UH Hilo Graduate Council Minutes, October 8, 2009

In attendance:

Kathleen Stacey, Stefan Kropidlowski, Bryan Kim, Jan Zulich, Jerry Calton, Don Price, Kerri Inglis, Yoshiko Fukushima, Charles Langlas, Michael Shintaku, Ken Morris, Cathy Zenz, Dan Brown

Guest: Phil Castille

1. Introductions of members

2. Acceptance of Minutes from the May 8, 2009 meeting

3. Discussion about the coming WASC meeting with the Graduate Council

• Preparations for the WASC visit were discussed with the VCAA in attendance;
• academic & policy task force for centralization of decisions
• Curricular review
• academic program processes
• 1st PH.D. program revisions

VCAA summarized the Special Site visit and addressed issues from action letter from spring 2008:

• shared governance concern: lack of centrality
• Hawaiian language Ph.D. policy & procedure

It was suggested that we study the new flowcharts for the meeting (i.e., the 2 process charts) which are now policy

• curriculum review
• starts at faculty unit
• has revisions up & down to insure integration
• the mission for curriculum review is not to second guess the creating unit but to insure minimal undesired ripple effects
• the process is on short cycle this year but should be on track by 2010

• Academic policy review
• The Graduate Division and Graduate Council, has the role of a college for the purposes of the process (with Dan Brown in the role of a “Dean”)
• Policy can be created at any Dean’s level unit
• Explore the idea of "thresholds" for changes requiring full vs. partial review

4. Populating standing committees: the following assignments were agreed upon

• Admissions Committee – Mahealani Jones, Jan Zulich (chair), Jerry Calton

• Course Committee - Mike Shintaku (chair), Cathy Zenz, Kerri Inglis

• Program Committee - Bryan Kim (chair) in 1 mo, Chuck Langlas until then, Mahealani Jones, Tony Wright (Pharmacy)

• Representative and back up to central curriculum committee (Congress) - Mike Shintaku with Don Price as alternate

5. Discussion of major issues for the Graduate Council

• It was again pointed out that there is a need for a person to support Grad Division to avoid dropping issues
• Kathy agreed to explore a strategy to get some assistance
• Charter – we have a Graduate Division with VCAA as head but this is evolving

6. Other new business – none,

Meeting adjourned at 9:15