Minutes
-Appendix A: Academic Policy/ Curriculum Committee Joint Meeting
-Appendix B: BYLAW and OPERATING PROCEDURES
-Appendix C: Curriculum Committee Report

Members Present
Auge, Bowers, Bresee, Caudill, Clement, Coddington, K. Davis, W. Davis, Feigerle, Frymier, Gaylord, George, Hammer, Harden, Kelley, Lofaro, Mayhew, Moussa, Murphy, Phillips, Schroedl, Tompkins, Townsend, Upadhyaya, Warden, Whitney.

The Graduate Council was called to order at 3:05 p.m. in the Board Room, 8th Floor Andy Holt Tower, by Dean Anne Mayhew.

1. Minutes of the Preceding Meeting

The minutes of the September 6, 2001 Graduate Council meeting were approved as reported.

2. Committee Reports

    · Academic Policy

        Dr. Wayne Davis (Chair) reported that the committee had met jointly with the Curriculum Committee to review policies
        referred to the committees by Dean Mayhew (APPENDIX A).

        Graduate Council approved the recommendation from the joint committees that  international students whose
        performance on the English proficiency examination is unsatisfactory and who must enroll for English 121 may enroll for 9 additional hours
        of course work.  The original policy restricted enrollment to 6 additional hours of course work.  The additional hours
        will enable students to remain fully engaged with others in cohort programs.

    · Appeals

        There was no report.

    · Credentials

        Dr. Kathy Davis (Chair) presented By Laws for the Credentials Committee to the Graduate Council for approval
        (APPENDIX B).  The Graduate Council approved the By Laws with 16 votes approving, and 4 votes opposing the By
        Laws.  Several changes concerning the approval of faculty members to direct doctoral dissertations were contained in the
        By Laws.  These changes will be effective immediately.

        Mayhew expressed appreciation for the efforts of K. Davis in the development of the proposed changes for the approval
        of faculty members to direct doctoral dissertations.  Mayhew will distribute a memo to the Deans concerning these
        changes.

        The report on faculty applications to direct doctoral dissertations was presented during Closed Session.

    · Curriculum

        Dr. Paul Frymier (Chair) reviewed the curricular items as presented in the agenda.  Council voted unanimously to approve
        the recommendations as reported in (APPENDIX C).

    · Graduate Deans Group

        Dean Fred Tompkins gave the report from the Graduate Deans Group from their October 4, 2001, meeting.  That group
        had discussed several issues that Dean Mayhew had presented concerning questions related to current graduate policies.

    · Graduate Student Association

        Mr. Nathan Hammer (President) discussed the current activities of the Graduate Student Association.  He announced that
        the GSA, working in conjunction with Student Affairs, OIT and the Library, had developed a new graduate student
        computer lab in Hodges Library on the 6th Floor.  Reports of all GSA activities are on the web site at
        http://web.utk.edu/~gsa.

    · Professional Development

        Dean Mayhew reported that the first round of faculty professional development proposals had been received, reviewed,
        and selected for awards.

3. Other Business

    Dean Mayhew announced that the administration, in a major step to address the lack of competitive graduate student
    funding,  had designated $1.2 million for increasing graduate assistantship stipends.  She reported that assistantships from all
    E & G accounts were increased to partially offset the new fees and that additional funds were given to targeted departments
    to address competitiveness.  She also reported that stipend minima had been raised.

CLOSED SESSION

Dr. Kathleen Davis (Chair) presented the report from the Credentials Committee.  The following faculty members were recommended for initial or extended approval to direct doctoral dissertation research:

            Dr. Kristina Gordon, Department of Psychology
            Dr. Candace White, School of Journalism
            Dr. Vincent Pantalone, Department of Plant Science and Landscape Systems
            Dr. Jonathan Shefner, Department of Sociology (Approval for one student)
            Dr. Narenda Dahotre, Department of Materials Science & Engineering
            Dr. Kenneth Read, Department of Physics
            Dr. Robert G. Perrin, Department of Sociology
 

Graduate Council approved the report.

The next meeting of the Graduate Council will be held on Thursday, December 6, 2001, at 3:00 p.m. in the Board Room, 8th Floor, Andy Holt Tower.  Agenda items are due by noon on November 7, 2001.

The Graduate Council was adjourned at 4:05 p.m.

                                                                                                Respectfully submitted,
 

                                                                                                Kay Reed, Secretary to the Council

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Present:  Academic Policy Committee (APC) members: Wayne Davis (Chair of APC), Judy Boser (Proxy for O’Bannon), Sam Morton, Stephanie Ohnesorg, Kay Reed.  Members of the Curriculum Committee present were: Paul Frymier, Stephen Blackwell, Ed Caudill, Nathan Hammer, Naima Moussa, Mary Rogge, Gerald Schroedl, Richard Townsend, and Diana Lopez.  Anne Mayhew, Heather Doncaster, and Rose Ann Trantham were also in attendance from Graduate Studies and Graduate Admissions for the joint meeting.

1. Wayne Davis chaired the joint meeting of the Academic Policy and Curriculum Committees.  The agenda, which was
    provided by Dean Anne Mayhew, included several policies where exceptions were being requested routinely.  The
    committees plan to meet again for further discussions of these policies.
 

2. The committees discussed a proposed change in policy for admission term.  In some programs, graduate students who were
    UT undergraduates are granted admission for Fall term and they often desire to take graduate hours in the Summer term,
    before their admission is effective.  The committees will continue discussion of this policy.
 

