Tag Archives: website

Executive Committee Minutes, 4/11 Meeting

by Rachel Brown

I. Admitted Students
A.) 14 students were offered admission to the PhD program this year
i.) Increasing number of accepted PhD applicants come in with MAs
ii.) All admitted students this year also received offers to other schools
iii.) This year, the Political Science Program has been given permission to go   above the limit of 12 admitted applicants, but anyone admitted above this number will not receive a    fellowship or tuition remission (normally 9 fellowship and 3 tuition remission offers are handed out
iv.) Starting with the Fall 2015 cohort, when students with fellowships take a leave of absence their fellowship money will be converted into money for the colleges at which they were appointed for the hiring of adjuncts, rather than given to unfunded students.
B.) 6 MA students out of 11 who were offered admissions have accepted
C.) There is some discussion of adjusting the admissions’s policy next year to offer admissions to the MA program for highly qualified applicants who are rejected from PhD program.
D.) Throughout the GC, faculty are discussing how to increase enrollment, balance the number of Phd and Master’s students, and increase revenue.

II. Website
A.) The newly convened Website Committee (Alyson Cole, Margaret Cook, Nick Micinski, Chris Michael and Rachel Brown) will work with the Marketing and Communications office to improve the website. The soon-to-be-spiffified website will have a section for PhD students on the market that lists their research interests and links to their CVs.

III. Curriculum Committee
A.) Next year’s Curriculum Committee will help establish a database of how people from our program fare on the job market (i.e. whether they are in full-time teaching or tenure track positions,working in the non-profit sector, whether they have turned their dissertation into books etc.).
B.) Next year’s committee will also work to update the guidelines for dissertation proposals and the examination procedures for first and second exams

IV. Faculty Membership Committee
A.) Next year’s Faculty Membership Committee will likely revisit the guidelines for faculty appointments to the GC. Members will consider whether it is necessary for faculty members to be a member of only one subfield and how to balance the limited number of courses and limited number of teaching opportunities with the many potential faculty members whose research and dissertation guidance could add significantly to the department.

VI. Course Credits
A.) Faculty have discussed various ways of addressing the differential amount of credits granted to 8000-level courses (4 credits) versus 7000-level courses (3 credits) despite that the workloads do not necessarily reflect this difference. This is especially an issue for non-NYC residents receiving tuition remission who must pay for any credits above 9. Potential options, which will be discussed and decided upon at a later time, include:
i.) Students could take 2 3-credit courses and sign up for a Weighted Instructional Unit. They would only need permission for adding a WIU if they add it after the registration period ends; otherwise, they could simply add it themselves.
ii.) Professors could determine whether they want to make a course 8000-level, which would necessarily entail a research paper rather than an in-class or take home midterm and final, or 7000-level, which would necessarily entail a midterm and a final instead of a research paper
iii.) All classes would be worth 3 credits
iv.) Students could determine whether they want to take a course for 3 credits (midterm/final) or 4 credits (research paper)

VII.) Program Evaluation Course
A.) There has been a student request to reinstate a skill-based program evaluation course for practitioners interested in monitoring and evaluation within NGOs. Some Executive Committee members suggested one way to address this request is to give credit to those taking the equivalent course at Baruch.

VIII. Department Colloquium
A.) Currently a coalition of faculty and students from the Executive Committee are developing a department colloquium that will take place on Thursday afternoons every 3-4 weeks. For the months of September/October 2014-2015 academic year, sessions will be mock job talks for students on the market. For the remaining months there would be 2 back-to-back talks by level III students and sometimes faculty inside and outside of CUNY, perhaps followed by wine and cheese if there is enough money. The goal is to foster an interdisciplinary intellectual community across the sub-fields and to increase professional development opportunities for students. Given the discussions about program participation, involvement and attendance following the collapse of the student conference, this is an initiative we should all support if we want to make change in program culture (and/or to make it run like an actual program!). This initiative would require regular participation or else the colloquium can do nothing to change the culture we so passionately decry on the listserv.

IX. CUNY-Wide Trends
A.) Both Queens College and Baruch are considering instituting masters programs, the former in Political Science and the latter in Global Studies
B.) Across the university administrators are under increasing pressure to consider online courses

 

