GRADUATE STUDENTS RECEIVE
DOUBLE REPRESENTATION IN FACULTY SENATE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 4, 1997
Fairbanks, Alaska - If a graduate student's research, conducted under a project by a University of Alaska Fairbanks professor, led to a cure for cancer, who would own the rights to that research - the graduate student who did field studies or the professor who earned the money for the research grant?
Situations like this are considered questions of intellectual property rights, one of the hottest topics at the Graduate Student Advisory Council (GSAC) on Wednesday.
Intellectual property rights include rights of research data use, the use of student-developed software routines, and the order of student and adviser names in published articles.
With no resolutions offered at last week's meeting, the debate of intellectual property rights will continue for several months while GSAC, a subcommittee of the Faculty Senate, tries to remedy a common problem.
Graduate students won't be without representation in the debate, however. Curt Szuberla, a doctoral student in physics, has served on GSAC as the only graduate student for one and a half years.
"Through this position I've gotten a look at the seamy underside of politics at UAF," Szuberla said. "I'm never going to be able to speak for all graduate students, but I have tried to speak and reasonably represent student concerns."
Intellectual property rights is just one of several issues before GSAC. The council just passed regulation easing graduate registration requirements. Now graduate students are not required to have adviser signatures before registering for classes.
But upcoming votes on courses outside of research grant programs and member qualification for graduate program committees are now frontlining the GSAC agenda in February.
GSAC and its counterpart, the Graduate Curriculum Committee, were created three years ago when Provost Jack Keating divided the Graduate Advisory Council, a previous committee that was responsible for dealing with all graduate student issues, according to Szuberla.
GSAC deals mainly with graduate policies, everything from how people register for classes to advising Joseph Kan, dean of the graduate school, on how senate decisions will affect graduate students, Szuberla said.
The curriculum committee deals mainly with issues of graduate curriculum, said GCC graduate student representative Marcus Ortelee. This month GCC will tackle a proposed degree program that, should it pass the Faculty Senate this spring, would allow UAF to offer a new type of degree option as soon as Fall 1997, Ortelee said.
Ortelee, a master's student in Northern Studies, said that the new degree program would add a "professional" program option to degrees currently offered at UAF.
"Basically you can earn two types of graduate degrees at UAF, a project-based degree and a thesis-based degree," Ortelee said. "We're proposing a new program that would award degrees based on coursework alone, much like several universities in the Lower 48 are offering."
This type of degree is pursued mainly by professionals already in their selected fields, Ortelee said.
Ortelee served as an ex-officio member of the Graduate Advisory Council under appointment from ASUAF president Joe Hayes.
After the council was divided, Hayes appointed Ortelee to the GCC. He was reapproved for the position by current ASUAF president Catherine Wheeler this fall. He expects to continue as representative until he graduates in December 1997.
Szuberla will finish his doctoral research this summer and will not renew his appointment this May. The GSAC student representative is nominated for the position by Kan, and appointed to the position by Keating.
Graduate students interested in service on GSAC should talk to their individual college deans now to be considered for the position, Szuberla said.
"I've been able to see both the students' and faculty's sides through this position," Szuberla said. "No matter what level you are at, you always have someone above and below you. Administrators, faculty and students - we're all working together [on this committee] and sharing our frustrations. No one has an upper hand."
CONTACT: Jillian Swope, University Relations,
(907) 474-7778.
UAF News releases available electronically at:
http://www.uaf.edu/univrel/media/index.html
JCS/2-4-97/97-051