UF President Bernie Machen announced plans for a comprehensive review of the university’s graduate programs Thursday afternoon at the monthly Faculty Senate meeting.
He said the review would be the first of its kind since his tenure as president began in 2004.
“In the seven years I’ve been here, we haven’t had the opportunity to take a close look at graduate education,” he said.
The announcement comes on the heels of rankings released by the National Research Council, which saw some UF graduate programs rank highly and others receive less recognition.
Machen said he hopes to have a committee of distinguished faculty assembled within a few weeks to conduct the review, which he would like to initiate this semester.
“We will find that there are some very good programs and there are some that are not performing very well at all,” he said.
During UF Provost Joe Glover’s report to the Senate, he informed those present of recently compiled minus-grades statistics.
According to a comparison between average GPA figures from 2007 to 2008 and figures from more recent semesters, little has changed.
Minus grades went into effect in summer of 2009.
“At least on the average grades, we do not see any great fluctuation,” Glover said.
