Lamar University 

Graduate Council  

MINUTES #470

September 15, 2021 

 

Attending:  Tammy Henderson, Theresa Hefner-Babb, Brett Welch, Jerry Lin, Debbie Troxclair, Xianchang Li, David Short, Vivek Natarajan, Amy Smith, Awais Saleem

Quorum is reached.

 

Future meetings will be held in person at Science & Technology 275.

 

Approval of Minutes 

#469 – August 18, 2021

Motion to accept Natarajan, second: Welch. Motion passed.

 

Old Business 

 

Graduate Faculty

 

• G4 Approvals Needed

CoFAC – Dawn Kidd, Martina Bienvenue, Outside Committee Members - Lindsey Snyder (student Brian Cheslock L20357425), Thangi Appanah (student Rajmonda Krasniqi L20384724)

Approved by Saleem

 

CoEHD – John Boatwright

Approved by Welch

 

NEW – CoE: Catherine C. Thomas (adjunct faculty), Tosin Sekoni (adjunct faculty);

Approved by Li

 

CoEHD: Joe Rodriguez (outside committee member for Ed.D. student Marta Rivas), Virginia McRay (outside committee member for Ed.D. Student Philip Wittkorn)

Approved by Welch

 

 

New Business 

 

Welcome to new members: Vivek Natarajan (Business), Amy Smith (Arts & Sciences), Donna Azodi, Tammy Henderson and Debbie Troxclair (Education & Human Development)

 

College of Arts & Sciences

 

History - Course Change: HIST 5332 – Updates to course title and description.  Syllabus was reviewed by Dr. Hefner-Babb prior to this meeting.  She noted that “The readings cannot be uploaded into Blackboard per Quentin (and me) because of copyright and fair use. They will need to be sent to the library for creation of a course e-reserve.”

Lin: does this council want to get into the materials that are used in a course?  Hefner-Babb:  we could approve but let the faculty know their plan to upload readings to BB will not be allowed by Distance Learning.  Lin: We will communicate back to the department that we need to follow the copyright and fair use rules.  None oppose this course of action. 

 

Biology – numerous course changes to demonstrate advanced rigor at the graduate level for SACS accreditation purposes, see table below

Course Change	BIOL 5302	Change to course title and description	Hefner-Babb notes no prerequisites listed.  All graduate syllabi must list prerequisites or note that course requires graduate standing. Smith notes discrepancies between the syllabi and the info on the course change form.
Course Change	BIOL 5412	Change to course title and description
Course Change	BIOL 5413	Change to course title and description
Course Change	BIOL 5431	Change to course title and description
Course Change	BIOL 5440	Change to course title and description	Smith notes vague language in SLOs for this course, recommends more verb-oriented language, and/or condensing SLOs 4-9, she also notes no list of assessments.
Course Change	BIOL 5409	Change to course title and description	Preliminary review by Dr. Hefner-Babb, she indicated that the SLO wording was repetitive and could be tightened up. Syllabus not in proper format/template.

Motion to accept changes – Welch, second – Saleem, motion passed.

 

College of Business

 

MBA – requesting to add a Leadership concentration area to the online MBA offerings, as well as an online graduate certificate in Leadership.  See memos for full details. 

Natarajan: the college has been doing this on campus but now wishes to set up online offering, including the stand-alone certificate.  Certificates programs help encourage students to pursue the full degree later in many cases, and certificate course credits can be transferred to MBA.  This addition of program modality only requires approval up to the BoR level, no additional paperwork for THECB is required.  Motion to accept both proposals: Natarajan, second: Saleem, motion passed.