Minutes of the Faculty Meeting -- April 19, 2002

Present were: Drs. Capinera (JLC), Adams, Buss, Crow, Cuda, Dickson, Foltz, Frank, D. Hall, Hoy, Koehler, Lawrence, Liburd, Maruniak, McAuslane, Smart, Stimac, Webb, Yu, and P. Howell.

The meeting was called to order at 1:05 PM.

Dr. Capinera announced that Cynthia Lord was the only faculty who applied for tenure and promotion. He announced that her application was successful and she will receive both tenure and promotion.

JLC announced that University Senate nominations are due, and that all ENT/NEM faculty are eligible to serve except Drs. Cuda and Leppla (they just served). He asked that anyone interested in serving let him know today.

JLC announced that applications for matching funding for assistantships are available. They are mainly to be used for REC students. Let Dr. Smart know today. Dr. Smart said the monies are mainly to promote enrollment growth.

JLC passed out a form showing revised FTE distributions for the faculty. He asked everyone to look at the numbers and let him know if there are any questions or problems with the numbers.

JLC asked the faculty to vote on whether to recommend Dr. David Oi for Graduate Faculty status and courtesy faculty status in the department. He mentioned that Dr. Oi had been reviewed by the Graduate Committee and approved. Dr. Koehler stated that Dr. Oi currently works with fire ants and pest ants. He said that he has worked with Dr. Oi for a number of years and that he has expressed an interest in working with students. Dr. Koehler said Dr. Oi would be a good person to work with students. Dr. Stimac said Dr. Oi did postdoctoral work in his lab for 2 years and also stated that he is in favor of Dr. Oi's appointment to Graduate Faculty and courtesy positions in the department. The faculty present voted and there was a unanimous decision to recommend him for both positions.

JLC announced that he had sent the minutes from the last meeting to the off-campus faculty for their input on the core course requirements question. He said that all the faculty off-campus basically support what's been done already. However, there was one suggestion regarding of publication of theses and dissertations. It was suggested that we require at least one part of the thesis/dissertation be of sufficient quality to submit for publication immediately after a student has graduated. JLC said that often this does not happen because either the quality is not there, or the student never follows through on submitting. JLC said a suggestion has been made that it be put into the Graduate Handbook that if a student does not publish his/her thesis/dissertation within one year, then the major professor has the authority to take the data and publish it.

Dr. Hoy said she thinks this is a good idea and she makes it known to her students that she expects them to publish. She said she feels one paper from a thesis and 2-3 papers from a dissertation is a reasonable expectation. She said the student needs to publish for their professional progress, and she stated that the student should be kept as senior author.

Dr. Cuda asked if there are guidelines for putting together a publication. He mentioned a case of a former student of Dr. Habeck's that never published his dissertation and now Dr. Cuda is doing all the work for getting the data published. He also asked if he does all the work of getting the paper ready for publication, does he put his name as second or third author? It was mentioned that he and Dr. Habeck should discuss this beforehand so there are no surprises.

It was decided that there would be a statement added to the Graduate Handbook saying that the professor will publish the data if the student does not publish within a year, though the student will be the senior author of such papers. There will not be anything added about how many papers are expected from each thesis or dissertation.

Dr. Hoy mentioned that she has purchased a new freezer for her lab and will be getting rid of her old freezer. She said that it needs some work, probably in the neighborhood of $800, but that she would be willing to give it to someone who can use it. Dr. Maruniak requested the freezer for his lab.

CORE COURSE DISCUSSION
Dr. Smart handed out a sheet with items for discussion and approval. He stated that the committee had looked at the charge and had come up with the suggestions on the sheet. Dr. Hoy asked why Agricultural Acarology was not included in the pest management courses available. She said it's a part of the pest management courses in the plant medicine program. JLC said to add it to the top 5 (now the top 6). Dr. Smart made a motion to accept the first 6 (including the Agricultural Acarology course) for the pest management requirement. Discussion ensued. Again the motion to accept was made, a vote was taken and all were in favor except for one faculty.

Pest management courses are:

ENY 5226 Principles of Urban Pest Management (Koehler)
PMA 6228 Field Techniques in Integrated Pest Management (Capinera)
PMA 3010 Fundamentals of Pest Management (which can be taken as ENY 6905) (Stimac)
ENY 5341 Biological Control of Insects (Frank)
NEM 5707 Plant Nematology (Dickson)
ENY (TBA) Agricultural Acarology (Hoy)

Next, Dr. Smart discussed courses 6-9 on the sheet. A lot of discussion ensued. A question was asked if the Med/Vet students would be allowed to graduate without a formal pest management course since the Advanced Medical and Veterinary Entomology course teaches pest management in the area they would be using. JLC said that the goal is not necessarily to have students take another course, but to make sure they have the breadth of understanding.

Dr. Maruniak said he has problems with students being required to take pest management. This is because his students aren't really entomologists, but rather they're virologists.

A motion was made to include Med Vet in the first group of courses. A vote was taken and it was nearly unanimous to include the Met Vet course in the first group of courses. (ENY 6665 Advanced Medical and Veterinary Entomology [Butler])

Next, the courses Graduate Survey of Entomology (ENY 5006) and Graduate Survey of Nematology (NEM 5002) were discussed. After a lot of discussion, it was moved to not include the courses in the first group of courses on the sheet. A vote was taken and it was unanimous to not include the courses.

Next, the course Nematode Ecology (NEM 6201) was discussed. After several minutes, it was decided to omit the course from the first group of courses on the list. A vote was unanimous to not include the Nematode Ecology course.

Next, Dr. Yu discussed his Insect Toxicology course. Dr. Cuda said he'd taken Toxicology in grad school and it proved useful because you need to know how insecticides work. Dr. Koehler said there are two tools for entomologists, biological control and insecticides. He said if we have a course in biological control, shouldn't we also have a course in toxicology. He said he felt if we have one half of the equation, we should also have the other half of the equation. Dr. Buss said that in her extension work, she makes presentations quite often about insecticides. She said it's important to know the chemistries of insecticides. She said she didn't have a toxicology course in school and has had to learn it all since taking her position here. She feels that the toxicology course would be helpful to students.

After considerable discussion, a motion to include the Insect Toxicology course was made. Those voting for were 5, while those voting against were 10. The inclusion of the Insect Toxicology course was not approved.

Next, Dr. Smart discussed the molecular biology courses. He wanted to know if the handbook should list the two in-house courses and then list the other courses (outside the department) as acceptable. After some discussion, it was decided to list the two in-house courses and state "or other acceptable courses". The student's committee then could help the student decide which course would suffice for the requirement. A motion was made and a vote taken to accept this decision. The vote was unanimous for acceptance.

Departmental molecular biology courses are:

ENY 6822 Molecular Biology Techniques with Invertebrates and Their Pathogens (Maruniak)
ENY 6905 Insect Molecular Genetics (Hoy)

External molecular biology courses (among others) are:

BOT 3503 Physiology and Molecular Biology of Plants (Botany)
AGR 5307 Molecular Genetics for Crop Improvement (Agronomy)
PLP 6303 Molecular Plant Pathology (Plant Pathology) (prereq. - a course in genetics)
BCH 4024 Introduction to Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics (College of Medicine, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department)
PCB 5615 Molecular Evolution and Systematics (Zoology)
PCB 6528 Plant Molecular Biology (Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology)

Finally, JLC asked about implementation of these changes. It was decided that the changes will take place as of the fall semester of 2002, with incoming students from fall 2002 falling under the new rules. Current students will remain under the old rules unless they choose to change to the new rules.

The meeting was adjourned at 2:10 PM.