Tag Archives: second exam

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, 2/21 meeting

by John McMahon

EO Report

Course Enrollment/Course Caps

  • course caps at 12 people will be enforced with loopholes
  • Because of new fellowship regime, there are fewer people in the program, but still need to fill seats to keep courses afloat
    • Course caps can effectively redistribute bodies
  • Need 5 people to start a course; once a class meets once, it cannot be cancelled, so need 5 people at the start even if they later drop
    • Classes not running an especially big problem for consortial faculty
  • Policy going forward: registration for a course capped at 12, above that there will be a wait list
    • Will be left to the discretion of the professor running the course how many to allow in above 12
    • Advice from the EO: if you really want to be in a course, show up, talk to the prof, talk to the EO – you should be able to get into any course you want
      • Getting in, though, will happen once the semester begins, not before

 

First Exams

  • Department bylaws require only 2 graders on First Exams; the practice going forward, though, will be that all exams should be read by 3 graders
    • Most subfields doing this already – IR sometimes only two
  • EO is instructing subfield chairs to have them/their exam graders write fuller comments and provide better feedback on first exams – at least three or four sentences (instead of the 1-2 sentences often received now), preferably at least a paragraph or two
    • This is paired with greater pressure to avoid professors writing grades like ‘low pass’, ‘high pass,’ etc. on exams: grade has to fall in a given category, but can shade/add nuance in longer comments
  • Winter First Exam Results
    • 3 CP (2 pass)
    • 5 IR (4 pass)

 

Admissions (overview from DEO)

  • 149 applicants this year (126 PhD applicants)
    • slight decline from past years, probably because of increased media/general awareness of terribleness of academic job market + balancing out from especially high application levels after 2008-9 crash
  • good subfield distribution, although PT and CP continue to be strongest
  • will be 12 PhDs admitted (9 on GCFs, 3 on tuition fellowships)
    • department may push 8th floor to allows program to exceed cap of 12 if strong international students are bringing funding from their home countries
  • some worry expressed that GC has become a “more desirable safety school” for the top candidates
    • because of better fellowship packages, probably
    • may not be able to get the top preferred candidates to actually come

 

Passing of Howard Lentner

  • Will remember him as part of Alumni Awards Night; someone will be invited to say a few words regarding his life, research, and contributions to the program

 

New Business

Student Appeal Procedures

  • In the event of any future student appeals that come to the Executive Committee, students will be asked to leave after specified amount of time to present their case and answer any questions

 

New Business from Student Reps

Methods Requirement

  • Reps noticed that there is a discrepancy between the Student Handbook – which says that taking a methods class is ‘advisable’ – and the GC Bulletin entry for our program – which says that a methods class is ‘required’
    • From Registrar’s perspective, GC Bulletin is ruling document, so for them to move a student to Level III, there must be a methods class taken
    • Students have gotten caught in this interstice
  • Student Rep request: these documents need to be brought into line with another
  • Debate: do we as a program a) need a clearly delineated requirement OR b) want to maintain the slippage between Handbook and Bulletin, so that EO has possible flexibility to massage the requirement a bit?
    • General agreement that regardless of the way it is manifested, there should not be this slippage
  • Decision: Student Handbook will be revised to say that a methods course is required, bringing it in line with GC Bulletin; paired with commitment for this requirement to be “broadly manifested” in terms of course offerings
    • Methods training necessary in terms of marketability for jobs
    • Will not narrowly apply this requirement; possibility of developing a broader course along the lines of ‘Methods of Inquiry’
      • Quantitative and qualitative methods as used in rest of political science not necessarily applicable/important for Theory students
    • Need greater commitment in the program to teach quantitative methods
    • Not one specific course that fulfills this requirement – attempt to maintain some flexibility in how students fulfill it

 

Revision of “Political Science Examination Protocols” and “Format for Preparing a Dissertation Proposal”

  • Student Rep request: Both of these documents should be reviewed and updated
    • Examination Protocols last updated 2004; Proposal guidelines last updated 2002
    • Are a number of practices in the Examination Protocols that are wrong/not consistent with practice and with Student Handbook
  • Faculty agree that these documents need to be updated
  • Curriculum and Exams Committee will be charged with performing a review and possible revision
    • Ensures both students and faculty involvment

 

Mock Job Talks

  • Student Reps presented overview of idea for Mock Job Talks; faculty agree this is a good idea
  • Meeting had run over, reps asked to follow-up over email
  • Student Reps have meeting scheduled with EO to start to finalize organization/logistics/procedures for mock job talks

4/26 Executive Committee notes

EO Report

  • Dissertation Fellowships
    • Students in program received 3 Dissertation Year Fellowships, 1 Ralph Bunche fellowship, 1 Center for Place Culture and Politics fellowship
    • 7 Doctoral Student Research Grants
    • administration working on providing health insurance in dissertation fellowships
      • problem is that must be employment line to receive health insurance, but fellowships usually come without any service obligation
    • GC-wide, 70 fellowships
  • Will be attempt to expand program funding of sending students to do research
    • Would come with requirement to present research in some form to program/GC (perhaps expansion of student conference)
  • Admissions and Fall cohort
    • Impressionistically, R.Petchesky thinks this is the highest quality pool yet; J.Rollins – got 92% of first-tier candidates to come
      • J.Rollins ascribes this to new fellowship
      • Received 1 Magnet Fellowship
    • Theory = 3, Comparative = 3, IR = 3, American = 2, Policy = 2
    • Special shout-out by Petchesky and Woodward to Mike Miller and Jamie Aroosi for their work on the admissions committee
    • Thanks to students who talked to prospective students
    • Will be some kind of Orientation on August 27
  • Grad Student Conference successful
    • Also used as recruitment, some prospective students came
    • Alumni Awards Night is May 9, everyone should come
      • 5:30 reception in lounge; 6:30 Awards in Segal Theatre

Faculty Membership

Advisement

  • there will be some kind of formalized procedure for advisement in incoming students’ first few years before they develop closer relationships and before finding a dissertation sponsor
  • likely to be assigned to central line faculty in identified subfield of incoming student

‘Pass With Distinction’ on 2nd Exam and Defense

  • There is a “Pass With Distinction” option on the 2nd Exam currently which applies only within department (in student’s department file, but does not go to registrar, etc.)
    • There was some talk of doing away with the option
    • Questions over whether it’s actually useful for funding applications, job letters, etc.
    • Ultimately decided to keep status quo
  • Will be exploration of adding a Distinction option to the Dissertation Defense as well
    • Will be some research on what other programs do
    • Potentially helpful for job letters, for communications with publishers