Deans’ Council Minutes
March 7, 2006

Procedure A11.35 - Admission to Graduate School (PDF Document) - Allan Headley presented the proposed revisions, approved by the Graduate Council, which waive the GRE with no substitution for admission to the PhD in English. This is the first PhD program on campus to waive the GRE. Discussion included the following issues: most graduate programs establish a substitute for the GRE when they abandon it; department indicated GRE is not being used; will doing away with the GRE requirement permit the program to survive; is there a correlation study about GRE scores in relation to student academic performance; how many students complete the doctoral program; how many faculty participate in the doctoral program. Klein moved, Headley seconded, and the Council voted 5-1-1 to recommend the proposed revisions.

Procedure A11.46 - Doctoral Research Tools (PDF Document) - Allan Headley presented the proposal to reduce the research tool requirement for the PhD in English to 12 hours of undergraduate credit in a single foreign language or, for native speakers, to consult with the program director. Ashley moved, Headley seconded and the Council voted 6-0-1 to approve the proposed changes.

SB 111 Documents (PDF Documents A; B; C) Deans reviewed recommended changes to Procedure A11.25 - Undergraduate Non-Traditional Education including CLEP Policy Recommendation, AP Policy Recommendation, and IB Policy Recommendation. Klein noted that all departments had reviewed and approved the recommended scores for award of credit under the International Baccalaureate. Hendrix moved, Langford seconded, and Deans Council approved unanimously the recommended standards.

17.01 Intellectual Property Management & Commercialization Policy (PDF Document) – Deans reviewed the TAMUS policy and noted that patents will be costly to obtain and that TAMUS will get a cut of any funding coming back to the institution. Members noted the creation of an Office of Technology Commercialization and the creation of another Vice Chancellor—for Technology and Commercialization.

Fall Faculty Start Date - Joyce Scott reminded Deans that the fall start date to be listed in all academic year contract letters will be August 21, 2006. On this date, full-time faculty, GA's and other academic personnel are expected to be available on campus. Deans asked the Provost to consider resuming responsibility for the contract letters for new faculty hires. She agreed to prepare a draft for their review.

HB 1172 Limit of 120 SCH for Baccalaureate - Joyce Scott asked for a status check on the colleges' progress with reconciling information from the Coordinating Board [degree names and hours] with practice. Deans reported good progress and will send corrections to the Provost for entry into a master inventory which we will use for the campus review process.

Mini Course Enrollment 2001 - 2006 (PDF Document) – Discussion covered the original intent of the Mini courses, the unevenness in enrollments and the need to advertise better. Deans will look carefully at the aggregate data and see if they can determine a direction to be adopted.

Senate Committee on Education Reform & Public School Finance (PDF Document) – Dean Ashley provided the Council with a list of reforms to higher education generated by Senator Shapiro's committee.

Music Curriculum Changes (PDF Documents A; B; C: D)– Dean Klein reviewed proposed curriculum changes in Music. Discussion arose about the advisability of deleting the BA, which is not now low-performing. The sense was that it be put on moratorium until faculty had time to weigh it more thoroughly. Klein moved, Ashley seconded and Deans approved unanimously deletion of the BA and BS with Certification and the MS in Music Education.