UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND
The Graduate School
CURRICULAR REPORT FROM THE GRADUATE COUNCIL TO
THE FACULTY SENATE:  
REPORT NO. 2005-2006-4

At meeting No. 407 held December 16, 2005, the Graduate Council considered and approved the following curricular matters which are now submitted to the Faculty Senate for information or confirmation as indicated.
        
I.  Matters of Information

A. College of Arts and Sciences
1.  Department of Computer Science and Statistics:      
a. Changes:
CSC 592 Special Topics in Computer Science – change in description to read:
CSC 592 Special Topics in Computer Science (1-4)
Advanced Topics of current interest in computer science.  May be taken more than once.

STA 592 Special Topics in Statistics – change in description to read:
STA 592 Special Topics in Statistics (3)
Advanced Topics of Current Interest in Statistics.  May be taken more than once.

2. Department of History:      
a. Changes:
HIS 591 Directed Study or Research – change in prerequisite to read:
Permission of chairperson.
    
B. Graduate School of Oceanography
1.  Changes:
OCG 576 (or MIC 576) Marine Microbiology (4) – change in title and description to read:
OCG 576 (or MIC 576) Marine Microbial Ecology (4)
Examines role of microbes in the oceans and their impact on oceanographic processes and biogeochemical cycles.  Emphasis is on bacteria and their interactions with other marine organisms and the marine environment.  Laboratory exercises make use of modern techniques to study metabolic rates and community structure.  (Lec. 3, Lab 3) Pre: permission of instructor.

II. Matters Requiring Confirmation by Faculty Senate

A. College of Arts & Sciences
1.  Department of Political Science
a. Proposal:        

Transportation Policy Concentration in the Masters of Public Administration Program.

The Department of Political Science requests a program change in order to offer a Transportation Policy Concentration as part of the Masters of Public Administration degree.

The Masters of Public Administration degree was established jointly with Rhode Island College in 1991. The program is under the direction of the Dean of the College of Arts and Science of the University of Rhode Island and URI grants the degree. Two faculty from the URI Political Science Department teach courses in the program as part of their regular teaching load and faculty from RIC and a few adjuncts teach on a per course basis. Most courses are given at the Feinstein College of Continuing Education in Providence. These courses are scheduled in late afternoon early evening to accommodate part time students, many of whom work in the public sector. We also have a small cadre of full time students, either from the MA program in Political Science or full time MPA students who avail themselves of the opportunity to take these courses.

The program has become a highly successful degree program insofar as it is the second most popular graduate program in the College of Arts and Science with an ongoing enrollment of between 60 and 70 students. Moreover, after ten years, significant numbers of graduates are public administrators in state, city and local government in Rhode Island.

We are requesting a program modification to include a concentration in Transportation Policy for a number of reasons. First, given the overall desirability of a degree in Public Administration, two private institutions in the state have initiated new MPA programs. Brown University will, in fall 2006, be accepting students for a newly initiated Masters in Public Administration Masters in Public Policy program. Roger Williams University has also launched a small Masters in Public Administration program. Increasingly, graduate public policy expertise in demand among MPA students.

These changes and challenges have provided an opportunity for us at URI to enhance our existing offerings. The URI Transportation Center is interested in addressing the needs of workforce development for an emerging group of professionals from the state, local, and federal Departments of Transportation, airports, transit agencies and public works departments. The Center also wants to respond to other public sector employees and state and local planners who want to pursue graduate work in public administration but are looking for graduate coursework in transportation issues. The Transportation Center has set up a funding stream with Political Science to offer course scholarships for up to five students a semester who are interested in transportation expertise. In addition, the Transportation Center has also agreed to fund two or three additional courses, on an adjunct basis, to expand our course offerings as the program develops.

At this time we are asking approval for a program change to a Transportation concentration using existing course offerings. Candidates for this degree will take 7 core courses from the existing Public Administration curriculum and 5 other courses from a list of existing course offerings drawn from the College of Engineering, the College of Business Administration and one elective from the College of The Environment and Life Sciences. We have asked and received permission from the individual faculty to offer their courses as part of the program.

The only significant change in location would be that most of the transportation courses would be offered at the Kingston campus-most in the late afternoon/early evening.

We also have a letter of approval from Dr. Richard Horn, the Director of the Transportation Center, who has agreed to fund the scholarship program and new courses on an adjunct basis as the program develops. We would seek the standard approval through the colleges and graduate school for any new courses we might propose in the future.

The complete proposal including attachments is available on the web at http://www.uri.edu/facsen/Transportation_Document.pdf

2. Department of Computer Science and Statistics
a. New Course:        

STA 536 Applied Longitudinal Analysis (3)
Longitudinal Data, Linear Mixed Effects Models, Repeated Measures ANOVA, Generalized Linear Models for Correlated Data. (Lec.3).  Pre:  STA 411 or STA 412 or permission of the
instructor.            

                b. Changes to CSC M.S. Degree Requirements:
1. Change CSC 517 from the Computer Systems category to the Computer Architecture category.

2.  Change the thesis option requirements to read “Program requirements for thesis option:  1) at least one course from each of the following groups: Algorithms or Theory of Computation, Programming Languages or Software Design, and Computer Architecture or Computer systems; 2) at least five additional courses chosen with the approval of the major professor of which at least two must be CSC courses or approved by the majorprofessor as basically equivalent to CSC course(s); 3) two credits of departmentally approved CSC 592 taken over two separate semesters; and 4) eight credits of thesis.

3. Graduate School of Library and Information Studies
a.  New Courses:        

LSC 518 International and Comparative Librarianship (3)
Library developments on an international level.  Application of comparative method to analysis of library issues in the U.S.A. and foreign countries.  Major international library and information organizations, and their programs.  (Lec. 3) Pre: 3 core courses or permission of the instructor.

LSC 527 Information Literacy Instruction (3)
Design and teach research strategies to undergraduates in LIB 120 or LIB 140, and another academic course to teach effective, efficient, and honest use of library and information resources.  (Lec. 3) Pre: 504.