I. Approval of Minutes
The minutes of the last meeting of UCGS are attached for your review.

II. Finding the Graduate Program That's Right for You
For your information I attach the new update of this publication.

III. Review of Initiation of Off-Campus Graduate Programs
This topic was discussed at our last meeting. I will update UCGS on the resolution of how to proceed and what role they might play.

IV. Advising
Because of plans for changing our student information system (SOLARS project), all student service processes have been under review, including advising. At the graduate level advisors are assigned in different ways in different schools and there is a difference in the role of an advisor for an entering student and a more advanced student. The advising function needs to be improved in most programs. I would like advice on how to gather information about how advising is done and to what degree and in what fashion it needs to be improved.

V. Relationship of Departmental or School Web Pages and University Graduate Pages
We are reviewing the two home pages we maintain; i.e., Graduate Admissions and Financial Aid (http://www.pitt.edu/~graduate/admissions.html), which is linked from the Student and Admission Information top level page and Graduate Studies at the University of Pittsburgh (http://www.pitt.edu/~graduate), which is linked from the Campuses, Schools, and Departments top level page. I attach copies of these pages. Should we be encouraging schools to link to these pages from their graduate program pages? How can we improve these pages? UCGS reviewed these pages last year, but now that we are all more experienced on using the web, we ask for a new review.

VI. Committee Assignments
We have three standing committees: Graduate Procedures Committee, Graduate Student Affairs Committee and the Subcommittee for the Evaluation of Academic Programs, of whom some of the members are UCGS representatives. Do we want to form any ad hoc committees to deal with particular topics? I attach a list of assignments and issues.

cc: Sam Conte