50 capstones
    • Reasonable request. We would have to figure it out among our tenure track faculty. Most of our tenure track faculty have no flexibility in their schedules. We could figure out how to do it if the program were to go through.
    • The majority of work would be completed by the director of the program – advising of students
      • Another model on campus: MSSE director
  • Q: Director will not be tenure track? What’s the appointment?
    • A: Non-tenure track: running the program, advising, teaching. 80/20 administrative to teaching.
    • Q: Is there a possibility of hiring a tenure track faculty instead? It sounds like there is potential for funding for this program.
    • A: Difficult to ask for a tenure line before having any students or revenue
      • Experience with a program that was started with an endowed chair. If there is funding for a specific line, it might be possible.
        • We do not have funding in place to endow a tenure track line, rich funding for scholarships and startup costs
  • Q: Once scale up, the program is looking at 3 tenure track lines?
    • A: Didn’t necessarily state a number in the proposal, but the goal is to get accredited
    • Q: Do you know exactly what the tenure track line number you need to achieve is?
    • A: Moving target. Accounting numbers have reduced, but accounting faculty remained static. As we grow there will be opportunities for tenure track lines. We have a number of tools to get to the end point. Haven’t set specific numbers—goal is to get accreditation.
  • Impression from letters are that they are letters of support. Letters reflecting collaboration would improve the proposal. Suggestions: chairing students—faculty from other departments might be able to assist with chairing committees; picking up some instructors would be more collaborative; co-teaching or collaborative teaching.
  • Q: How do you foresee this proposal progressing as you move to BOR? Will it be changing as you go along after UGC?
    • A: Trying to listen the whole time. Process feedback and try to make it better through the phases. There will surely be some evolution of the proposal through this.
  • Open discussion of how to proceed with MSIM proposal
    • Need more clarification on funding. Want assurance that faculty are driving this, not funding.
      • Student need is driving this proposal—driven to serve students
    • Sounds like a program that will draw students. Concern about the number of students in this program.
    • Not having a TT run the program undercuts the program to start
    • Q: Is there a process to review? For example, 3 years after any new program is created?
      • A: No, there is no process currently in place for reviewing programs
      • Could put in a comment: UGC would like to review this in 3 years
  • Rydell moves to defer action on this proposal until the next meeting. Brody seconds the motion.
    • Q: What are the implications of deferring for two weeks?
    • A: Would make recruiting students more difficult – it will postpone the process to get to BOR. From a student perspective, will disadvantage the recruiting of graduate students.
      • Deferring might make it stronger before getting to faculty senate
    • Need time to work on our comments to include with the proposal; Business should provide collaboration letters, rather than support letters; UGC members would like to take this information back to their departments/colleagues
    • Unanimous decision to defer

 

Adjourned at 2:07 pm

Next scheduled meeting – October 2, 2019 Reid 415