April 21, 2021

 Attending: Kruger, Hefner-Babb, Welch, Sisk, Lin, Li, Dyson, Saleem, Forret

Approval of Minutes 

#464 – March 17, 2021 

Motion to accept – Welch, second – Saleem, motion passed.

Old Business 

Minimum admission standards for LU Graduate Program  

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

Thesis/Dissertation course grading – update

Currently, thesis or dissertation grade can be S, U or any letter grade including Incomplete. Dean’s council has not approved moving to S/U scale only, suggested R grade for “research in progress” but this does not solve the issue with student financial aid.  Provost Nichols wishes this committee to perform evaluation and come up with grading system that indicates progress overall but with a sense of completion for the course in question. 

M.S.N./M.B.A. dual degree program - update

New Business 

Discuss desire to hold Summer (June/July/August) Graduate Council meetings

Lin – proposes that council meet in May, June and July with August meeting to be determined by need.  SACS report due August 4^th. 

Exceptional requests for credit transfer for two students in Au.D. – guest Dr. Ashley Dockens

Credit transfer request exceed maximum hours allowed. SPHS has conducted extensive syllabi review and course by course matching to qualify requests.  Dr. Dockens described the coursework and experiential learning these two students received in their program at their previous institution and how it either matched or exceeded requirements of the LU program.  Students take comps each year and have been successful so far, are currently in their 3^rd year.  Began Summer 2019.  SACS requires 1/3 of credit hours to be completed w/LU. Students will meet this requirement.  Motion to accept – Saleem, second – Sisk, motion passed.

Request to change major in the first semester after admission

Is it appropriate to allow students to do this, or require them to take one semester or x number of hours before allowing major change?  Can address potential abuse of system and academic portions of this issue separately.  There is not currently a policy in place addressing this issue, but some departments have their own policies to manage this.  Should we keep this at the department level of upgrade to a university-level policy?  Keep at department level and allow them to evaluate case by case?  Will discuss further at future meeting.

Planning for syllabi review – Summer 2021 courses

Review/Approve G4:

CoFAC:  Bryan Proksch, Liliam Felipe, Carmyn Thompson

CoEHD:  Nic Cioci, Hunter Keeney, Sarah Shiver, Vince Nix, Kathryn Washington, Quentin Bellard, Gabriela Walker, Dustin Hebert, James Higgs, John Mohr, Leonardo Caballero, Michelle Botos, Morghan Bosch, Shannon LaFargue

CoA&S:  Joe Nordgren, Xingya Liu, Valerie Wolfe Mahfood, Jesus Garcia, Jamie Retamales, Cheng-Hsien Lin

CoE:  Duncan Bryant

Outside Committee Member Babetta Hemphill (Ed.D. Ed Admin student Ansil Howard L20447864)

College of Education & Human Development

Nutrition, Hospitality & Human Services - Changes to existing M.S. in Nutrition, addition of new online graduate certificate in Sports Nutrition, addition of new Didactic Program in Dietetics certificate including four new course additions NUTR 5311 Advanced MNTI, NUTR 5313 Advanced MNT II, NUTR 5317 Food Principles & Preparation and NUTRT 5319 Menu & Production Management.

Dr. Killough described proposals.  Could be issues with obtaining two new faculty for these programs. Hefner-Babb suggests department fill out the roster forms she can see the associated credentials with the courses.  Will have another discussion on these in the May meeting.

College of Business

M.B.A. – addition of Accounting concentration to M.B.A. including 2 Course Additions ACCT 5355 Data Analytics and ACCT 5365 Internal/External Financial Reporting

Dyson-hoping to add concentration for non-CPA track students. Motion to accept – Sisk, second – Saleem, motion passed.

College of Engineering

Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering – Course Addition CHEN 5389 Applied Bioprocess and Fermentation Laboratory for M.E., M.E.S., D.E. and Ph.D. programs

Beer brewing certificate program, this is one of the new courses for that program. Complete certificate program proposal has not been put forward at this time.  Syllabus does not use Bloom’s taxonomy, may need updating.  Motion to accept – Welch, second – Sisk, motion passed.

Civil & Environmental Engineering – add a new graduate certificate program in Sustainable Infrastructure Engineering

Fifteen credit hour certificate program requiring core and electives.  Does not need THECB approval due to number of required hours. All courses are approved or already exist in inventory. Proposal lacks implementation plan, course rotation schedule, targeted students, assessment framework, need for additional resources.  Will discuss again in May meeting after getting more information and clarification from the department. 

Port & Terminal Management – proposal of new form for Graduate Course Waiver

Currently we do not have policy on counting number of credit hours with associated qualification.  Other universities seem to have more specific designation.  Proposed waiver forms do not include a matrix.  Unsure if Records office has mechanism for recording this type of waiver in student records.  Kruger – have we ever required a waiver exam to ensure competency before awarding credit?  Dyson – Business gets a lot of requests for this, usually request is to waive leveling courses based on professional experience.  They've used Special Topics courses for this purpose in the past.  Port & Terminal Management program does not contain a Special Topics course.  Ed Leadership Ed.D. program used to award credit based on portfolio reviewed by faculty members for students holding the Apple Distinguished Educator certification.  Request additional info from department and Records office then discuss again at future meeting.