At Tuesday’s regularly scheduled Graduate Professional Student Council meeting, GPSC President Johnathan Flowers presented the latest updates on Chancellor Carlo Montemagno’s reorganization plan and the program review process.

In the latest version of the reorganization plan there are now 20 schools and a growing number of programs.

“I say whatever number of programs because with the addition of new schools, like the School of Computing, you’re getting a bunch of new programs,” Flowers said.

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New programs in the School of Computing include Bioinformatics, Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning and Cybersecurity.

The increasing number of new programs is problematic because it adds more workload to faculty, Flowers said.

While gathering information from the chancellor’s latest version of the reorganization plan, Flowers said he has not had an explanation on why some academic units are being promoted to the status of schools while others remain as programs.

“It seems to be on a case by case basis,” Flowers said. “I can provide no explanation on why we have increased the number of academic units if part of the intention of the reorganization was for efficiency and streamlining.”

The processing steps to a program change or new program also changed.

Previously, the associate provost for academic affairs would send documents to Graduate Council and other units about a new program or program change, Flowers said.

Now the associate provost for academic affairs would send Graduate Council and Faculty Senate documents of a proposed program change for an informal review, which then goes back to the associate provost.

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After that, information is compiled to make a program change proposal which is sent to the faculty of the certain program for them to vote on the program change. After the faculty vote, the associate provost would send the program change documents to Graduate Council, Faculty Senate, and the Faculty Association.

The Faculty Association would then send a report about the program change to Graduate Council.

“It’s not a giant change to the overall process, but just a lot more moving parts,” Flowers said.

This change is in line with article nine in the Faculty Association contract.

The Interim Associate Dean and Director of the Graduate School, Juliane Wallace also presented at GPSC tonight. She said even though she didn’t seek out the job, she was excited to be in the position.

“I have a heart for students in general and specifically for graduate students,” Wallace said. “My door is open.”

Wallace has worked at the university since August 2004.

Before becoming the Interim Dean and Director of the Graduate School, she was the chair of the Kinesiology Department and interim dean of the Department of Public Health and Recreation at the university.

Wallace said she plans to work with graduate students and do whatever she can do to improve their experiences at the university.

“I think showcasing the fantastic things we are doing is key,” Wallace said.

Using social media including Facebook and Twitter is an efficient and far-reaching way to let the community and potential students see what the graduate students are researching or doing she said.

“We want to highlight what you’re doing here in the graduate program, what you’re doing in your labs, what you’re doing as part of your program, if its an art exhibit if it’s a poetry reading. Whatever it is, we wanna know about it,” Wallace said.

Social media promotion is something that Wallace said is being implemented right away. She said it was disturbing that promoting what the graduate students are doing hasn’t been done already.

Also presented at the meeting, the student director of The Big Event, William Schefelbein promoted the event and its cause.

The Big Event is the university’s largest one-day volunteer day. It will be on April 7 this year.

“Last year we had a little over 1000 students sign up, and about 800 showed up for the day,” Schefelbein. “Currently we have a little over 300 students signed up right now.”

The event will be split into two shifts, direct and indirect projects. Direct shifts will be for students going out into the community volunteering while indirect will be in the Student Center.

“This is the community engagement piece for the university. This is to create stronger ties between the Carbondale and southern Illinois community and the university,” Schefelbein said.

The event serves only non-profit organizations.

To sign up, you can visit The Big Event’s website. The deadline for applications is March 24.

Campus editor Amelia Blakely can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @AmeilaBlakely.

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