University Council on Graduate Study Minutes
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
The January meeting minutes were approved with 16 in favor, 3 abstentions. 6 members arrived after the minutes were approved.
Academic Program Proposals
The School of Education presented a modification to the Learning Sciences and Policy (LSAP) program to change the name to Human Development and Learning Sciences and reduce the number of required dissertation credits from 18 to 0. The motivation for the
proposal is to merge the existing Applied Developmental Psychology PhD and the existing Learning Sciences and Policy PhD programs into a single, more focused program with the hope of increasing overall cohort size. The Applied Developmental Psychology program will be terminated as a program after current students finish; there will be no additional admissions cycles for the ADP program. Council members noted that there is already a significant amount of collaboration between the two programs and faculty overlap, so the merger seems natural. The proposal was approved with 18 yes votes, 2 abstentions. After the discussion, it was noted that the proposal also included curricular modifications. Those will be reviewed by the Office of the Provost prior to approval.
The School of Education presented a modification to 7 of their PhD programs to reduce the number of dissertation credits from 18 to 0 to reduce the total number of credits required for the program from 90 to 72. The programs impacted are: Applied Developmental Psychology, PhD, Education Policy, PhD, Exercise Physiology, PhD, Higher Education, PhD, Language, Literacy and Culture, PhD, Special Education, PhD, and Urban Education, PhD. The SOE analyzed their budget and enrollments and identified that nearly all students enrolled in dissertation credits had that tuition covered by SOE graduate financial aid. They determined that $400,000-$600,000 in tuition dollars could be saved by eliminating those dissertation credits. The reduced number of overall credits (from 90 to 72) is also more in line with typical practice across other PhD programs at Pitt. Council members inquired about the university policy requirement for dissertation credits; VP Godley confirmed that there is no requirement for a PhD program to include dissertation credits. The proposal passed with 17 yes, 3 abstentions.
Academic Policy Review
Advanced Standing Credits
The revised Advanced Standing Credits policy was presented by VP Godley for discussion. Council members were broadly in support of the proposed 50% limit on the percentage of advanced standing credits that could be applied from outside of Pitt to a Pitt degree. This limit would take the place of the current credit limits, which set the limit at a fixed number of advanced standing credits for each graduate program type (for example, a six credit maximum for all MA and MS programs). VP Godley observed that the proposed policy makes the applicability of transfer credits more transparent for graduate students, and that expressing the maximum advanced standing credits allowed as a percentage of total required credits rather than a fixed number will align better with the broad range of credits required to earn the same type of degree or credential (e.g., MA, MS, professional doctorate) across the university. Council suggestions included ensuring that the same minimum grade thresholds within a program apply for all courses accepted for credits, whether taken at Pitt or e VP Godley reminded Council that PACUP would also review the policy.
No policy vote was taken at this meeting.
Announcements
There were no announcements.
The meeting adjourned at 3:45 pm.
Attendance
- Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences - Grad Student - Juwon Adenuga
- Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences - Grad Faculty - Marc Coutanache
- Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences - Grad Faculty - Peng Liu
- Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences - Grad Faculty - Jonathan Woon
- School of Public and International Affairs - Grad Student - Zena Kesselman
- School of Public and International Affairs - Grad Faculty - Luke Condra
- Katz Graduate School of Business - Grad Student - Denise Bergdolt
- Office of the Provost - Chair - Amanda Godley
- Office of the Provost - Staff - Courtney Syskowski
- Office of the Registrar, Observer - Staff - Jonathan Helm
- School of Dental Medicine - Grad Student - Dylan Baxter
- School of Computing and Information - Grad Faculty - James Joshi
- School of Education - Grad Student - Gerard Dorve-Lewis
- School of Education - Grad Faculty - Michael Gunzenhauser
- School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences - Grad Student - Abdulmohsen Alroumi
- School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences - Grad Faculty - Mark DeRuiter
- School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences - Grad Faculty - Michael Dickey
- School of Law - Grad Faculty - Joshua Ash
- School of Medicine - Grad Student - Brooke Dresden
- School of Medicine - Grad Faculty - Arjumand Ghazi
- School of Medicine - Grad Faculty - Saleem Khan
- School of Nursing - Grad Student - Myeong-ga Cho
- School of Nursing - Grad Faculty - Elizabeth Schlenk
- School of Pharmacy - Grad Student - Britney Stottlemyer
- School of Public Health - Grad Faculty - Ying Ding
- School of Public Health - Grad Student - Vijayasri Hari
- School of Social Work - Grad Student - Bianca DeBellis
- School of Social Work - Grad Faculty - Suzanne Pritzker
- Swanson School of Engineering - Grad Student - Yousra Bensouda
- Swanson School of Engineering - Grad Faculty - Bryan Brown
- Swanson School of Engineering - Grad Faculty - Bob Parker
Additional attendees: Stephanie Hoogendoorn, OTP; Brian Galla, SOE