GRADUATE COUNCIL MINUTES

November 8, 2022

Present: Wissam AbouAlaiwi, Marcelo Alvarado-Vargas, Arun Anantharam, Brian Ashburner, Tomer Avidor-Reiss, Saurabh Chattopadhyay, Madeline Clark, Jim Ferris, Bashar Gammoh, David Giovannucci, Gary Insch, Ahmad Javaid, Andrea Kalinoski, Kristen Keith, Yakov Lapitsky (for Connie Schall), Patrick Lawrence, Linda Lewin, Mark Mason, Bindu Menon, Scott Molitor, Ling Na, Patrick Naranjo (GSA), Jeanine Refsnider-Streby, Patricia Relue, Jason Rose (for Sharon Barnes), Youssef Sari, Joseph Schmidt, Zahoor Shah, Snejana Slantcheva-Durst, Weiqing Sun, Jami Taylor, Jerry Van Hoy, Eileen Walsh, Kandace Williams.

Absent: Larissa Barclay, John Laux, Rebecca Schneider, Joseph Slater, Rebecca Zietlow.

Excused: Frank Calzonetti.

Guests: Tara Hanna, Tim Mueser.

Call to Order, Roll Call, and Approval of Minutes
The meeting was called to order and roll called.

Executive Reports
Report of the Executive Committee of the Graduate Council

On behalf of Graduate Council, Chair, Dr. Wissam AbouAlaiwi reported:

Bylaws and Constitution Committee are encouraged to consult with FS Bylaws and Constitution
Committee in regard to seeking approval by BOT.

I will represent Graduate Council as a marshal on the platform party in morning ceremony on Saturday December 17, 2022, when doctoral students will be hooded.

Graduate Council Spring 2023 - Guest Speakers scheduled to date

January 24 Graduate Student Success Center, activities and success

February 7 Jason Huntley and Anne Fulkerson – Strategic Planning

February 21 Claire Dau, Communications Manager - ParkUToledo

April 18 President Postel

GCEC approved Madeline Clark, College of Health and Human Services to replace a vacant spot on Research Council.

Nominations will be accepted through November 15^th for graduate students to be recognized along with their faculty advisors (send to me). Nominations will be open in Spring for another cohort. A webform will be developed and made available for nominations.

The next meeting Graduate Council will be in person in Rocket Hall 1530 as President Postel will be joining us. Questions for the President to address may be sent to Chair AbouAlaiwi.

Report of the Vice Provost for Graduate Affairs and Dean of the College of Graduate Studies

Dr. Scott Molitor, Interim Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Acting Dean, College of Graduate Studies provided the following updates:

Graduate Programs Week- November 5 -10, 2022
There were information tables in the Student Union yesterday and in the College of Health and Human Services atrium today along with other in-person and virtual sessions across the colleges. Thanks to Adrienne King and her group to market and advertise these events and special thanks goes to Tara Hanna and Adam Lee for their work on this. Thanks to Terri Hayes for stepping in to assist with logistical organization for college banners and tablecloths for these events. Although we were hoping for a larger turnout in the Student Union, we are hopeful that tomorrow’s session in the Library near Starbucks will be well attended. Following this week, we will review the effectiveness of the events that worked best before we discuss holding a similar event again. We improved upon our marketing and advertising with the goal of gaining greater attendance from current undergraduate students and UToledo employees.
S News and World Report
UToledo has made the list for the time in research rankings!
Association of Public Land-Grant Universities (APLU)
UToledo received their national community impact award for our water quality research and initiatives. Graduate education and graduate students are central to initiatives that drive high quality research.
Commencement – Saturday, December 17, 2022
Two ceremonies at 9 am and 1 pm will include graduate students. There will not be a separate ceremony for graduate students. Chair AbouAlaiwi will marshal at the morning commencement when Ph.D. hooding occurs. This decision to have two rather than three ceremonies was based on number of candidates. While I prefer a separate graduate ceremony with the Ph.D. hooding ceremony, there had to be consideration for the extra time and expense for staff, senior leadership and BOT members for a third ceremony. Within the two ceremonies, graduate students will receive recognition in front of a larger audience.

