Graduate Program Directors Meeting Minutes
March 11, 2005

Dissertation Advisor Status

Dean Douglas Wartzok announced that the first round of review for the Dissertation Advisor Status was underway and that the Dissertation Advisor Status Evaluation Committee (DASEC) was soon to complete the evaluation of almost 300 DAS applications received by the February 15 deadline. Once the initial appointments have been completed, each department should have a departmental committee composed of at least three faculty members with dissertation advisor status. Future DAS applications will have their initial evaluation conducted by the departmental committee.

New Policies

Dean Wartzok reminded those present that since the last Graduate Program Directors meeting the Faculty Senate approved several new graduate policies.

• 2.1.1. Minimum GPA and Examination Requirements for Graduates of U.S. Institutions.
  
  This policy defines the Graduate School 's default GPA and examination requirements while allowing the units the opportunity to establish their own.
  
• 2.1.2. Requirements for Graduates of Non-U.S. Institutions.
  
  This policy sets new TOEFL and IELTS score requirements. The new TOEFL test will be offered beginning September 2005. The minimum score on the new test is the equivalent of the current 550 (paper) or 213 (computer). The new TOEFL will include a speaking portion and thus supercedes the TSE test.
  
• 3.3.2.1. Combined Bachelor/Masters Degree Programs
  
  This policy includes admissions and curriculum issues departments must follow when offering a combined bachelors/masters degree program.

A full description of these policies can be found in the Graduate Policies and Procedures Manual available at http://www.fiu.edu/ugs/gpm/ .

Graduate Admissions     

Jeff Gonzalez announced changes in Graduate Admissions procedures.  He identified several areas that the Admissions office hopes to target in order to improve the quality of service to both departments and student applicants.  Some of the changes are already in place while others will be effective as early as March 14. A copy of his PowerPoint presentation can be downloaded here.

Application Materials Summary . – There is a new page in PantherSoft Admission module that summarizes all the information related to an applicant including transcripts, TEST scores, status, name the evaluator, etc. This page will also be used to indicate admission recommendation.

No more paper evaluations . – Effective March 14, 2005 , the Graduate Admissions Office will no longer issue paper evaluation forms as this process will be available online through the Application Materials Summary page .   Any paper evaluations already in departments will still be accepted, however new ones will not be generated. Therefore, each program director must go online in order to view referred applications and to post admission decisions. Evaluator's comments previously available on paper evaluations will be viewed through the “Admissions Comments” link.  When entering admission decisions, units will use the “Admissions Recommendation” link.  A table of available admissions recommendation options was distributed. A copy can be downloaded here.

Additionally, there is a now an online alternative to the Graduate Stipend Form. Program directors with authority to certify funds provided to a student may now indicate such funds online. The Graduate Stipend Form will still be available for units which require approval from the College/School Dean's office. Warning: As in the case of the Graduate Stipend form, the financial aid information provided online will be used to issue an I-20. Therefore, the unit is making a binding commitment to provide such funds.

To help units understand this new process, two new PantherSoft manuals were distributed.

1) The Application Materials Summary manual describes the new page links. The manual can be downloaded here.

2) The Graduate Admissions Queries manual shows how to run admission queries. For example, since no more paper evaluations will be issued, a director needs to run a query to determine which applications have been referred and are ready for the unit to make a decision. The Graduate Admissions manual can be downloaded here.

If you have any questions about this process, please contact Jeff Gonzalez at jeff@fiu.edu.

