Graduate Faculty Meeting Minutes - Spring 2009
Wednesday April 15, 2009
10:30 a.m. – 12:00 Noon
- The meeting began at 10:32 a.m
- Assistant Dean Rebecca Bryant
- Vice Provost Richard Wheeler
- Associate Dean Kelly Tappenden
- Executive Assistant Dean Deborah Richie
- Associate Vice Chancellor for Research Howard Guenther
- Printable PDF of The 2008 Research Board Report
1. The meeting began at 10:32 a.m. with a welcome and introduction by Dean Debasish Dutta, the new dean of the Graduate College. He announced three Graduate College updates.
- Starting in 2010, there will no longer be an October graduation, and doctoral candidates will be able to deposit in August.
- Focal Point is a new initiative that will encourage graduate students and faculty to self organize into groups to develop interdisciplinary research projects. The projects must be 2 semesters to a year in duration and will be funded by the Graduate College. More information is available at www.grad.uiuc.edu/general/focal_point.htm.
- A national trend is seeing international applications to U.S. graduate schools increasing at a lesser rate this year. At the current date, our application rates have not followed this trend, but all the data is not finalized yet.
2. Assistant Dean Rebecca Bryant presented a summary of the Electronic Thesis Deposit project. This project is in collaboration with the University Library and uses their IDEALS system to collect and archive theses. A pilot program began this semester with two departments, and so far has been going well. The plan is to make this option available to all depositing students for the December 2009 deposit period. Because of that, students will notice changes to some of the December deadline dates, which will be slightly earlier than normal. Benefits include: students don’t have to physically visit the Thesis Office; eliminates any need for library shelf space; makes our theses very widely available online, and; allows very quick access after degree conferral. This will not change the University’s relationship with ProQuest in the short term, but could in the long term. Students do have the ability to embargo theses for two years, which is renewable. If embargo is not selected, theses will be available with open access. This new option will not change individual departmental review processes.
3. Vice Provost Richard Wheeler summarized the conversations about the recommendations that have been made this year for changes to the Tuition Wavier Policy. The five recommendations and their current statuses were discussed.
- Raise the minimum tuition generating appointment to a 33% assistantship, a fellowship with funding equivalent to a 33% assistantship, or a combination of assistantship and fellowship equal to the minimum stipend for a 33% assistantship. The assistantship portion of this recommendation has been withdrawn. The committee will be recommending that the fellowship equivalent be raised to $5000 per semester for a fellowship to generate a waiver, and that annually in the future the Fellowship Board review this figure and adjust it as necessary.
- Enable deans to limit the number of tuition-generating appointments in graduate programs. The committee will recommend that deans monitor the number of waivers being generated in their units and engage with programs as necessary.
- Enable more effective practices to collect tuition or cost of education payments from external agencies that fund fellowships for our graduate students. This recommendation will go forward with the stipulation that waivers generated for appointments funded by endowments be considered internally instead of externally funded.
- Extend the tuition remission policy that covers external research grants to include research assistantships funded by private gifts or private contracts. This change will be recommended to become effective for 2010-11.
- Enable some graduate programs to become “tuition-supported” programs, which would be outside the tuition waiver policy. This recommendation was withdrawn, but other means will be used to define these programs and achieve this goal.
More information can be found at provost.illinois.edu/gradwaiverpolicy/index.html.
4. Associate Dean Kelly Tappenden gave an overview of the current status of the National Research Council (NRC) Assessment. The methodology release is expected in the next few weeks, and the data is anticipated to be released this summer. The data release is planned to be accompanied or followed closely by a Web-based database that is open to the public. The goal of the NRC was to provide data to programs so that they could use it to improve themselves. Our response rates to the survey exceeded all the national averages in every category. The institutional data will be presented in alphabetical order, and the rankings/ratings will be presented as ranges, and the ranges will overlap. The ratings will be based on three elements: research productivity, student support and outcomes, and diversity of students and faculty. The University will receive the data 72 hours before the public release, and the Graduate College will be reviewing and relaying the results to departments and helping them to interpret the results, especially in cases of unexpected outcomes. After the release, the Graduate College will offer workshops for all units to help to interpret results and focus on strategic program improvement.
5. Executive Assistant Dean Deborah Richie presented the report of the Fellowship Board. The Board, which is divided into disciplinary areas, determines award of more than $4 million annually. This academic year, they awarded 31 Illinois Distinguished Fellowships, 76 Graduate College Fellowships, 17 Dissertation Completion Fellowships and 9 Dissertation Travel Grants. The Fellowship Office also distributes Block Grants to more than 70 programs, and processes approximately 1500 fellowship appointments and 200-300 waivers each year. The office also produces external sponsor reports, monitors enrollment of fellows and trainees, enforces policies and award stipulations, collects Cost of Education allowances, and reviews proposals that include fellowship or traineeship funding.
6. Associate Vice Chancellor for Research Howard Guenther gave a brief report of Research Board activities. The Research Board is provided for in the Illinois Statutes and awards internal funding to Illinois researchers. The Research Policy Committee recommended in 2007 that the Board’s budget not be cut any further, and some increase was made. It appears that no further cuts will occur in 2009 or 2010. The Research Board reviews proposals and determines funding levels for each proposal, and the application process is now electronic. In the near future more emphasis will be put on checking the compliance sections. The presentation and list of 2008 funding by unit is available.
The meeting adjourned at 12:03 p.m.
PDF files require Adobe Reader.