Office of the Provost

Graduate Council meetings are held monthly, August through May, in Mason Hall Room D5, from 1:30-3:00. See schedule for exact dates. All meetings are open to the general George Mason University community.

Members attending: Linda Schwartzstein (Acting Chair), Peter Becker (SCS), Deborah Boehm-Davis (CAS), Meg Brindle (CVPA), Druckman, ICAR), Andres Fortino (SOM), Mark Goor (GSE), Dee Ann Holisky (CAS), Joan Isenberg (GSE), Stephen Nash (IT&E), Jeff Offutt (IT&E), Teresa Panniers (CNHS), Thys Van Schaik (SPP).

Special Attendees: Claudio Cioffi, Director, Center for Social Complexity; Beverly Davis, Director, Graduate Admissions; David Wong, Associate Professor, SCS.

I. Call to order

Linda Schwartzstein called the meeting to order at 1:33 p.m.

II. Approval of January 21, 2004 minutes

Minutes of the January 21, 2004 meeting were approved as written.

III. Announcements

The next Grad Council meeting is March 15. The deadline for submitting postings is 5 pm Tuesday, March 2.

Guest presenters at the March meeting will be Jevita deFreitas (centralizing Tuition waivers), Karen Rosenblum (university fees/services) and David Rossell (graduate funding).

IV. Old Business

None

V. New Business

Proposals from the Graduate School of Education
New Courses (Action Item): Approved
EDCI 645 Curriculum Development in Mathematics Education
EDCI 646 Mathematics Education Leadership for School Change



Modified Track (Announcement):
Early Childhood Certificate/Track in the Advanced Studies in Teaching and Learning Program (ASTL)

Proposals from the School of Computational Sciences

New Courses (Action Item): Approved with one change as noted
CSI 885 Atomistic Modeling of Materials
EOS 600 Communication Skills for Computational Scientists
EOS 721 Biogeography
EOS 722 Regional and Global Issues in the Earth Sciences
EOS 756 Physical Principles of Remote Sensing
EOS 758 Digital Processing of Remote Sensing Imagery
EOS 760 Remote Sensing Applications
EOS 771 Algorithms and Modeling in GIS
EOS 772 Distributed Geographic Information Systems
EOS 773 Interoperability of Geographic Information Systems
EOS 791 Advanced Spatial Statistics



New Certificate (Action Item): Approved
Graduate Certificate in Remote Sensing and Image Processing

Modified Courses (Announcement):
BINF 998 Doctoral Dissertation Proposal
BINF 999 Doctoral Dissertation
CSI 998 Doctoral Dissertation Proposal
CSI 999 Doctoral Dissertation
NEUR 998 Doctoral Dissertation Proposal
NEUR 999 Doctoral Dissertation
PSCI 998 Doctoral Dissertation Proposal
PSCI 999 Doctoral Dissertation

Proposals from the School of Public Policy

New Course (Action Item): Approved
EEP 609 Special Topics in Enterprise Engineering and Policy



Modified Courses (Announcement):
PUBP 998 Research/Proposal for Dissertation
PUBP 999 Dissertation

Proposals from the Office of the Provost Computational Social Science
Contact Person: Claudio Cioffi, 3-1402, ccioffi@gmu.edu

New Program (Action Item): Tabled (See minutes from Special March 1, 2004 meeting)
Ph.D. in Computational Social Science



New Courses (Action Item): Tabled
CSS 605 Object-Oriented modeling in Social Science
CSS 625 Complexity Theory in the Social Sciences
CSS 630 Comparative Computational Social Science
CSS 635 Cognitive Foundations of Computational Social Science
CSS 640 Human and Social Evolutionary Complexity
CSS 650 Physics Methods for Analyzing Social Complexity
CSS 655 Social System Dynamics
CSS 660 Computational Social Science of Spacefaring Civilization
CSS 692 Social Network Analysis

VI. Discussion Items

A. Funds from Interdisciplinary GRA (IGRA) Program
Responding to an inquiry from the Research Advisory Council, Grad Council members agreed that High Potential stipends should be increased using the funds from the Interdisciplinary GRA Program.



B. Dissertation Defense Committee
Council members agreed that dissertation defense committee members are expected to be present, but in unusual circumstances a committee member could participate by conference call; if a committee member leaves GMU, the departing member could continue to actively participate, and a new committee member (GMU) would be added to the committee.

C. Full-time Status for Masters Students
Linda Schwartzstein told Council members that she would look into the issue of maintaining full-time status (for student loan and INS requirements) in situations where a student needs only three to six credits to complete a masters degree program.

D. Recruitment Plus Software Course
Stephen Nash announced that IT&E is sending three staff members to Atlanta for training in Recruitment Plus Software the end of March and beginning of April. It was suggested that other units consider taking advantage of this training opportunity.

E. Graduate Admissions Process
Deborah Boehm-Davis expressed concern that the graduate admissions process is still a problem.

VII. Adjournment at 2:25 p.m.