SOS Steering Committee Meeting

April 6, 2001

 

Minutes

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Attending:  Kathy Johnson (Chair), Dennis Devine (Psych), Gordon Fricke (Assoc Dean), Jon Luke (Math), Gabe Filippelli (Geology), Joe Kuczkowski (Assoc Dean), David Stocum (Dean), Steve Wassall (Physics); Fritz Kleinhans (Sec), Kathryn Wilson (Assoc Dean),

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Agenda:  Faculty Council Report, Graduate Program Strategic Planning, Spring Faculty Assembly, Report of Recruitment and Outreach Committee, SOS Budget.

 

KJ opened the meeting at 10:00 with a report of recent Faculty Council activity.

·         The UFC voted down the proposal, desired by this campus, to have three levels of Lecturers.  We will stick with two levels.

·         Currently many students are involved in research projects involving human subjects.  Mark Brenner proposes we have an educational requirement for these students to more fully meet federal requirements.  A web based modular program exists which students would be required to complete and be tested on.

·         Because of the issues raised, in particular, by distance learning, an effort is being made to more clearly define the meaning of a Unit of undergraduate credit.  The existing working document does not properly distinguish between a Semester unit and a Quarter unit of field work. DS thinks that the issue of 'experience credit' also needs to be addressed. 

·         The Trustees are meeting today.  Student housing issues at IUPUI will be considered.

·         KJ chairs the Student Affairs Committee of the Faculty Council.  She is pushing for a ban of cigarette sales on campus.  That is okay with the SOS Steering Committee.  KW noted that Building and Grounds would like a total ban on smoking on campus. 

 

KW reported on recent Graduate Strategic Planning activity at IUPUI.

Three areas were identified as special strengths of IUPUI.  These are (1) the Health Sciences as represented across the entire campus, not just the Med Sch; (2) Urban Research as it relates to any urban environment, not just Indy; and (3) Philanthropy in which we a have a unique and successful program.

Opportunities for growth were seen in the areas of MS degrees, Certificate Programs, and the PhD minor.  A PhD minor is a block of graduate courses which a student from Dept 'A' would take in Dept 'B'.  GP noted that the PhD minor was a way for departments without current PhD programs to develop there graduate offerings.  The discussion of minors went on to visit the issue of non-degree graduate students.  KW suggested that these students be steered to minors rather then random course selections.  The minor and certificate programs have implications for where students get counted in the system and the transferability of work to graduate degree programs.  The number of non-degree program courses which can be counted toward a graduate degree is set by Purdue.

The issues of autonomy and research space were seen as the major obstacles and threats to our programs.  The autonomy issue also concerns the School of Medicine.  National ratings of various medical programs, on occasion, confuse or fail to distinguish between programs in Bloomington and in Indianapolis to the annoyance of the Medical School.  At stake, in part here, is which campus gets credit for external grants. Autonomy, in the present context, means we would report directly to the graduate schools rather than through our respective 'parent' departments.  There was some sentiment among the deans that Purdue may be willing to move in this direction.  For Certificate Pgms, we already have autonomy in this sense.  IUPUI reports directly to the 'certificate pgm office' at Purdue, rather than to individual depts.  Certificate programs have the potential to help with the retention problem by allowing students to take their schooling smaller doses.

 

The Spring SOS Faculty Assembly will feature an address by Purdue President Martin Jischke.  The plan is for a 20-minute presentation followed by a Q&A period.  Faculty are welcome to present questions and the Steering Committee worked on some opening questions.  In draft form, the following are possibilities:

 

1.  What are the advantages and disadvantages to Purdue of having autonomous graduate programs at IUPUI?

 

2.  What makes IUPUI an asset to Purdue?

 

3.  Where should credit be allocated for graduate degrees?   As a matter of pride, we would like credit for the students we train.

 

4.  Is graduate education and research in Indiana a zero sum game?

 

5.  How do you view the community college issue?

 

KJ wants to have questions collected and forwarded to Jischke by April 18.  She will also see if he would like any additional info about us.  Kleinhans will collect questions for the school.

 

Recruitment and Outreach Committee Report:

KJ solicited comments on the Recruitment and Outreach Report:

DS:  The Report calls for each Dept to have a faculty member with released time to work on retention/recruitment as a school wide issue.  The proposed budget for retention is 50 to 75 k$.  DS is concerned that some Depts do not see recruitment as their responsibility.  Depts need to be proactive on recruitment.  Otherwise the Dean's Office effort will be limited in effect.

GP was concerned that smaller Depts might be better served by investing a few more resources in existing Departmental efforts and that the new school wide initiative might actually drain resources away from these efforts.  SW seconded this concern.

Someone suggested that, perhaps, we could take better advantage of resources available from the IUPUI Admissions Office so that we don't need to allocate new resources. 

JK:  Kim Nguyen is doing a good job recruiting students but we need to address the issue of retention more proactively.  E.g. some scholarship students have dropped out.  We need to identify these problem cases early and intervene before we lose the students.  The Dean's Office needs faculty and departmental help with this.

Faculty input is requested/needed on this report.

 

The SOS Steering Committee will have a final meeting on May 4.  Budget issues will be discussed.  DS would like faculty/depts to be better informed about how the Dean' Office spends its budget.  Many items, such as the water system come from the Dean's budget, but directly serve Depts.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 11:20

 

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FW Kleinhans

Secretary

4-12-2001

 

 

 

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