Meeting Minutes - March 8, 2007

1. The minutes of the February 15, 2007 meeting were reviewed and approved.

2. The following announcements were made:
• The Jakobsen Graduate Conference is scheduled for March 31 in the Blank Honors Center and the Old Capitol Museum. The complete schedule can be found on the Graduate Student Senate website at http://www.uiowa.edu/~gss/
• A Graduate Faculty Meeting is scheduled for this afternoon (February 15) at 3:30 in 125 TH for faculty action on the DNP proposal.
• All graduate faculty will be invited to vote for the at-large Graduate Council member by electronic ballot. The nominees for this position are: Yi Li, Heather MacDonald, and Ernie Pascarella. A brief statement about each candidate can be found on the Graduate Council website until after the election.
• David Johnsen, Chair of the Presidential Search Committee, has been invited to the April 5 Graduate Council Meeting to give an update on the presidential search. The meeting will begin promptly at 8:00 a.m.
• Spring Commencement will be held at 3:00 p.m., Saturday, May 12 at Carver Hawkeye Arena. The Graduate College expects about 843 students to graduate; 190 of whom will be awarded a PhD, three a DMA and two an AUD.
• The March issue of The Scientist magazine included an article on the “Best Places to Work 2007 for Postdocs.” The University of Iowa was ranked fifth in the nation, following the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, the J. David Gladstone Institutes, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and Genentech. For the complete story, see http://www.the-scientist.com/2007/3/1/49/1/
• The Graduate Student Senate is still accepting notification of graduate student recognition events that are scheduled during the week of March 26-31.
• Historically, the Graduate College Dean has served as chair of the Presidential Lecturer Selection Committee. As chair, Dean Keller will solicit nominations from the University faculty for the 2008 Presidential lecturer. More information on past lecturers and on the current nomination process can be found at http://www.grad.uiowa.edu/Awards/PresLecturer.asp

3. Jonathan Gajdos updated the Council members on the proposed reorganization of the University of Iowa Student Government (UISG). He distributed a report which described the current and recently approved structures. A summary follows. Currently, UISG is comprised of six branches - an Executive Branch; a Student Assembly; a Student Judicial Court; the Undergraduate Activities Senate; the Graduate and Professional Student Senate; and the Undergraduate Collegiate Senate. The Graduate Student Senate appoints most of the GPSS senators, but feels that graduate students are still misrepresented when decisions are made. After much discussion, a new Partnership of Student Governments of Iowa structure was approved in February and will take effect April 1, 2007. This Partnership will be comprised of three main branches – the University of Iowa Student Government (UISG), an Executive Council of Graduate and Professional Students; and the Student Judicial Court. The Executive Branch (President/Vice President) and the Undergraduate Student Assembly will report only to the UISG. The Executive Council of Graduate and Professional Students was conceived as a collaborative, consensus-based consortium of the Graduate Student Senate, the Medical Student Government, the College of Pharmacy Student Council, the Iowa American Student Dental Association, the MBA Association, and the Iowa Student Bar Association. Benefits to the reorganization include increased opportunities to engage with professional students, ability to act either in consort with professional student governments or alone, the ability to interact with undergraduate student leaders on an equal basis, more efficient use of student leader time, increased profile for graduate and professional student issues. Gajdos did note that an appeal has been filed against the February 20th vote, but that he is hopeful the new structure will taken effect as planned.

4. In follow-up to the February 1 Graduate Council discussion about a student request to pursue two doctoral degrees, further documentation was provided to the Council for their consideration. This documentation included a more detailed letter of support from his dissertation committee chair in the Department of Religious Studies, a core summary of both plans of study, and a prospectus for each dissertation. The Council felt that the letters from both departments were strong and that the added documentation supported such a request. It was moved by and seconded by that Daniel Boscaljon’s request to earn a PhD in English and a PhD in Religious Studies be approved. The vote in favor of the motion was unanimous.

5. Dean Keller provided background information on a research faculty track that is being considered by the University and was discussed at a Faculty Council Meeting on March 6.  A question for consideration by the Graduate Council is whether a member of a research faculty track could be considered a member of the Graduate Faculty. Tenured and tenure-track Assistant Professors, Associate Professors, or full-Professors automatically are members of the Graduate Faculty. Associate Dean Wurster distributed the current procedure for granting “Term” appointments to the Graduate Faculty. Term appointments have been approved for non-tenured faculty or staff, based on their expertise and publication record as documented on their CV. Faculty with term appointments are not permitted to chair a graduate student’s dissertation committee, but can be a co-chair with special permission. The Graduate College proposes that the same documentation be required (letter of support from the DEO or DGS and CV) for members of a research faculty track, if approved, to be considered a member of the Graduate Faculty. The Graduate College would then look closely at a research faculty member’s teaching and mentoring record. Some members of the Graduate Council brought up concerns about the unpredictable length of a research faculty appointment, which may end if his/her research grant is not renewed. Since that would effect both the mentoring and funding support a student might receive from the research track faculty, it was suggested that a research faculty member not be allowed to be chair or co-chair, especially if the research project is not funded by a peer-reviewed funding agency. Current Graduate College policy requires that a co-chair from the “term” Graduate faculty have a co-chair from the tenure-track faculty. Other members of the Council considered the current procedure to be a sufficient safeguard. Other concerns brought forward by a Council member were that the proposed research track might lead to the erosion of tenure as well as concerns about resource allocation. Although concerns about resource allocations are valid, Dean Keller did inform the faculty that all the emergency funding requests for bridge funds to support graduate students who had been supported on a non-renewed grant have come from tenure-track faculty labs. Another Council member saw this new track as a repackaging approach to faculty appointments, not as an erosion. It was suggested that research track faculty who are asked to co-chair a student’s committee might be asked to submit more to the Graduate College in the way of a participation statement. Copies of statements made at a College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Faculty Assembly were offered to interested Council members.

The meeting adjourned at 9:55 a.m.