Graduate Studies Committee

March 10, 2006

164 South College—8:30 am

Members present:  Charles Mason, Chair; John Sawyer, Paula Vasquez (Graduate Student), Robert Opila, Ali Poorani; Pablo Huq, Peter Kolchin, Dewey Caron and Mary Martin

Minutes of past meetings were approved.

 

Old Business:  (1) Chuck Mason reported that the Political Science faculty accepted the Committee’s recommendation to change the name of POSC 867 to reflect the United States rather than America.  He also reported that language was added to their program policy statement to reflect the procedures to be used to evaluate the master’s equivalency of doctoral students who enter their program with a master’s degree from a university other that UD.  (2) Chuck Mason reported that a memo had been sent to the Dean of the College of Health Sciences with regard to considerations of the Committee’s review on the question of recommending permanent status for the Health Promotion Program.   A response from the Dean is expected within two to three weeks.

 

New Business:  Establishment of a new Dual Ph.D. in Biological Sciences/Master of Business Administration.  Melinda Duncan (Biological Sciences), Gloria Diodato, Jack Baroudi, and Ajay Manrai (Lerner College of Business and Economics) attended the meeting to present the rationale and details of a new degree.  The creation of the dual program allows 15 credits of coursework for the Ph.D. program in biological sciences to fulfill the elective requirement for the MBA program.  The 64 total credits required for the dual degree includes the MBA core and required courses (33 credits) and 31 credits for the Biological Sciences Program.  None of the requirements for the Ph.D. were adjusted for the dual degree.  The joint program must be completed and the dual degrees must be conferred simultaneously.  The Committee voted unanimously to approve the new program.

 

Next meeting scheduled for March 17th at 8:30 am in 105 Hullihen.