Attending: Elizabeth Baranger (Chair), L.F. Chaparro (Engineering), Robert Devaty (Physics & Astronomy/FAS), Kathleen DeWalt (FAS), Tina Hines (Nursing), Stephen Hirtle (SIS), Peter Karsten (FAS), Peter Karsten (FAS/History), David Miller (GSPIA), Raghu Nath (Business), Ronald Neufeld (Engineering), Lou Pingel (Education), Evelyn Rawski (Interdisciplinary/FAS), Ian Reynolds (Medicine), Gordon Spice (Education), John Stephens (GPSA/FAS), Roslyn Stone (GSPH/Biostatistics), Regis Vollmer (Pharmacy), Valerie Watzlaf (SHRS); Kit Ayars (Office of the Provost), Tony Eichelberger (Education), Kevin Kearns (GSPIA), Glenn Nelson (Education), Barbara Repasi (Office of the Registrar)

I. Minutes Approval

Minutes of the September meeting were approved unanimously.

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

Elizabeth Baranger, substituting for the liaison of the review, summarized the academic review of the graduate programs in the School of Education's Department of Administration and Policy Studies. Kevin Kearns, chair of the Internal Review Committee, noted that the full review provides a comprehensive view of the department and that the department's response taking exception to the review's inclusion of one unsubstantiated remark is well-taken. Glenn Nelson, chair of the department, noted that the internal and external committees did a good job, especially given the disconnect between the department's self-study and the situation at the time of the actual reviews; the department is committed to taking the recommendations of the internal and external committees and SEAP to heart.

A period of discussion followed, with questions raised regarding the impact of early retirement, the target number of faculty, size of the doctoral program, advising load, time to degree, and the possibility of hiring an outside consultant to help with the department's action plan.

After the visitors from the department and review were excused, Council continued its discussion on changing nature of department and need for outside consultant to provide perspective. The Council moved and approved revision of recommendation #6 of the SEAP report to read "one year" (instead of "three years") for the period of time in which the department should submit a report identifying activities taken to address issues raised in the review. After revision of that recommendation, Council moved and approved the recommendations of SEAP.

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

The School of Medicine is proposing adding the word "molecular" to the names of its Cell Biology & Physiology and its Pharmacology programs to better reflect the focus of the work there. There was some discussion about the potential for over-limiting the department's scope and about the rapidity of the change (given that one of the programs' current names is less than a year old). The faculty of the school support the name change, however, as does the Interdisciplinary Biomedical Sciences Graduate Council. UCGS approved the proposal unanimously.

IV. Annual Report: 1998-99

Council was asked for comments or corrections to the Annual Report. Two were noted: John Stephens' name is missing from the list of members, and the prefatory "Web address" is not needed before listing URLs. If no other comments are received before the next meeting, the Annual Report will be finalized after the changes above are made.

V. Committee Appointments and Charges

Appointments to UCGS committees were made (see attachment). Baranger noted that the Subcommittee for Evaluation of Academic Programs is simply completing work begun in the previous academic year; no new members will be added to this committee at this time. The Graduate Student Affairs committee will finalize the "Elements of Good Academic Advising" document this term. The Graduate Procedures Committee has four items of business to address this year, and the Ad hoc Task Force on Postdocs will be asked to report on its work to council this term.

VI. Course Offered on the Web

The School of Education will be offering graduate courses online in the Spring Term. Council was asked for discussion on what should be considered or who should be involved when approved courses (that is, courses already in the system) be offered as Web courses rather than in their more traditional format. Council expressed both enthusiasm and concern about the potential for this as a trend and asked that members be given access to the education classes' sites to gain context for consideration of this issue. Questions about evaluation of the course were raised.

Council members agreed that schools should monitor and evaluate courses offered only on the Web, first to ensure they are comparable to courses offered in traditional formats and secondly to enable faculty to learn from the experience of others. Information about which courses are taught only on the Web and how they are evaluated should be available centrally.

VII. Graduate Web Page

UCGS members were asked to review the University's graduate studies pages in preparation for discussing them at the November meeting.