Minutes for the Graduate Affairs Committee Meeting of 29 November 2013
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Present: Christina Christara, Eyal de Lara, Ken Jackson, Allan Jepson, Aida Nematzadeh, Bogdan Simion

Regrets:  Stephen Cook (Chair)
Absent: Michael Brudno

1. Announcement: The draft of Graduate Supervision Policies 
   was taken to the Faculty Meetings on Nov. 26, and will be 
   revisited on Dec. 10.


2. Stop advertising part-time MSc program

   DCS currently has a part-time MSc program, but very few students are
   enrolled in it.  Nevertheless, the Graduate Office gets many
   questions about our part-time MSc program.  The GAC agreed to stop
   advertising the part-time MSc program, but to retain it as one of
   our graduate programs for the few students for whom it may be
   appropriate.


3. Graduate course registration limits.

   Some of our graduate courses are now reaching their enrollment
   limits.  As a result, some students who would like to take these
   courses cannot register for them.  In part, this is because some
   students register for many courses before the start of term and then
   drop some of them later.  Having a limit on the number of courses a
   student can register for might help to alleviate this problem.
   Unfortunately, SGS does not have the mechanism to enforce
   registration limits per term:  they can only enforce registration
   limits for the fall and winter terms combined and for the summer
   term.  Therefore, the GAC approved a motion to ask SGS to implement
   a registration limit of 2.5 full courses (i.e., 5 half courses) for
   the fall and winter terms combined and 1 full course (i.e., 2 half
   courses) for the summer term.


4. Graduate Review Panel (preliminary discussion)

   The GAC had a preliminary discussion of problems that occasionally
   arise in our graduate program, such as faculty not submitting their
   marks until long past the due date or faculty not being available to
   meet with their graduate students.  The GAC agreed that we need to
   establish procedures within DCS for dealing with such problems.  The
   Associate Chair for Graduate Studies will discuss this further with
   other members of the DCS Faculty and the GAC will reconsider this
   issue at a later meeting.

   The procedure should be graded.  For example, the problem could
   be first addressed by the Assoc. Chair then, if necessary, by the 
   Dept. Chair and the Assoc. Chair together.  If the problem is still 
   unresovled, we would need a departmental committee to review the 
   case and recommend action.

   Possible composition of the review committee:
   chair, associate chair of grad studies,
   graduate affairs chair, some faculty member close to the area
   of the member in question, ...
   
   Several possible sanctions on regular faculty and CSA's were 
   discussed. 

5. Revise PhD checkpoints to streamline process.

   The GAC discussed the PhD checkpoint document that was revised
   18 October 2013.  

   No points were formally agreed on.

   There was some agreement on: 
   - removing the oral presentation of research paper; 
   - replacing the depth/qualifying document with a short project report;
   - placing a time limit from the start of the student's program for the 
     qualifying oral to be held (e.g., 16 months), with significant 
     consequences if that deadline is missed;
   - explicitly limiting the format and length of the qualifying paper;
   - requiring the student provides a proposal for the qualifying project 
     to the supervisory committee by a particular deadline (e.g., 
     by 8 months).