3. The committees discussed the feasibility of changing the course load limit for entering international students who place into
    English 121 from 6 additional hours to 9 additional hours.  The committees recommend that the Graduate Council
    approve that the course load limit be increased to 9 additional hours in a semester for students who are required to take
    English 121, bringing the total registration to 13 hours.

The meeting adjourned at 4:45 p.m.

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The Credentials Committee is responsible for procedures that will guide the supervision of dissertation research. The goals are to ensure sound scholarly advice, competent management of the process, high academic standards, and completion of dissertations in a timely manner. To this end the Committee will conduct a review of the credentials of those who will be recommended to the Graduate Council for approval to direct doctoral dissertations. In making these recommendations the Committee will follow the procedures outlined below:

1) Tenure-track but untenured faculty are eligible to direct dissertations subject to Departmental approval as indicated by a vote of the tenured faculty, and a letter of support from the Department Head. The letter of support and the results of the vote should be forwarded to the Credentials Committee, which will make a recommendation to the Graduate Council. The Credentials Committee may recommend approval for an unspecified number of students prior to the review for tenure or may limit approval to a specific dissertation project. It will be expected that department heads and senior faculty will mentor new faculty members as they master the art of working with students on their dissertations. Instructors, lecturers, those who have not completed their doctorates, or other non-tenure track instructional faculty may not supervise dissertations.

2) When a faculty member is awarded tenure and promotion to the rank of associate professor, or promotion to professor, they will automatically be approved to supervise doctoral research for the next five years.

3) There will be a review of all faculty who seek continued approval to direct in the Spring term of the year in which they undergo cumulative review, or in the case of department heads who may not undergo cumulative review, in the Spring of the year when they would have been scheduled for review.  Early in the Spring term departments will be asked to provide seven copies of evidence of continued scholarly activity. This evidence should consist of (a) a list of theses and dissertations supervised since the last review (whether for tenure, promotion or cumulative); (b) a list of peer-reviewed publications since the last review; (c) a list of grants and other external validation or support of creative and scholarly activity; (d) other scholarly evidence that may be relevant to the approval to direct dissertations; and (e) a letter of support for continued approval from the Department Head. The Committee will review this material over the Spring term. The primary criterion for approval will be evidence of externally reviewed and validated scholarly or creative activity.

4) Faculty who are not granted approval for supervision may petition the Dean of Graduate Studies for limited approval to supervise individual dissertations if the Department Head and Department Faculty petition for such limited approval. Petitions should describe the accomplishments of the faculty member as described in the previous paragraph, as well as the special circumstances that would warrant one-time approval.

From time to time the Committee may also consider other matters relating to the process of dissertation supervision.

The Committee will consist of seven members from those colleges that award doctoral degrees. At least one member will be from each of the following Colleges: Arts & Sciences, Business, Education, Engineering, and Human Ecology.  The Committee elects a chair annually.

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Attending: Paul Frymier (Acting Chair), Stephen Blackwell, Ed Caudill, Nathan Hammer, Naima Moussa, Mary Rogge, Gerald Schroedl, Richard Townsend, and Diana Lopez. Anne Mayhew was also in attendance as we met jointly with the Academic Policy Committee.

1. The first order of business was to elect a chair. No faculty member volunteered, and after several questions concerning responsibilities, Paul Frymier agreed to be the chair.

2. The request for a program change from the College of Nursing was approved since it was only correcting a previous error.

3. The request for non-standard format for a course from the Department of Statistics was approved. Rogge questioned if any evaluation of non-standard format courses or distance ed courses had been undertaken. No one knew of any, other than through regular class evaluations or individual experiences.

4. The draft of operating guidelines would be discussed at a later date.

5. In the joint meeting with the Academic Policy Committee, three of several topics for review were discussed, with a couple of proposals to come forward from APC.

    a. A revision to the admission policy changed to a revision of the requirements for graduate credit. The approved statement
    will be forwarded to the Graduate Council from APC.

    b. The committees approved (Curriculum Committee voting 7-1) raising the maximum number of hours from 6 to 9 that a
    student can take when required to register for English 121. The change will be forwarded to the Council by APC.

    c. The committees discussed deliberate overloads in a program that had been approved last year. The regular MBA and the
    dual MBA-MS degree programs with majors in Business Administration and Industrial Engineering, Mechanical
    Engineering, or Engineering Science were approved for students to carry 16 hours during the Fall term of the first year.
    Exceptions had been requested for the dual degree students to carry 17 hours this fall. The committees decided to request
    representatives of the programs to meet with the Curriculum Committee to discuss the program and overload hours.
 

Meeting adjourned at 4:40 p.m.

COLLEGE OF NURSING: NURSING

Revise requirements for the M.S.N. degree program with a major in Nursing to return the total hours for the program back to its original number of 36 hours by increasing the number of elective hours from 6 to 9. Under Program Requirements, catalog copy will read:

        All students must complete a minimum of 36 semester hours distributed as follows:

        Elective (9 credits)—Required for students in nursing administration concentration only.
 

Effective Fall 2002
 

NON-STANDARD FORMAT COURSE: STATISTICS

583 Special Topics in Applied Statistics (1-3)
Data Mining Applications—Traditional class offered over normal spring semester in a cyberclass format for 3 credit hours. Live sessions (synchronous) whereby each student will interface with the instructor via computer through Centra software and asynchronous assignments through Internet and email. Requires minimum of 45 contact hours.
 

Effective Spring 2002

All backup materials are available in 201 Student Services Building.
 

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