Two graduate faculty marshals are needed for the morning ceremony to carry the doctoral students banner in, assist directing the group to the stage and handling name cards. If you are already planning on attending, please let me know.
Faculty Senate
I have been invited to Faculty Senate on November 15, 2022, to talk about graduate reorganization initiatives based on the Reimagining COGS plan that was developed with the leadership of the Graduate Council last year. The name will be changed to the Office of Graduate Affairs or something similar.

We are hoping to bring this resolution to the Board of Trustees in December or shortly thereafter. Although this is a college reorganization, for which Faculty Senate is supposed to provide input, there are no faculty appointments in the College of Graduate Studies.
3 Minute Thesis Competition
Encourage your students to participate. The final competition will take place first week of December.
Thesis and Dissertation Guidelines
The State of Ohio is going to be implementing new requirements regarding accessibility of posted documents on OhioLink. We will need to follow those new requirements and ensure that they are being adhered to. Example are using headings with hyperlinks and alternate text for images and figures. We will provide updates and share with Graduate Council for feedback.
Review of Online Programs
An examination of programs that are shifting more towards online coursework will be conducted. We need to be cognizant of the requirement for international students to take in person classes to meet their residency and visa requirements. Given a full time load of 9 credit hours, international students must take at least 6 credit hours of face-to-face coursework per semester. Some programs have increased online content in the hopes of gaining more students domestically. We cannot pick up more students domestically at the expense of international students. We need to fairly advertise our programs to international students so they understand which programs they can pursue and maintain their visa requirements.

I will be putting together a committee to look at the out-of-state surcharge for graduate programs. This has been reviewed at the undergraduate level. The committee will include GC members, faculty, finance staff, and enrollment management staff to put together a proposal for the Board of Trustees. I will rely on will rely on Graduate Council and the Executive Committee to suggest members from the GC and academic side.
Mentor Training (graduate students and post-docs) policy development
There is a need to have some policies regarding mentor training for graduate students and post-docs, including how to adjudicate complaints regarding mentors. We are considering a requirement for online or face-to-face mentor training for anyone who applies for Graduate Faculty Membership. The requirement would be for Graduate Faculty members that qualify to supervise the thesis or dissertation research of student. It would not be required for graduate faculty that only teaching graduate courses. We will look at whether this should be reflected in the GC Bylaws and Graduate Faculty Membership, and whether to include a requirement for online or face-to-face training when applying for GF membership.
COGS Council of Associate Deans and Graduate Program Directors meeting – November 17, 2022
Graduate Program Directors have been invited to attend this meeting during Fall 2022 and will be invited to attend one meeting during Spring 2023 to discuss issues of general interest to both groups.
Financial Aid Initiative
Students should only receive federal financial aid for courses that are required for qualifying degree and other credential granting programs. This is less likely to be an issue at the graduate level compared to the undergraduate level as most graduate students are taking courses that lead toward completion of their graduate degrees or credentialed certificates, and generally do not take courses outside the scope of their programs. However, this initiative means that we are going to have to have a way of checking that students are taking courses applicable to their credential granting programs. Teri Green has been taking the lead on working with programs to get their graduate program requirements entered into our degree audit system so that we can move away from our paper Plan of Study forms. This financial aid requirement may accelerate the need for all graduate programs to be in the degree audit system (DARS) so we can verify students are not taking extraneous courses. DARS will need to align with the catalog which is the reference students use when selecting courses. This is going to be a substantial undertaking. We will start working with the associate deans first and then with the program directors. The Provost is working to implement a system for undergraduate students before Fall 2023, and we will transition to implementing a system for graduate students thereafter. More information and expectations will be provided.

Report of the Vice President for Research
No report since Dr. Frank Calzonetti was unable to attend due to being out of town on university business.