Referral Options. In the near future, the PantherSoft Admission module will include customized program admission referral options. Jeff Gonzalez requested that each program director emails him the minimum requirements for application referral. In other words, what is the minimum information the unit would like to have before the application is referred . For example, GPA only, or GPA and GRE, or GPA and letters of recommendations and so on. If the unit does not indicate its minimum referral requirements, the default minimum requirements for referral will be:

• Paid application fee
• Received TOEFL score
• Calculated GPA

PantherSoft Admission Application. Currently students apply for admission through FACTS, the state-run website that houses online applications. However as of Friday, March 18, 2005 , FIU will unveil its own online application.  This should alleviate problems encountered by students in past which were beyond our control.  The PantherSoft online application will be used for new graduate applications, readmission applications and graduate certificate applications. Graduate Program Directors who want to see what the applicant sees, and in particular to check out the various application options for his or her academic program, academic plan, and academic subplan can create a new, fictitious applicant ID at the New User Log-in page https://psprod.fiu.edu:8500/pssaprddir/directlink.html .
Please send an email to Jeff with the fictitious Pantherid so that it can eventually be deleted from the system .

Student Records

Master's on route to Doctoral.  For those students who are admitted into a doctoral program and want to earn a masters degree on their way to doctorate, the information will be displayed within the “Manage Student Records” option in Panthersoft.  The students will always be classified as a “doctoral student” in “academic student career number 0” but will also be classified as “doctoral student earning masters degree” in “academic student career number 1” in the semester in which they earn the master's degree. This addition is required so that the Graduation office can post the degree.  The students will not lose their doctoral status at any point since they will still be classified as doctoral students in academic career number 0. This new process will eliminate the need for doctoral students to complete a change of graduate degree program form in order to earn a master. However, this process is only available for doctoral students who will be completing a non-thesis option. A doctoral student completing a thesis-option will still be required to change his or her graduate degree program. Such changes in graduate degree program can have serious consequences for international students. Thus international doctoral students should not be advised to take a thesis master's degree on route to a doctoral degree.

Dual Master's Degrees. For those students who are admitted into two master's degree programs simultaneously both degrees will appear under the same academic career number in the “Manage Student Records” option.

Graduate Assistant Appointments

Ruben Jaen spoke regarding Graduate Assistant Appointments.   Specifically, on the Notification of Award of Graduate Assistantship he emphasized several changes on the form.

• Units must signal revisions by marking the box on the form when appropriate otherwise timely processing could be impeded.
• Units must mark the appropriate box to indicate whether the student is an international student.
• Units do not need to route the Notification of Award form to the Division of Sponsored Research.
• Audit courses are not included in the calculation of enrollment status.

Additionally, on the Graduate Assistant Employment Agreement form he mentioned that it is important that units submit the original Employment Agreement form to the University Graduate School . The form must be signed by the employee. This form explains to the employees the fees that will be deducted from their paychecks for health insurance purposes. The UGS is required to maintain records showing that the employee knew of the payroll deduction. In addition, item # 11 was added to the form. This item explains the fees not covered by a tuition waiver.

Marketing and Recruiting Activities

Dr. Stephan Mintz emphasized the increased effort in both marketing and recruitment the UGS is involved.  A copy of Dr. Mintz's PowerPoint presentation can be downloaded here . As part of this effort an ad will be placed in U.S. News and World Report special issue on the Best Graduate Programs. Program directors or their assignees will receive inquiries to generic email accounts. These email accounts were created so that interested students could direct questions to the appropriate programs instead of to the individual program directors email box.  Program directors are encouraged to periodically check these accounts, or have emails arriving in these accounts forwarded to their regular University account, and respond accordingly. Dr. Mintz asked each program director to review the list of generic emails and confirm its accuracy. A copy of the list can be found here.  Please notify Dr. Mintz at ugsadean@fiu.edu if any of the program emails is assigned to the wrong director or you find any other type of inaccuracy.

The University Graduate School will be hosting a Graduate Open House on Saturday, April 16, 2005 from 10AM – 1PM. in the Graham Center .  Advertisements will be made in The Miami Herald, through the UGS and GAO websites, through flyer distribution on campus as well as a mass postcard mailing to graduating seniors, alumni, student names provided by Educational Testing Service and prospective students already in the PantherSoft database.  Program directors are strongly encouraged to attend or send a representative to the event which is expected to generate a large turnout of potential students.

Meeting adjourned 12:30 P.M.