Executive Committee Meeting Minutes: October 17, 2003

1. The meeting was called to order at 12:05PM. Vice Provost Janet L. Greger presided.
2. It was moved, seconded, and passed without dissent on a voice vote to approve as distributed the minutes of the 9/12/03 meeting.
3. It was moved, seconded, and passed without dissent on a voice vote to approve the Doctoral Plans of Study and Dissertation Proposals.
4. It was moved, seconded, and passed without dissent on a voice vote to approve the request to change the name of the graduate program Evaluation and Measurement within the field of student Educational Psychology to Measurement, Evaluation and Assessment (MEA) .
5. Post doc Policy-

   Subcommitte (J. Marsden, E. Smith, G. Maxwell) crafted a draft Post doc policy. They used job descriptions of adjuncts, research assistants, assistant research professors and research associates to assist in determining titles a post doc might hold.

   The GEC suggested these changes: Change Bullet #2 from "Faculty have a responsibility to mentor postdoctoral trainees and fellows with Graduate School oversight" to read, "Faculty have a responsibility to mentor postdoctoral trainees and fellows. The Graduate School will have oversight responsibility."

   The final policy now is:

   GRADUATE SCHOOL POLICY -2003

   POST DOCTORAL TRAINEES AND FELLOWS

   The postdoctoral fellowship period is designed to be a period of research training "for the purpose of gaining scientific, technical, and other professional skills that advance the professional career" (1).

   The Graduate School of the University of Connecticut defines a postdoctoral fellowship or a postdoctoral traineeship as a training experience for individuals with a Ph.D., Sc.D., M.D., D.V.M., or D.D.S.

   The primary focus of a postdoctoral fellowship or traineeship is research or scholarship.

   Faculty have a responsibility to mentor postdoctoral trainees and fellows. The Graduate School will have oversight responsibility.

   A postdoctoral fellow is an employee; a postdoctoral trainee is not an employee but receives a stipend from a training grant, fellowship, etc

   By definition a training experience is temporary. Accordingly the duration of a postdoctoral fellowship or traineeship cannot exceed 5 years. These positions are distinct from non-tenure career positions such as Research Associates, Research Professors, and Professors-in-Residence.

   Individuals seeking another terminal degree concurrently cannot be a postdoctoral fellow or trainee.

   ______

   1. Enhancing the Postdoctoral Experience for Scientists and Engineers: A Guide for Postdoctoral Scholars, Advisers, Institutions, Funding organizations, and Disciplinary Societies. National academy of Sciences., National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine. 2000. National Academy Press. Washington, D.C. http://www4.nationalacademies.org/pd/postdoc.nsf

   It was agreed that this draft policy would be sent to Provost Petersen for his comments/ reaction, to Linda Flaherty-Goldsmith who oversees Human Resources (already done) and then to AAUP and Senate Executive Committee as a courtesy.

   It was moved, seconded and passed without opposition to accept this draft policy as amended.

6. Do GSS Executive Council members have voting rights at the Graduate Faculty Council meetings?

   Anderson noted our policy is that two elected representatives from the Graduate Student Senate have voting rights at Graduate Faculty Council meetings.

   The GSS is very interested in GFC involvement with housing being a major concern. Janet Greger reiterated that the graduate student housing survey would be coordinated by the Graduate Executive Committee.

7. Pilot Program to improve recruitment of American graduate students -

   GEC Agreed to extend application deadline, resend memo to all faculty and to increase the awards from a minimum of $500 to $1,000. Awards should be spent by June 2004 with some flexibility. Some suggested ideas for proposals: minority recruitment, department offering recruitment workshops with other universities, two departments working together to create recruitment brochure.

   UPDATE: The revised memo was sent. Discussion of the pilot program was put on the agenda of the GFC. The GEC meeting will have to be changed to allow review of the proposals.

8. Financial Support of Graduate Students by Department report (data collected from Human

   Resources Payroll system) was distributed. GEC felt that data should be broken down by Masters vs Ph.D degrees. They agreed there are some flaws in the data; i.e. lower scores could be those departments who have awarded fall GA's only with pending renewals for spring, but felt the data was useful. Several noted that the number of graduate assistantships and hence graduate programs should be driven by research not for providing undergraduate teaching support.

9. NRC Faculty interest survey results -

   Results were distributed of faculty's self-selected areas of expertise in areas determined by NRC. There was a general discussion of how this complex data set should be used. Probably most of those areas in which we do not officially grant a PhD should be pared out (i.e., Religion, Women's Studies).

   Two subcommittees - Life/Physical Science and Social Sciences/Humanities - were formed to look at the raw data and to "shape" this data for success. The first considerations are the number of degrees granted; do we offer the major; and determine which faculty are missing from the list. The groups need to determine when we should not seek rankings; probably if < 10 PhD's in the last 10 years?

   Our goal should be that the institution ranks as well as possible overall.

10. Agreed to call Graduate Faculty Council meeting on November 19, 2003.

11. Adjournment was at 2:10PM

Present: G. Anderson, J.G. Clifford, D. Cournoyer, D. Herzberger, D. Lillo-Martin, J. Marsden, E. Pagoulatos, E. Smith, L. Strausbaugh

J.L Greger (Vice Provost), J. Henkel (Associate Dean)

Regrets: G. Maxwell (Associate Dean)