1997-1998-1 TIP and PEP Funds

Whereas, The TIP and PEP awards were created to reward sustained faculty accomplishments, and the authority exists to reapply TIPs and PEPs from those faculty who have retired or otherwise left UCF;

Be It Resolved, That available TIP and PEP funds for the current year be awarded to selected faculty applicants, and that the eligibility criteria as outlined in the applicable collective bargaining agreement for such selection be followed.

Whereas, The faculty have expressed concerns regarding liability insurance, and workers compensation issues while on travel related to university business;

Be It Resolved, That written notification should be distributed as soon as possible to all faculty and staff by memorandum from appropriate university administration regarding current UCF policies, including both compensated and uncompensated travel situations.

Be It Resolved, That individual units (graduate programs, departments, or those colleges with college-wide graduate programs) be allowed to offer Graduate Certificate programs. These policies and procedures will be developed by the Graduate Policy and Curriculum Committee.

1. Any academic unit may propose a graduate certificate program that encompasses graduate courses in their graduate program. If an interdisciplinary certificate program is proposed, it must be acceptable to departments and faculty offering the courses and graduate programs on which the certificate program is based.
2. Only departments offering graduate degree programs are eligible to develop graduate certificate programs, although departments not offering graduate degrees could join a graduate program in offering an interdisciplinary certificate. College-wide graduate programs are also eligible to develop graduate certificate program.
3. Entry to a certificate program does not guarantee admission to a graduate program. However, once a person is accepted into a regular graduate program, students who obtain a certificate at UCF may apply the credits from the certificate toward and existing graduate program, with the consent of the program.
4. Graduate credit hours taken at UCF less than three years previously form a prior baccalaureate, master’s, doctoral, or specialist degree may be applied toward a certificate, with the consent of the program.
5. No graduate credit hours taken at other institutions can be applied to a certificate program at UCF.
6. A certificate program must comprise a minimum of 9 semester hours and a maximum of 18. The course work must comprise and integrated and organized sequence of study.
7. No internship or independent study courses may be used in a certificate program. The use of practicum courses in certificate programs is not generally encouraged, but may be used in programs where there is a strong professional setting, and faculty supervision takes place on campus.
8. Students admitted to a graduate degree program or to post-baccalaureate status are eligible to take certificate programs. Post-baccalaureate students who are enrolled in a certificate program are not eligible for tuition waivers, assistantships, fellowships, or federal financial aid.
9. All courses that are offered as part of a certificate program must be graduate-level courses. All courses that count towards a certificate must receive a grade of B or better. Courses may be retaken to achieve a better grade.

1. Certificate programs will be approved using a fast-track approval process. A short proposal will be developed describing the curriculum and expected audience similarly to what is done to approve tracks. Elements of the proposal include at least: a needs assessment and identification of target audience, description of faculty resources and qualifications for providing the program, the administration of the program, and a description of the curriculum. The curriculum description should include hours required, courses that will be taken, courses that will be new to the program, course syllabi and a description of the delivery methods associated with the courses. Also, a description of the administration of the certificate program is required, particularly for those that are interdisciplinary.
2. The appropriate departments and colleges will gain approval from their graduate committees, and submit their proposal to Graduate Studies for review. It will be referred to the Graduate Council for evaluation and recommendation. The recommendation will be made to the Office of Research and Graduate Studies, and then referred to the Provost for a final decision.
3. The program, wherever it is actually housed, must be clearly identified and labeled as a certificate program. The intent of the program must be specified in any department or college publications (print or web-based).
4. Students may apply for a certificate program at any time prior to the completion of the last course in the certificate program.
5. A faculty coordinator will be appointed for each certificate program. The coordinator will be responsible for certifying successful completion of the program’s academic requirements. The Office of Graduate Studies will arrange for recording the completed certificate on the student’s transcript. However, certificate recipients will not be recognized at commencement.
6. The Provost must approve the design and title of the certificate.
7. Funding models and options for certificate programs will be the same as for normal graduate courses.
8. Alternative delivery programs are acceptable and encouraged. Distributive learning, weekend courses, evening courses, and accelerated term courses are acceptable.

