I. Approval of Minutes

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

II. Evaluation of the Graduate Programs in the Department of Administration and Policy Studies

The report of the Subcommittee on the Evaluation of Academic Programs (see attached) will be presented by Elizabeth Baranger, substituting for the liaison to the review. Professor Glenn Nelson, chair of the department, and Professor Kevin Kearns, chair of the Internal Review Committee, will attend the meeting at 3:00 PM to answer any questions concerning the report. Any member who wishes to review the Internal Review Committee Report, the External Review Committee Report, and the Department's Response in 801 C.L. should contact Kristin Anderson. Because of previous commitments by our visitors, the meeting will start promptly at 3:00 P.M.

III. Proposal for a Name Change of Graduate Programs in School of Medicine

I attach two proposals submitted by the School of Medicine to change the names of the graduate program in Cell Biology and Physiology to Cell Biology and Molecular Physiology and the program in Pharmacology to Molecular Pharmacology. This has been approved by the Interdisciplinary Biomedical Sciences Graduate Council. Ian Reynolds, a member of the UCGS, will respond to any questions.

IV. Annual Report: 1998-99

I attach a draft of the Annual Report: 1998-99. Please review it for accuracy and content. This is mailed to all faculty or to all graduate faculty in some schools. It will be formatted as was the report of 1997-98 which I also attach.

V. Committee Appointments and Charges

Appointment to UCGS committees and the charges to those committees will be announced.

VI. Course Offered on the Web

What kinds of graduate courses could be offered on the web? How can they be evaluated? What should be included in the course to ensure its equivalence with a course offered on campus? Should we be encouraging or discouraging this endeavor? These issues are arising as we continue to push forward in the use of the web in instruction.

VI. Graduate Web Page

The two web pages for graduate studies maintained by the Office of the Provost - Graduate Studies at the University of Pittsburgh and Graduate Admissions and Financial Aid will be redesigned this fall. I call your attention to these pages and ask that you review them to provide feedback on how the pages could be made more useful to current and prospective graduate and professional students. I attach copies of our two pages; note that the URLs are in the top corner. What links might we consider adding (or deleting)? How can the pages be organized more effectively? While we will not have time for much discussion on this issue at this meeting, I would like to re-visit the issue in November. Toward that discussion, I ask that you look closely at your school's Web page (s) for graduate students so we might think about how all of the University's pages targeting graduate students work together.