Minutes of the Graduate Committee

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FRESNO

5240 N. Jackson Avenue, M/S UC 43
Fresno, California 93740-8023

Office of the Academic Senate Ext. 8-2743

April 15, 2008

Members Present: M. Perez (Chair), D. Dickerson, T. Dull,
N. Mahalik, T. Skeen, Z. Wang.
Members Absent: S. Brown-Welty (excused), G. Kriehn (excused),
R. Yazdipour (excused).
Visitors: Galen Balcon, Sean Fulop

The meeting was called to order by Chair Perez at 2:04 p.m. in the University Center
Room #203.

  1. Minutes. MSC to approve the Minutes of April 8, 2008, with the following
    revisions on the original minutes:
    • Under item 4d: After “The committee recommended the department to
    continue”, delete “recruit students and continue” and add “the”. So the
    whole sentence becomes “The committee recommended the department to
    continue the implementation of its recruiting plan”.
  2. Agenda. MSC to approve the Agenda as amended to show:
    1) Approval of the Minutes of 4/8/08.
    2) Approval of the Agenda.
    3) Communications and Announcements.
    4) Graduate Curriculum Sub-committee appointment.
    5) Update from the Division of Graduate Studies.
    6) Interdisciplinary Studies Masters Degree – Galen Balcon – Time Certain 2:20
    p.m.
  3. Communications and Announcements.
    a. Chair Perez announced that the International English Language Testing
    System (IELTS) has been approved by the president. International
    admissions may now accept the IELTS or the Test of English as a
    Foreign Language (TOEFL) for international students.
    b. Chair Perez distributed the Student Outcome Assessment Plan (SOAP)
    of the Linguistics Department.
  4. Graduate Sub-committee Appointment.
    MSC to move into Executive Session at 2:10 p.m.
    MSC to move out of Executive Session at 2:12 p.m.
    MSC to appoint Ming Xiao, College of Engineering, to the Graduate
    Curriculum Subcommittee.
  5. Update from the Division of Graduate Studies.
    Dean Dickerson distributed the “DGS Exit Survey Summary – Fall 2007”
    illustrating the results from 115 recent graduates. The summary contains
    questions in the areas of Curriculum, Department/faculty, facilities, and
    summary. It also shows the percentages of their participation in thesis, project
    and comprehensive exam, professional experiences in conferences/publication,
    opinion of Fresno State, Gender, ethnicity and marital status etc. It was
    suggested that this summary information be distributed to all graduate faculty
    on campus through DGS e-mail.
    Dean Dickerson also distributed a printed document “Plan for Excellence III,
    Goal 3: Advancing Graduate Education” for future discussions. She pointed out
    that the areas for improvements in the file include Graduate Culture and Space
    issues.
  6. Interdisciplinary Studies Masters Degree – G. Balcon - Time Certain 2:20 p.m.
    Graduate student Galen Balcon (Computer Science) and his advisor Sean Fulop
    (Linguistics Department, Assistant Professor) were called in at 2:20 p.m. They
    were asked to explain the nature of the Interdisciplinary Study - MS
    Computational Linguistics. They showed the evidence that this new degree
    program has already been started in other universities with promising jobs in
    computer companies such as MicroSoft. The target high-tech jobs include
    computer translation and speech recognition, etc.
    With encouraging comments, the committee unanimously approved the
    application of Galen Balcon to follow the plan and pursue a degree in MS
    Computational Linguistics.

The next scheduled meeting of the Graduate Committee is Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at
2:00 p.m. in the University Center, Room #203.

Agenda.

  1. Approval of the Minutes of 4/15/08.
  2. Approval of the Agenda.
  3. Communications and Announcements.
  4. Master of Science in Geology Graduate Program Review –
    Time Certain 2:20 p.m.

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