Report of the Graduate Student Association

Patrick Naranjo, President of the Graduate Student Association (GSA) reported:

General Assembly Meeting - November 4, 2022, meeting
Over 40 attendees for three consecutive meetings. The numbers since pandemic are encouraging but we still hope to increase attendance.
Officer positions unfilled
Elections for unfilled officer positions are currently underway. Looking forward to having a full board.
Intramural Sports Tournament (Basketball and Volleyball) – November 12, 2022
We are excited to host the first ever GSA sponsored intramural sports tournament. Scheduled for Saturday, November 12, 2022, 11:00 am in the Student Recreation Center.

Chair AbouAlaiwi suggested we would like to include soccer next semester and hold a graduate student vs. faculty tournament.

Information and Discussion Items
Graduate Admissions Applications Processing update
Dr. Scott Molitor, Acting Dean of COGS and Tara Hanna, Director of Application Management and Admissions Operations. The transition from Banner to Slate based admission software has been underway for the last six months or so as an initiative started by Enrollment Management.

Slate is CRM (customer relationship management) software designed for communicating with prospects and customers, and in our case, prospective students. Its workflow features admissions processing, monitoring of application management, and the ability to create graduate assistantship offer letters. We are taking advantage of some the programming capabilities to include processes we complete internally. Advantages include reducing reliance on paper-based, scanned and imaged documents. Documents may be reviewed as soon as they are uploaded, and workflow proceeds automatically. We are working diligently and are now in the cycle for admitting students not only for Spring 2023, but also for Fall 2023. With many advantages of Slate, there is the disadvantage this year that we must implement the system while we are using it. The admissions group, led by Tara Hanna, is tasked with two jobs at once: process the applications to make sure workflow is maintained in the review of current applications while implementing individual college-specific customization of applications and processes at the same time. Dean Molitor encourages the Council to reach out to Tara Hanna with any questions or issues and requested some patience as we work toward resolving issues as soon as possible. The admissions group has been conducting trainings that will include the College of Medicine and Life Sciences this week.

Tara Hanna provided the following summary regarding Slate:

May be customized for different application process for programs.
Send inquiries, comments, issues to Tara Hanna.
Slate Office Hours and Training
- Admissions holds office hours Monday through Thursday 9-10 am via Teams and provides training:
- 1:1
- Group
- Virtual via Webex
During trainings we learn of what is and is not working along with customization requests. Following trainings, we leave with a host of follow up items to develop or change.
Marketing and Student Request For Information (RFI)
- Prospects can be included in the Slate database.
- Graduate Programs Week – 60 students have already checked in with a couple more days to do so. They will have their application fee waived.

Chair AbouAlaiwi inquired whether Slate training is provided for program directors only or whether admissions committee members can attend.

Tara Hanna replied that the more people involved, the better experience users will have working with Slate. It is beneficial for Admissions to work with administrative assistants and program directors to provide them with other permissions. They know their audience, their students and the processes. Some programs have committee review so we can set up workflow for them to review and forward applications to the next bin (the next step in the process) to have a designated admissions person push through the recommendation for admission. The Admissions team is small but effective.

Dean Molitor noted that it is preferred to conduct training in a computer lab to address capacity issues and so that users are in front of computers.

Dr. Youssef Sari indicated that he would work with his Associate Dean, Dr. Zahoor Shah to request training that includes their admissions committee and administrative assistants.

Dr. Kandace Williams added that she is looking forward to COMLS receiving training this week and requests that the users be granted Slate access prior.

Dean Molitor shared Slate home page that includes a link to the Slate User access form. This page also provides links to training resources. In response to inquiries whether Slate can send notification emails to internal users (not the customer – the student), the system is a CRM which means it is built to communicate with the customers, and faculty and staff are internal users. We are looking at ways to work around this but for the time being, Slate should be checked regularly.

Dean Molitor extended his thanks and appreciation to Tara Hanna and her team for their expertise and diligence in ‘building and flying the airplane at the same time.’