Executive Committee Minutes, 12/13 meeting

by John McMahon

I. 5-year response to 10-year review

  • Progress Report on 21 recommendations from external reviewers in 2008 review of the program: in-progress, in draft form
  • Plan is to use this as clarification/emphasis on asking for resources (e.g,. central line American Politics hire after Prof. Piven retires; hire in IR (in IPE)
  • Issues of discussion in report
    • Course offerings and role of consortial faculty
      • Some concern expressed that GC attempting to move away from having faculty from the campuses teach at GC
      • Fewer consortial faculty teaching at GC was true for budget reasons 1-3 years ago, but not the case now
      • Program enrollment numbers can maintain similar number and distribution of courses
      • Acknowledgment that program needs to do better institutionalizing process for recruiting, bringing in campus faculty to teach, get to know GC faculty and students, and eventually become consortial doctoral faculty
        • Obstacles: budgets, varying interest and relationships with the chairs of POLSC programs across CUNY
        • Currently, Core Seminar in program every year taught by faculty from a CUNY Campus (Prof. Majic this year, Prof. Feldman last year) with eye to adding them to doctoral faculty down the line
    • Need expressed to increase efforts to recruit MA students
    • Discussion over whether the 700-level/800-level distinction actually works in practice
      • Is there really a difference between the two? Often have 700-level courses with seminar papers
      • Program could make courses be worth any number of credits
        • Any adjustments would have to take into account what Fellowships will cover for international students and first year of out-of-state students before they get residency status
      • Student Reps asked to conduct survey of student body to gather data regarding experience and perception of 700/800-level distinction
        • Will take place in the Spring

II. Interim EO

  • Appointment decisions for Interim EO position entirely run through office of GC President and Provost
    • Current EO and many faculty expressed frustration that this process has yet to be completed by GC administration
    • No formal process for GC administration
    • No formal mechanism for faculty or student advising
  • Hopefully will find out soon
  • Prof. Rollins leaves program for sabbatical mid-January

III. Spring events

  • Resources exist for to invite speakers in Spring for talks on income inequality and related issues
    • May partly function as highly informal pre-recruitment situation to engage with potential future applicants for American Politics line once Prof. Piven retires
      • Upshot: GO TO THESE – may be chance for input down the line

IV. Gittell Professorship

  • kind of a mess: 2 failed searches for Gittell Professorship
    • one problem: difficulty finding one person for different programs (POLSC, Sociology, Psychology) to agree on

V. Website

  • Committee okays plan for semesterly review of student section of website to be conducted by Executive Committee student reps
  • after argument/discussion, student research interests will not be added to student portion of website

 

9/20 Executive Committee meeting notes

Notes taken by Joanna Tice.
John McMahon was also in attendance.
Executive Committee Meeting Notes 9/20/13:
EO Report:
CUNY First is coming to the GC
– This may affect purchasing of things like wine and cheese in that it will be a bigger deal (more annoying) for faculty to sign off on these purchases.
– CUNY First will also eventually be used for faculty recruiting
– So far, just as on the campuses, everyone is complaining about CUNY First
Faculty Membership Report:
– Discussion of Prof. Petchesky’s emeritus status will occur between this meeting and the beginning of 2014.
– A question was raised by John Wallach as to what responsibilities and privileges come with that status
– Prof. Rollins explained that there are no responsibilities, but there are continued privileges (teaching classes, attending events, attending committee meetings if they so choose, library card, etc)
Funding:
– The EO is pleased that the department is now providing some sort of funding for all POLSC students and that they actually have extra UF money to spare (~ $20,000).
– That money will go to a Summer 2014 Pre-Dissertation Travel Award.
– These applications will be due by October 14th and decisions will be announced by the end of October.
– Margaret sent out an email last week regarding how to apply.
Exams:
– 65% pass rate overall (a 13 to 7 split)
– Pass rate for August Exams by subfield:
– American: 66%
– Comparative: 66%
– IR: 62%
– Theory: 50%
– Public Policy: 100%
-According to the EO, no appeals will be necessary this semester, but if anyone is interested, the sequence for appeals is provided by the GC bylaws as follows:
1) EO
2) Executive Committee
3) Provost’s Office
– The bylaws require only 2 readers on each exam committee. If there is a split, the EO will ask a 3rd to step in.
– The Committee desires to change the perception that the exams are a weeding out mechanism by explaining that it is very difficult for the EO or the Executive committee to actually remove a student based on failure of an exam. There are very few historical examples of such attempts, and it is next to impossible.
– However, the EO encouraged the faculty to be faster and more complete in producing their comments, as they comments are “of the utmost importance” in processing the exam results. This has been an ongoing issue for at least the last 4 years (since Joanna has been in the program) and is one that the students should continue to push back on in the future. Hold your exam committees and the EO responsible when results are not prompt. There is too much at stake, especially for students who need to pass on to the next level for reduced tuition.
– He claims he has only terminated one student in his tenure and it was “the ethical thing to do” in the circumstance.
– SatProgs and failed exams do not go on a permanent record in the sense that they do not show up on your transcript that you might send to an employer, but there will be a note of it in your file. (The only people who have access to those files are the current EO, Margaret, and the student owner of the file.)
Update to 2008 Program Self-Study:
– EO is in the process of writing an evaluation of the work the program has done since the 2008 self-study
Admissions:
– Last year was the first year of a 3-year cycle of reducing class size (to support new GC fellowship), but POLSC is already basically at the level we need to be at.
Readmission requests:
– Policy: students attempting to re-enter to write their dissertation should re-take their first exam if they are out for more than a decade.
-But because we are a state school, everything can be appealed
– We need to devise mechanisms/policies to prevent these absurd readmissions (for example, a request by someone from the 1990’s who FAILED 5 out of 7 of there classes and is now asking for readmission)
-A new policy is being drafted to deal with cases a certain number of years out
– Such a policy exists in the admissions committee, but it is not in handbook or bylaws
– The EO will show this new policy to the committee at the next meeting
– “Readmission suppresses the quality of our program”
Department Website student page (brought up by student reps):
Please see John McMahon’s email yesterday for more info addressing the implementation of student website content.
Subfield Pages: Need some editing (brought up by student reps):
Margaret will send an email to current subfield chairs to ask for renewal/possible resubmission of information on subfield pages
– Students and faculty are asked to email Margaret if you notice an error on the site (as it is controlled by the GC, things sometimes go haywire without anyone in POLSC touching anything.
Subfield Chairs have also been asked to review their exam reading lists and there was discussion of whether or not to establish a rule about how often these lists are updated.
Marshall Berman Memorial Student Award (brought up by student reps):
-EO response: there is concern (in regards to a memorial service and/or award) of eclipsing or stepping on the toes of people at City College
– We obviously want to go forward with both a memorial service and an award, but that is the political context that needs to be worked out.
– Given how recent Marshall’s passing was, the seemingly sensitive politics around it with City College, and the general commitment to the topic from both students and faculty, it is something to address once more time has passed
Open Defenses (raised by student reps):
For various reasons, faculty do not think that open defenses are a good idea, instead they propose a two-pronged approach.
1) a required job talk (to practice for job market) could be a public event
2) Non-public defense (but student is allowed to bring a small number of guests (close family and friends).

