Attending (voting): George Canavos, Ed Coffman, Deborah Cowles, Carol Lehr, Neil Murphy
Attending (non-voting): Tracy Green, Allen Lee.

1. The minutes for the meeting of 7 April 2004 were amended and then approved.

2. George Canavos reported on “Consistency in Presentation of Materials Relating to the PhD in Business.” One recommendation:
a. In the bulletin, say more information is available in the PhD student handbook. Changes in prerequisites to IS will have to be included (should happen automatically when approved at the university level).
b. Regarding “a maximum of nine semester credits be transferred from another AACSB institution” in bulletin, the handbook says a maximum of 6 months, so the bulletin would need to be changed if we want it to be 6, but this would involve a form to bring about the change in the bulletin because it would need to be in the bulletin to be legally binding, where Graduate Council would have to approve it; a motion by George to change the handbook from 6 to 9 hours of transfer credit allowed was passed by a unanimous voice vote.
c. Regarding the VCU web page on PhD in accounting: it does not list economics as a prerequisite course, but the bulletin does; the bulletin trumps. Also, the web page mentions IS and OB as minors allowed in the PhD accounting, where these are not explicitly listed in the bulletin – but the bulletin has a clause, “students must select one different minor from the specialties listed above [which includes IS and accounting and OB] or the following”; this is okay, except for OB, which needs to be deleted. The PhD accounting page mentions OB as a minor – this change needs to be changed.
d. Regarding the PhD in IS web page: what it says about foundation courses needs to be updated; the research core mentions MGMT 643 but not MGMT 632 – for this to be changed, this needs to be discussed in the fall. The bulletin needs to be updated for IS regarding its mention of OB as a minor.
e. In the PhD handbook : we need to include a note on page 1 that the OB has been suspended; on page 2, it mentions that GRE can be accepted, but the bulletin does not say this, so this needs to be discussed at the next committee meeting (the discussion would be on the list of little things to be changed in the bulletin; on page 6, the description of the minor should include a phrase to direct the reader to that portion of the handbook that discusses the minor in greater detail; on page 7, we need to change transfer hours from 6 to 9; on page 8, the foundation/prerequisite courses for IS need to be changed, once approved by graduate council; on page 10, section D on “Minor Area Component” needs to be updated to reflect the current policy accepted by the PPC; the PPC discussed and accepted new wording (noted by Tracy) regarding the paragraph on page 12 containing the sentence, “The evaluation may be a written test or …”

3. There was a report by Carol Lehr on “Eligibility to Teach 700 Level courses and chair dissertations”; the report was accepted as amended by unanimous voice vote.

4. The report by Carol Lehr on this 700 level procedure needs to be presented on the web, so now the web pages on this need to be changed. More links to this web page need to be inserted in the School of Business web pages (ask Scarlet to do) – such as the web page on faculty committees. Tracy will explain this to Scarlette. Carol’s recommended new documents “Eligibility to Teach 700 Level Courses and Chair Doctoral Dissertations” and “[Proposed] New Procedures for Staffing 700-level courses and dissertation committees” was accepted by unanimous voice vote. Allen will also announce this at administrative council. Allen will also send an e-mail to the School dedicated to the new procedures.

5. All PPC minutes will be placed on the web (so far, only the minutes through 2002 are posted)

6. Item 2 – discuss “Guidelines and Procedures of the PhD Committee” – is postponed to the fall.

7. Carol submitted the PhD Minor in Economics requirements. The IS minor was not submitted. These do not require PPC approval, but it is important for the PPC to have them; Ed will follow up with Gurpreet Dhillon.

8. Regarding 898: For INFO 898 and ACCT 898, the description and titles would need to be changed so that they may be used for both pre-doctoral defense and post-doctoral defense. The forms for these changes have to be filled out; this is an action item for the fall.

9. Ed will do a draft of the annual report for the PPC.