Graduate Assistantship Offer Letter
We have been able to implement the offer letter process through Slate. The process is working for admissions prior to Fall 2023.
We will look at implementing the next academic year following the winter break. I had logged on today already and approved several offer letters. After I sign, the letters are automatically emailed to students.
Other Processes
Slate has been a lot better than what we were used to and is going to provide opportunities to improve other processes, such as with approval forms, i.e., GRAD form, Research Compliance or even Graduate Faculty Membership. Workflow and approval process are already built in.

Tara Hanna expressed her appreciation for Dean’s Molitor’s support and his understanding of the system’s capabilities.

CIM system and Admission Requirements
We are working with the CIM system guidelines for continuity of admission program requirements, continuing or inactivated. We need one source of truth/complete information for program information, which is CIM and the catalog.

Dean Molitor agreed and indicated that Cathy Zimmer working to store admission requirements in CIM. This will allow Graduate Council and Faculty Senate to review program admission requirements that will be automatically updated and stored in CIM post-approval. Cathy is working with the CIM vendor, CourseLeaf, to get those on the system. At this point, we assume we have your baseline of admission requirements that we are working to get into the catalog. Going forward, any changes to admission requirements will have to go through the CIM program modification process.

Dr. Tomer Avidor-Reiss thanked Dean Molitor for doing an outstanding job helping us. However, he pointed out that faculty are dealing with many different programs. Personally, he has found CIM to be reasonable and Slate and other programs not as comprehensible or intuitive. It is difficult for faculty to have to learn difficult systems when they need to do research and teaching. He requested embedding explanations in Slate like CIM so that you hover over text for information pop up explanation.

Dean Molitor agreed that CIM’s pop up explanations are useful and that if it is something we can implement in Slate and other software, it would be helpful as there are various software systems we must become familiar with.

Chair AbouAlaiwi echoed Dr. Avidor-Reiss’s sentiments that while the university is trying to lower the burden of paperwork, it is instead dealing with another burden of software training. However, if it is for the benefit of students over the long term, it is useful.

Dean Molitor added that as mentioned, Slate will be utilized for prospect communications including workflows to departments/programs to receive inquiries from students interested in your programs. Again, this may require regular checking of Slate, however as this is rolled out, we will communicate with the appropriate individuals.

Requests for Information (RFIs)
Tara Hanna added that the current system in use will be forwarded to Slate as we move toward utilizing Slate only for RFIs.

The next phase in this system will see an inquiry come in, go directly into Slate, and then the person inquiring receives a communication plan, a campaign. For instance, if someone is interested in Business they will get an automatic response based on a specific communication plan. Notification is sent to business as part of their campaign. Responses will be automatic and in timed succession. Between 24 and 48 hours they should get a phone call. The roll out will be conducted incrementally.

Dean Molitor inquired whether there will be an email generated or if users will have to check Slate. Tara indicated that it would generate automatic email notification.

Chair AbouAlaiwi thanked Dean Molitor and Tara Hanna for this useful information and discussion with the faculty.

Standing Committee Reports
Report of the Curriculum Committee
On behalf of the Curriculum Committee, Dr. Timothy Mueser, Chair, pointed out that the Curriculum Committee, with representatives from each of the colleges, ‘lives’ in CIM so if there are any questions, please involve and include this group. He presented the report of curriculum for GC vote. Council approved unanimously.

There was discussion and clarification of credits for PATH:7130

Dr. Relue inquired whether this is variable credits that may be repeated for credit, for example, 6 credit hours one semester and 6 credit hours the following semester? Sometimes programs do not realize what this means. It could be interpreted as if a student fails, they can take the course again.

Dr. Williams replied that it is an ongoing course and she is not aware of students ‘retaking’ for credit, but they do have it to take it more than one semester.

Dean Molitor noted the State has reinstated the approval pipeline programs after these requests had been on hold for the past few months.

Report of the Membership Committee

None.

Old Business
None.

New Business
None.

Adjournment
There being no further business, the Council adjourned at 1:49 pm.