Executive Committee Minutes, 9/21 Meeting

*Submitted by Joanna Tice, on behalf of your student representatives to the Executive Committee: John McMahon, Aleta Styers and Joanna Tice

1) New Graduate Center Fellowships: Announces major shift in the fellowship funding/structure, coming into effect for students entering in the 2013-14 school year
– The Enhanced Chancellors Fellowship will be replaced by a new fellowship (Probably called the Graduate Center Fellowship)
– Stipend increased to $25,000 annually + tuition remission
– Same 5 years guaranteed funding with 1 year RA position, 3 years teaching (reduced to a 1-1 teaching load, potentially transferable to a 0-2 or 2-0) and 5th year writing fellowship
– Purpose: to make GC fellowships competitive with other institutions.
– All PhD students NOT receiving a fellowship WILL be receiving a tuition waiver
– MA funding possibilities will remain the same (i.e., limited)
– This was accomplished by requiring a 25% reduction in funded PhD students, institution-wide. However, our department already accomplished that reduction in the last few years, so it will mean a reduction of only 1 or 2 PhD students at most for PS. This does not apply to MAs (if anything, MAs may be increased).
– THIS DOES NOT CHANGE THE FELLOWSHIP FUNDING AND STRUCTURE FOR ALREADY MATRICULATED STUDENTS

2) Composition of Entering Class this Fall: a substantial majority are Theory and IR students, followed by Comparative, American, very few in Public Policy, but those few appear very focused with research objectives already clear.

3) 1st Exam results: This year was one of the most successful years on record for successful completion of the first exam
– 25 out of 30 students passed their respective exams
– 13 students changed levels
– more people taking exams earlier
– faculty from two of the fieds commented upon relatively weak responses in some of the passing exams.

4) The Gittell Chair/Samuel’s Center Faculty Search: This search has been adjusted over the summer and the position would no longer be housed in the Samuel’s Center
– The Search is somewhat up in the air, as a permanent position has been offered but most likely this scholar will not accept (based on family situation) and thus the position will be offered to a number of visiting scholars until a match is found
– The Faculty Membership Committee is still actively pursuing an IPE line

5) Budget: Budget for the department seems stable – there will be no reduction in courses or entrenchment on hiring

6) Professional Development Workshop Planning: DEO (Rosalind Petchesky) announcement about planning process of student professional development workshop.
– Several students on the list serve have expressed interest in a workshop about the 2nd and 3rd exams. We brought this up with Professor Petchesky and she suggested that students interested in those topics suggest them on the Questionnaire sent out by the department last week (sent by Margaret on the 14th).
– If you are interested in a workshop on the 2nd or 3rd exams, please submit the questionnaire ASAP and write-in that request in the “other topics” section of the form.

7) Department Website Improvement: Joe is proposing to launch a committee to overhaul the website in the coming months. He will most likely need student volunteers to participate in that committee, if anyone has particular interest, you might let him know.

8. Changing of the Guard: Just FYI, Joe will probably be taking a sabbatical for half of next year and for half of the year after that. Apropos this, he spoke of the need to identify and train new a new EO and a new DEO to replace Ros