Meeting Minutes - April 19, 2007

1.  John Achrazoglou (IT, Learning Resource Center, College of Education) and David Bills (Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Graduate Programs, College of Education) informed the Council about the availability of PhD Professional ePortfolio training through the College of Education. In the past, this training was limited to students in Education. The ePortfolio provides students with an organizing tool to document their academic progress, presentations, academic samples of their teaching, research and service, etc. Additionally, the students learn web skills through provided templates, workshop, and one-on-one training. The ePortfolio is a way for the student to monitor his/her achievements, build confidence, create a professional identity, and demonstrate technical competence. Additionally, it can be useful in the job search process by giving search committees an exciting way to get to know the candidates before the interview. Each doctoral student will be given 40mb of web space with virus and intrusion protection which will be maintained for two years after they attend the workshop. After that period of time it can be transferred to HTML and maintained by the department or a local server. There is a fee of $110 per student and the spring workshop is scheduled for May 16 with fall workshop August 21. More information and the registration form can be found at: http://www.education.uiowa.edu/eportfolio/training.

2. The minutes of the April 5, 2007 meeting were reviewed and approved.

3. The following announcements were made:
• Yi Li, Director, Applied Mathematical and Computational Sciences, has been elected by the graduate faculty via electronic ballot as the at-large Council member. His term will run from fall 2007 through spring 2010.
• New officers for the Graduate Student Senate were elected at the April 16 meeting of the Graduate Student Senate
  * President – Mike Ridge (History)
  * Vice President – Kim Lamon
  * Treasurer – Alexandra Nica (Economics)
  * Membership Officer – SaDohl Goldsmith (Counseling
     Rehab and Development)
  * Executive Officer – Sarah McMordie (Genetics)
  * Parliamentarian – Chris Clark (Political Science)
• Tuesday, April 24 is the deadline for receipt of Graduate College Outstanding Mentor Award nominations.
• A memo has gone out to the graduate faculty and DEOs soliciting nominations/applications for Associate Dean Barkan’s position.
• Council members were asked to welcome Angie Dickey who began her new position as secretary to Associate Dean Wurster on April 16.
• Jonathan Gajdos and Sara Vigmostad met with ITS recently concerning the redistribution of used computers. Over 400 computers, including 91 laptops, will be available for graduate student use. Application forms are available on the GSS website. GSS plans to keep some of the laptops for graduate students to check out to take to a conference. A notification about the redistribution process will go out to the DEOs and DGS’ this week.

4. Associate Dean Wurster gave a brief introduction of the proposal to create an interdisciplinary Ed.S. program in School Curriculum and Assessment Policy. He explained that this would be a subtrack of the Ed.S. degree offered in the Department of Educational Policy and Leadership Studies, not a new degree program. The Ed.S. degree is a doctoral degree without research emphasis and requires no dissertation. Assistant Professor Liz Hollingworth was invited to join the Graduate Council to summarize the proposal and respond to questions. She noted that the proposed Ed.S. program would bridge faculty and curriculum from Psychological and Quantitative Foundations, Educational Policy and Leadership Studies, and Teaching and Learning. This subtrack will provide training for graduate students to become school leaders with a functional knowledge of using assessment information for both accountability purposes and curriculum evaluation. The timing of the current proposal is in response to increased need due to the “no child left behind” legislation. However, offering such a subtrack is timely as accountability is here to stay. The Graduate Council did recommend that less emphasis in the proposal be placed on the “no child left behind” legislation. The State of Iowa Department of Education has reported that there is a huge need for people trained in quantitative evaluation, measurement and assessment, and the College of Education, with its connection to the Iowa Testing Program and the new hire of Liz Hollingworth, is in a very good position to provide this training. A motion was made to approve the Ed.S. subtrack as amended. The motion was seconded by and the vote in favor of the motion was unanimous.

5. Dean Keller distributed an article that appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education about generational changes coming to campuses via parents rather than students. The article titled “Millennials as Graduate Students” appeared in the March 30, 2007 issue.

6. Dean Keller summarized data on the Dean’s Graduate Fellowship awards. Forty-six offers were extended and 21 accepted (15 PhD, 6 master’s). Twelve of the 21 accepted were awarded to students in the Arts and Humanities, 3 in Math/Physical Sciences, 4 in the Social Sciences, and 2 in the Biological/Life Sciences. The stipend level was increased and the award requires split support with the department.

Associate Dean Barkan presented data on the Presidential Graduate and the Ballard/Seashore Fellowships. There were 136 students nominated for the Presidential Graduate Fellowship; 79 awarded, and 30 accepted. Eleven of those accepted were awarded to students in the Arts and Humanities, 9 in the Math/Physical Sciences, 5 in the Social Sciences, and 5 in the Biological/Life Sciences. Dean Barkan noted that some departments did a better job than others recruiting these top students even after they learned they had received the award. The Council suggested asking the students who accepted the award about the schools they declined. It was also suggested to look at a yield comparison for international students.

Fifty-seven students were nominated for a Ballard/Seashore Fellowship and 25 awards were made. Of those 25, 11 were awarded to students in the Arts/Humanities, 10 in the Social Sciences, and 4 in the Humanities/Social Sciences.

Nine Fine Arts Fellowships were also awarded and 2 Performing Arts Fellowships.

The Graduate College received 150 applications for the Graduate College Summer Fellowship and 78 were awarded. Seven others who applied received a Ballard/Seashore Fellowship. Dean Barkan and the selection committee are looking at the T. Anne Cleary Fellowship applications currently. Awards should be announced soon.

Dean Keller presented on the SIF awards made in response to the February call for proposals. Thirty-six proposals were received, requesting $1.6 million. Twenty-five proposals were funded, totaling $698,065. A table on the distribution by college and by award category was handed out which showed that ~65% of the funding was requested for recruitment fellowships/RA, ~13% given toward recruitment tuition scholarships and another 13% to emergency student support, and 8% toward summer fellowship support. The Council suggested that it would be interesting to compute how many graduate students are supported out of these funds. The next due date for SIF proposals is June 15.


The meeting adjourned at 9:45 a.m.