The rationale for this proposal is that these graduate certificate programs will be in focused areas and will offer graduate level education in highly specified areas of knowledge. Within the metropolitan area UCF serves, such programs would provide working professionals updated or new skills. Many of our UCF employees in the area have advanced graduate degrees and would like to enhance their education with specialized courses. Frequently a package of specialized courses that form a certificate will increase their employment credentials and lead to career enhancement. It is the intent of these programs to be current, providing specialized and state-of-the-art content to area employees. Often certificate programs are offered using flexible and nontraditional delivery systems that provide the best service to employees in this metropolitan area. Also, certificate programs can be used as a way to round out a graduate degree program providing a special area of emphasis in addition to a graduate degree. Thus, those who could take advantage of these programs are individuals with bachelor’s degrees only, or those with master’s or doctoral degrees. All courses will be at the level of regular courses and will carry graduate credit.

1997-1998-4 Graduate Council

Be It Resolved, That the committee previously known as the Graduate Policy and Curriculum Committee will now be known as the Graduate Council. The Graduate Council will be a standing committee of the Faculty Senate and will report to the Senate on graduate policy and curriculum matters. The council will consist of 18 faculty members, at least six of whom are current Faculty Senate members. The chair and vice-chair are members of the Faculty Senate. Three members, except Arts and Sciences, which will have six, will represent each college. The Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies and the Director of Graduate Studies will ex-officio members of this committee. A nonvoting member representing the library will also participate in council deliberations.

The Graduate Council will be responsible for graduate policy issues and standards for the university. The responsibilities of the Council will include but not be limited to:

1. Consideration of new graduate program requests for planning and implementation
2. Review of existing graduate programs
3. Modification to graduate courses either as additions, deletions or changes
4. Review of university-wide policies addressing graduate policies and standards
5. Recommendations of the recipients of the University Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award.
The Graduate Council will recommend new policies or other actions affecting graduate education to the Steering Committee of the Faculty Senate.

The Graduate Council is composed of subcommittees as follows:

1. Policy/Procedures Subcommittee

This subcommittee will examine existing policies and procedures and recommend new polices and procedures affecting graduate education. Among the many issues that it addresses will be policies and procedures related to admissions, academic progress, and financial support for graduate students. This subcommittee will make recommendations to the Graduate Council. The composition of this committee will be four senate members and at least three non-senate members (with representation from each college) and is chaired by the Chair of the Graduate Council.

2. Appeals Subcommittee

This subcommittee will hear petitions for variances from graduate policies and procedures for post-baccalaureate or graduate students at the university or applicants to graduate programs. A student petition will be considered here when the department and college have reviewed the request and denied the petition or when the student is requesting an exemption to university policies or regulations. Applicant petitions will be considered upon request of the applicant when the program has reviewed an appeal of an admissions decision, after denying admission. This subcommittee will recommend approval or denial of appeals or petitions to the Director of Graduate Studies, who will notify the student, department, and college of the action. This subcommittee also will review nominees for the University Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award and will make a recommendation to the Vive President for Research and Graduate Studies. This subcommittee will consist of four senate members and at least three non-senate members, with representation from each college. The chair of this subcommittee will be appointed by the chair of the Graduate Council. A graduate student representative will be appointed by the Chair of the Graduate Council, based upon nominations made by the Graduate Coordinators.

3. Course Review and New Programs

This Subcommittee will review curricular issues related to graduate education.

Among its many duties will be:

1. Review of proposals for new graduate programs, and makes recommendations to the Graduate Council.
2. Review of changes to existing graduate programs (such as honors, thesis/non-thesis options) and makes recommendations to the Director of Graduate Studies.
3. Review of new tracks or options to existing graduate programs and makes recommendations to the Director of Graduate Studies.
4. Review of new certificate programs, and makes recommendations to the Graduate Council.
5. Monitoring of graduate program quality, and makes recommendations to the Graduate Council.
6. Review of new graduate and special topic courses, as well as changes to exisiting graduate courses and makes recommendations to the Director of Graduate Studies.

This subcommittee will be composed of at least four senate members and at least three non-senate members, with representation from each college. The chair of the subcommittee will be the vice-chair of the Graduate Council.

Be It Resolved, That at the discretion of each college and program within a college, graduate programs will be permitted to accept up to 9 grade hours taken at UCF by undergraduate

program of study. Oversight of the appropriateness of and discretion for accepting such courses into a graduate student’s program of study, and decisions regarding the acceptance of any such hours, will be provided by the instructor, program coordinator, and college graduate coordinator.

Explanation

Undergraduate students may currently take 5000 level courses as electives in their undergraduate program and have the hours count toward their Bachelor’s degree. This proposal is to allow these hours to count in their Master’s degree as well subject to the approval of individual programs, their respective graduate coordinators, and the graduate deans in the respective colleges. This should not alter the requirements, character, or quality of any existing program, undergraduate or graduate. This is not an attempt to reduce the minimum of 120 hours for a baccalaureate degree nor to reduce the minimum of 30/36 hours for a masters degree. This should strengthen undergraduate programs while not affecting the competency level attained by masters students under the present system.

