March 17, 2021

Meeting held at 12:30 pm in Wimberly 219 and MS Teams.  Attending:  Jerry Lin, Brett Welch, Carly Cox, Teresa Hefner-Babb, Jeff Forret, David Short, Jeff Dyson, Joseph Kruger, Xianchang Li, Awais Saleem

Approval of Minutes

#463 – February 24, 2021

Motion to accept minutes from Jeff Dyson, second from Joseph Kruger, motion passed

Old Business

• M.S.N./M.B.A. dual degree program updated courses in dual degree program but discovered issue with total hours. Program is advertised by Academic Partnerships. There are three courses (9 hours) that are double counted in the dual degree plan. Kruger – not seeing a problem with double counting 9 hours, asks if enrollment increase is the goal of offering this dual degree plan, academic rigor is apparent in these graduate level courses. Dyson – M.B.A. was reduced from 36 to 30 hours previously, College of Business sees this dual degree plan as similar to an M.B.A. concentration, improving the M.B.A. time to completion was the goal of the initial reduction in hours. Hefner-Babb – problem is the percentage of double counting, SACS will cite this, moving Accounting and Econ/Finance courses into M.B.A. portion of the dual degree will fix this.  Dyson – points out that these are leveling courses and not core or electives and function as prerequisites for other courses in the plan, these would ordinarily be waived for a student with a Business undergrad degree. Hefner-Babb – we can justify this and note on the degree plan that these are considered leveling courses for nursing students.  CoGS will work with Planning & Assessment will work together to construct this statement and provide memo to Registrar.

• Recertification of expired graduate courses, recertification of expired graduate courses from other institutions for transfer credit course recertification addresses relevancy of old courses in current curriculum, some fields of study are impacted more than others (ex. History v STEM), does this council think it is appropriate to consider old courses from outside institutions for inclusion in current graduate student curriculum hours? It is easier to make this determination for US based institutions but becomes more difficult when the institution is outside of the US. Kruger – we need to rely on the experts/those that teach the courses to make this decision. Forret – agrees with Kruger and prefers deference to the experts. Dyson – also agrees, his unit looks at institutional accreditation and the student’s grade first then hands over to the specific department for further consideration. Hefner-Babb – as long as the course matches up with learning outcomes and course objectives, and we follow our own policy, there should not be a problem.  Li – agrees we need to rely on the department and/or faculty as well. Kruger – asks about requirements for transfer credits, current policy states the grade must be a B or better in order to transfer in.  Lin – will request that programs provide the needed level of documentation RE recertification for SACS purposes. Li – we can provide guidelines for course evaluation.

• Thesis/Dissertation course grading scale – letter grades or S/U reviewed current policy and proposed new policy. Main questions around this issue: current policy requires a grade change toward the end of the thesis/dissertation process, and this statement only covered theses but dissertations are also impacted. Kruger – asks if there is a maximum number of times a student can register for thesis or dissertation courses? Lin – not aware of a limit, though some departments will limit to six times. Kruger notes that student’s GPA will be based solely on coursework and not how well they did on their thesis or dissertation. Lin – using the S/U scale is common practice in other higher ed institutions.  Dyson – does this impact international students? Lin – international students in thesis/dissertation courses are still considered full time.  Lin – policy would roll out in new academic year and honor old policy for existing students. CoGS and Records office will work together to implement this new grading system across all colleges.  Motion to accept policy change from Jeff Forret, second from Joseph Kruger, motion passed.

• Academic suspension appeals – do we need to set a standard for the types of cases that can appeal, and is it appropriate to expel students with non-recoverable GPAs? Lin – we had discussion with Registrar’s office and we determined that when a suspension is appealed, that will last for only one semester. Kruger – asks how many appeals we receive. Twenty or more per semester are reviewed by the department chair and program directors, student’s are required to provide justification, CoGS follows recommendations from department chair and program director then forward to Registrar’s office for processing. Lin – described current policy on probation/suspension. Kruger – asks about expulsion for non-recoverable GPA. Lin – these are rare cases, but that determination is left to the department chairs.

• Minimum admission standards for LU Graduate Program Lin – has had discussions with Admissions office on this issue, so far the info received from these conversations it appears that we favor to include official transcripts of previous degree and standardized test scores (GRE, etc.) for consideration of admission. Colleges would need a strong reason along with documentation in order to waiver GRE. Asks council if there is a strong objection for these two requirements. Dyson – Business started waiving the GMAT for GPAs meeting a certain mark, particularly during COVID, currently looking into what admissions standards will be going forward. Lin – no clear direction from University administration yet but wants to collect info on this from academic colleges for further discussion. Kruger – asks that memo he submitted to Lin be shared with council, comments that although some programs require GREs, they’ve mostly temporarily waived them due to COVID but would really rather not require it due to cost and whether or not other institutions are requiring it. Lin – will continue this discussion in our next meeting.

• University-level policy regarding application of credits from Master’s degree toward D.E. or Ph.D., “double counting” courses

New Business

• Graduate Faculty application – Jesus Garcia, Assistant Professor of Sociology. Applying for Initial II membership level not teaching graduate level courses at this time. Forret – reviewed the application and all is ok, Kruger also reviewed and agrees he should be approved

• Planning for stacked course syllabi review Lin – time to begin reviewing stacked course syllabi for Fall 2021 in order to stay ahead of schedule. Hefner-Babb – asks how far in depth should we go in terms of reviewing syllabi, notes lack of use of Bloom’s taxonomy in learner outcomes, this was something SACS was critical of in our recent review. Lin – this may be a training issue at the institutional level, further discussion with deans needed to determine if we can provide training to faculty, if we can provide documentation of continuous improvement SACS will be satisfied. Dyson – may be difficult for this committee to review all syllabi, could be a University level initiative.  Hefner-Babb – suggests workshops, possibly through CTLE, and work real time with existing syllabi and faculty to improve. Lin – will reach out to Registrar’s office to determine list of stacked courses. Kruger – unclear on what to do with stacked course syllabi. Lin – going forward we need to have a regular review practice to ensure stacked courses are separated at the right level. Do we need to go back and review old syllabi for courses? Hefner-Babb – not required to do this but may be helpful to provide feedback to faculty so that the next time the course rigor can be elevated. Courses being taught in Summer or Fall 2021 should be prioritized in order to document to SACS that we are working on improvement. Kruger – do we need to review the Fall 2020 or Spring 2020 syllabi? Hefner-Babb – will send out Summer and Fall syllabi for review soon. Lin – will provide guidance in April meeting for this process.