Meeting Minutes - February 15, 2007
1.The minutes of the February 1, 2007 meeting
were reviewed and approved.
2. The following announcements were made:
• The on-line SIF applications are due February 5. The review process is
ongoing for all fellowship nominations.
• The Graduate College has received several nominations for the at-large
Graduate Council position. The Graduate Council members were encouraged
to email additional nominations to Dean Keller by March 1.
• Caren Cox updated the Council members on changes in the ProQuest/University
Microfilms International (UMI) publishing agreement that students must
sign for all dissertations and theses submitted to UMI. Those changes
include: (1) an additional one-time fee of $95 will be assessed for all
students electing Open Access Publishing; (2) the signed external
abstract and signed certificates of approval pages will no longer be
sent to UMI, but will be stored in the Graduate College; 3) UMI has
removed the 350 word limit on all doctoral external abstracts, however,
the Graduate College will continue to require the word limit; and (4)
the Graduate College will retain any thesis/dissertation on which an
embargo or delay to release is filed until the embargo has expired. The
University of Iowa will approve requests to embargo or delay the release
of theses only in cases of pending patent filings or when negotiations
are underway with a publisher. Ms. Cox emphasized that if ProQuest/UMI
regulations conflict with the University of Iowa, the policies and
specifications at this institution will always take precedence. This
policy takes effect at the beginning of the spring 2007 semester.
Programs and students will be notified this week.
• Ninety-four percent of our programs participating in the NRC
Assessment of Doctoral Programs have completed their Program
Questionnaire. The deadline for final submission was extended until
February 22nd. Forty-five percent of our faculty had completed their
Faculty Questionnaires by February 13th. Faculty Questionnaires are due
by February 15 in order to meet the eligibility criteria for the faculty
member to be a rater. Otherwise, they are due April 1.
3. Associate Dean Wurster made some introductory remarks on the joint
proposal from the Colleges of Law and Public Health for a combined
JD/MPH degree. He noted that it is a popular combination which has been
done on an informal basis for quite a few years. It is being formalized
so students will properly understand the Graduate College requirements.
The primary concerns have been with the administrative coordination, the
residence requirement and grading. Associate Dean Wurster felt that the
proposal brought forward at this time has addressed those issues.
Associate Dean Carlson and Assistant Dean Aquilino were invited to join
the meeting to summarize the proposal and to respond to questions.
Students earning the JD degree through the College of Law have the
opportunity to take quite a few electives, thus having 12 hours of cross
credit with the MPH was easy to accommodate. However, students cannot
receive credit for their MPH courses toward this joint degree until they
have completed the first year of the law curriculum. The proposed joint
degree is comparable to programs at other institutions. Dean Aquilino
noted that it is not uncommon for MPH students to earn a joint degree
(i.e., MD/MPH, DVM/MPH, and PhD/MPH with the PhD in such fields as
Geography or Anthropology). They felt that the joint JD/MPH would
attract 4-5 students each year after proper advertisement. A motion was
made to approve the JD/MPH proposal as proposed. The motion was seconded
and the vote in favor of the motion to approve was unanimous.
4. Dean Keller summarized the Survey of Earned Doctorates report for
2005. This report presents a general profile that compares demographics,
debt status, and postdoctoral plans, etc. for doctorate recipients from
the University of Iowa to national level data and to other institutions
in the same Carnegie classification. A greater number of Iowa students
earned their PhD in the Humanities (20.3%) compared to the national data
for all institutions (12.3%). Likewise, a greater number of Iowa
students graduated with no debt (49.3%) compared to 41.3% at all
institutions. Seventy-six percent of Iowa graduates (excluding postdocs)
were employed in an academic setting following graduation, compared to
65.6% at other institutions. Section II of the report compares science
and engineering doctorates with doctorates in other fields. Median time
to degree is calculated since baccalaureate and since starting graduate
school. According to this report, the 2004-05 University of Iowa
graduates took 10.0 years overall since baccalaureate and 7.9 years
since entering graduate school. The first is slightly higher than the
9.6 years nationally, and the second is slightly lower than the 8.0
years nationally. Iowa graduates in science and engineering complete
their graduate studies in 8.5 years since baccalaureate and 7.9 years
since entering grad school, compared to non-science and engineering
fields at 12.8 years and 10.3 years respectively. The Survey of Earned
Doctorates, however, starts counting when the student enters their
graduate studies at any institution and counts all unregistered time.
The meeting adjourned at 9:15 a.m.