This is intended to be a mechanism to encourage UCF’s better undergraduates to continue into the graduate grogram. As a by-product, it should also increase graduate SCH’s, both directly and indirectly because students will continue in graduate school who might not have otherwise.

Whereas, UCF's current grade forgiveness policy is biased in favor of academically weak students; and

Whereas, UCF's current grade forgiveness policy allows weaker students to mislead potential employers and graduate programs by claiming GPA's that do not accurately reflect their academic performance; and

Whereas, UCF's current grade forgiveness policy allows an arbitrary number (two) of grade forgiveness; and

Whereas, UCF should adopt academic policies that are appropriate for students at a major metropolitan University who aspire to successful careers in their chosen fields;

Be it resolved, That UCF's current grade forgiveness policy is abolished. From this point forth, all grades earned in courses taken at UCF shall be included in the calculation of the overall UCF GPA.

(Defeated at Faculty Senate meeting on March 19, 1998)

 1997-1998-7 Grade Roll Submission

Whereas, Electronic submission of grades is more efficient and timely.

Be It Resolved, That once the software capability is available, UCF faculty have the option of submitting grades electronically.

1997-1998-8 Grade Distribution (defeated)

Whereas, The distribution of letter grades in all colleges and at all coure levels at UCF has experienced a steady upward shift over the past fifteen years; and

Whereas, If present trends continue, grades will become meaningless, to the detriment of UCF students, UCF faculty, potential employers, and graduate programs;

Be it resolved, That the distribution of grades assigned in each course sextion shall be made publicly available in a timely manner by the university, with summaries for each faculty member, for each course, for each course level, for each department, for each college, and for the University as a whole.

(Defeated at Faculty Senate meeting on March 19, 1998)

1997-1998-9 Undergraduate GPA

Whereas, UCF currently requires at least a 2.0 GPA for both UCF and cumulative course work for graduation; and

Whereas, The cumulative GPA requirement requires the calculation of a transfer GPA based on all previous course work; and

Whereas, The transfer GPA often conflicts with transcripts from previous institutions (due to loss of grade forgiveness and +/- grades) and, more importantly, is not calculated consistently for all transfer students; and

Whereas, The transfer GPA is not used to determine admission (it is calculated after admission and is only used for reporting and to allow calculation of accumulative GPA); and

Whereas, GPAs from all previous institutions are included on student transcripts;

Be It Resolved, That UCF no longer compute a cumulative GPA and that UCF require only the UCF GPA of at least 2.0 for graduation.

Whereas, UCF currently confers Baccalaureate Honors recognition based on cumulative GPA; and

Whereas, The cumulative GPA requirement requires the calculation of a transfer GPA based on all previous course work; and

Whereas, The transfer GPA often conflicts with transcripts from previous institutions (due to loss of grade forgiveness and plus/minus grades) and, more importantly, is not calculated consistently for all transfer students; and

Whereas, Most Florida community colleges confer honors recognition; and

Whereas, There is an inequity in honors calculations between UCF native students versus transfer students;

Be It Resolved, That all UCF graduates with at least 48 hours of UCF course credit be considered for honors recognition based on the GPA from all semesters that include their last 48 hours of UCF course work.

FINAL APPROVAL RESOLUTION 1995-1996 6 on May 18, 1998

Whereas, Faculty would like to more clearly reflect the academic acievement of individual students in thier courses; and

Whereas, Our current full letter grade grading system (A, B, C, D, F) places students with widely different achievements with the same grade;

Be It Resolved, That the University adopt a policy of plus minus grading.

Plus/Minus Implementation

At the Faculty Senate meeting of April 23, 1998 the Faculty Senate approved a proposal for the implementation of plus/minus grading at UCF.  This proposal was approved for implementation by Provost Gary Whitehouse on May 18, 1998.   Plus/minus grading will become effective with the 1999-2000 catalog year.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1 . That the plus/minus grading system not take effect until the 1999-2000 catalog year beginning with all credits earned Fall 1999 and later.

2. That changing catalog year will have no impact on how grades are computed.

3. That any incomplete grades still in effect that go into Fall 1999 or later be graded according to the grading system in effect at the time that the course was taken rather than the grading system in effect at the time that the course was completed.

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