The governing body of the Graduate School is the Graduate Council. The section below appears in the faculty handbook, but is provided here for a quick reference.
Graduate Faculty And Council
- Graduate Faculty
All fulltime tenure track faculty members are eligible to be Graduate Faculty. There is no specific application process. If their peers in their academic department consider them qualified to teach graduate level classes, then they become Voting Graduate Faculty.
Voting Graduate Faculty are eligible to serve on Graduate Council and its sub committees. The council and committees deal with graduate issues. Voting Graduate Faculty should teach at least one graduate class a year on a regular basis.
- The Graduate Council
The following individuals serve on the Graduate Council by virtue of their Converse appointments:- Dean of the Graduate School (chair and non-voting member)
- Registrar
- Chair of Education Department
- One graduate advisor from each of the following programs, as decided by each program and reported to Council Administrative Assistant, at the beginning of the fall semester:
- MLA
- MFA
- MMFT
- MAT
- MEd
- EdS
- PLP(EdD and MiM)
- An at-large representative from art and one from music as reported by each area to the Council Administrative Assistant, at the beginning of the fall semester:
The Council, therefore, has 12 members including one non-voting member who can vote to break ties. Quorum for the group is 6.
The Admissions Sub-Committee and the Curriculum Sub-Committee will be drawn from the twelve voting members. There must be a member from the Education Department on each committee and the other two must be from different academic areas to maintain balance. The Council chair is a non-voting member of both committees and is the summer designee on admissions decisions.
Procedures are as follows: the Council may meet in person once each semester and handles other business electronically. The Curriculum Committee reviews course and program proposals first and on a rolling basis. If approved, proposals move on to the full Council for a vote. Members have 48 hours to vote. Approved proposals are presented to the Voting Graduate Faculty at the end of the next scheduled faculty meeting.
The Admissions Committee meets if there are provisional applications to be reviewed.
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Graduate Admissions
Responsibilities
Members (representing each specific graduate program) screen applicants for their area and recommend full admission, provisional admission, rejection or deferment with specific recommendations for future consideration.
The committee members who are present vote on the adviser’s recommendation. The committee also discusses and votes on graduate admission policies.