Furman University
Graduate Council
April 29, 2008

MINUTES

The Graduate Council met for its Spring Term meeting on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 2:00 PM in the Grad Studies conference room.  An agenda for the meeting is attached.

Members Present:  Nelly Hecker, Tom Kazee, Brian Goess (for Lon Knight), Julian Reed, Marian Strobel and Troy Terry.

The minutes of the 1-30-08 were approved as written.

Dr. Terry updated the Council on the formation of the Graduate Advisory Committee which met on March 11, 2008 and on April 22, 2008 to assist with program review, evaluation, and strategic planning.  The committee has assisted in the creation of an online Alumni Survey and initial results (from the first 71 respondents) were presented to the Council as information. 

Dr. Terry also updated the committee on the use of the survey data for strategic planning, ongoing research into technology, video-conferencing and distance-learning, as well as online courses.  Dr. Strobel asked about the scope of online issues and Dr. Kazee provided points of reference for our research into this area of program improvement.  Dr. Terry will continue to meet with area collaborators to assess how this might impact our program in the future.

Marketing plans and schedule dates were presented to the Council.  Dr. Kazee asked Dr. Goess about Chemistry program completers and the number of master’s candidates in the program.  With the expansion of lab space in the Towne’s Center, it is expected the number of graduate students in that program may grow, but not significantly.  Currently there are five in the program.

No additional items of concern were noted and the Council adjourned until its next meeting in September of 2008.