Minutes of the Graduate Committee

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FRESNO

5240 N. JACKSON AVENUE, M/S UC43
Fresno, California 93740–8023

Office of the Academic Senate
Ext. 8–2743

October 30, 2007

Members Present: M. Perez (Chair), S. Brown–Welty D. Dickerson, T. Dull, G. Kriehn, N Mahalik, T. Skeen, Z. Wang, R. Yazdipour.

Members Absent: C. Barnes (Student).

Visitors: G. Munoz, D. Singleton, V. Katkanant, K. Carey.

The meeting was called to order by Chair Perez at 2:03 p.m. in the University Center, Room #203.

1. Minutes: MSC to approve the Minutes of 10/23/07.
2. Agenda: MSC to approve the Agenda as distributed.
3. Communications and Announcements.
   a. S. Brown–Welty represented C.S.U., Fresno attended the Carnegy Foundation Research and Study of Doctoral Programs in Education meeting in Nashville, Tennessee. We are one of the newest members of this elite organization.
   b. D. Dickerson handed out a new Academic Senate Policy from San Francisco State University on Indicators and Standards of Graduate Program Quality and Sustainability.
4. Physics – Time Certain: 2:25 p.m.
   a. Discussion of issues relating to Student Outcome Assessment Program (SOAP). The department had suggested utilizing the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) “specialized test” as the primary means of assessing student outcomes. They noted that other SOAP methods would overburden the faculty. They felt that assessment was an internal process. There are concerns about graduate faculty buy–in and active support to the SOAP plan.
   b. Additional concern about Outcome Assessment relating to memo dated in 2000 from this committee suggesting that Goals and Objectives be stated as learning outcomes. These concerns were not addressed in later documents.
   c. Concerns were noted about the limited number of the faculty who were teaching the graduate level courses. At the present time almost all graduate courses were taught by two of the faculty.
   d. It was noted that there were no specific required core courses in the program. They responded that there were certain courses that almost all graduate students were “required” to take but not listing specific courses gave them greater flexibility.
   e. Additional questions were addressed concerning the total number of graduate majors, recruitment efforts, student advising and curriculum development/new faculty.

MSC to adjourn at 3:10 p.m.

The next scheduled meeting of the Graduate Committee is Tuesday, November 6, 2007 at 2:00 p.m. in the University Center, Room #203.

Agenda.

1. Approval of the Minutes 10/30/07.
2. Approval of the Agenda.
3. Communications and Announcements.
4. Physics Program – Discussion.

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