Oct 13th:

1)  Due to budget cuts, the meetings will no longer have refreshments. L

2) The November 10 meeting will be moved to November 17.  (B/C of move, there may be cookies J)

3)  Most of the time was spent discussing the external review of the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology.  It seems like the external review was quite negative and there were lots of complaints from graduate students in the dept.  However, the MGM dept has already implemented a lot of changes since the external review report came in.  They now have a new chair, a new DGS, and a new DGSA.  They have also completely restructured their prelim system and have a new weekly graduate student seminar.  The new chair and new DGS came to the meeting for about 30 minutes to discuss their response to the external review.  After they left, it was the consensus of the ECGF that the MGM dept has responded well to the external review.  There are still some concerns about how genetics research at Duke is fragmented across many departments and institutes and that this may be contributing to some of the problems in MGM.  However, the consensus of the committee was that the structure of genetics research at Duke is above the power of the MGM dept itself and should maybe be considered strategically by a higher committee.4) Dean Jo Rae Wright of the Graduate School discussed her strategic plan.  It was due yesterday, but she got an extension.   We were short on time, but she highlighted 3 areas that she wanted us to consider:a) Study Skills program for graduate studentsb) Ways to decrease the time to graduate, particularly in the Humanities which have the highest average number of years.  One way suggested was to have more deadlines.c) International study abroad programs for graduate studentsThere will be more info posted on the Blackboard site about the 3 areas above and we are supposed to think about them and come back to the next meeting with ideas and thoughts.

5) The November 10 meeting will be moved to November 17.  (B/C of move, there may be cookies J)

Oct 27th:

1) Final discussion of external review of MGM dept.  I suggested that they inform the dept that they currently have an open GPSC seat and that it would be beneficial for them to select a GPSC rep for their department.

2) Discussion of external review of the Graduate Program in Liberal Studies.  The external review was fairly positive.  This program consists of only night classes. The instructors are Duke professors and the average age of the students is 40.  The degree is a masters of arts.  There was discussion of extending the program to grant Doctorates of Liberal Studies.  However, this seems unlikely to happen in the near future.

3) 2 representatives from the Information Technology Advisory Committee came to the meeting to inform us of a change to the security/privacy policy at Duke.  The changes were to make it more clear that Duke University does have the right to seize personal emails of faculty/staff/students under certain cases.  They also reminded us to protect our passwords and never tell them to anyone else.

see above

The MGM dept has on open GPSC seat.  What is GPSC doing to try to make sure that all departments fill their seats?

N/A