ASCnet

Details

Date

2006-04-21

Time

Location

Agenda

9:00- 11:00 a.m 200 Bricker Hall

Agenda:

1.      Announcements from chair: updates on curricular initiatives, and report on ASC Senate meeting of April 19

2.      Approval of minutes from April 7 meeting

3.      Continuation of voting on McHale recommendations:

        a.  WOVE recommendation

        b.  third writing requirement

        c.  changes to learning objectives of Quantitative and Logical Skills category

        d.  definition of Natural Sciences category and changes to sub-categories

        e.  definition of Social Sciences category and changes to sub-categories

        f.  change of Arts and Humanities category to "Arts and Literature; removal of "Culture and Ideas" sub-category

        g.  addition of "Moral Reasoning" category and proposal to double-count courses

        h.  adoption of three over-arching categories for GEC: "Demonstrated Cultural Competencies", "Demonstrated Breadth of Knowledge", and "Demonstrated Skills"

        i.  fulfillment of social diversity requirement through new options (including internships, outreach, ASL, or advanced North American Spanish course)

Notes

Committee on Curriculum and Instruction

Meeting Notes – April 21, 2006

 

 

Present: Adelson, Vassey, Mockabee, Krissek, Shelton, Hobgood, Yerkes, Mumy, Andereck, Lowry, Childs, Collier, Breitenberger, Lemberger, Harvey, Masters, Baker, Schoen, Mercerhill, Shanda, Schwartz, Moses, Seloni

 

1. Updates from the Chair:
1. ASC Faculty Senate deliberations of CCI recommendations on McHale – handout provided to CCI denoting Senate approval of resolutions by Senate vote. All are provisional until the entire package is available in order to make sure all pieces fit appropriately.
2. Clusters – Senate requested that the resolution be made less prescriptive to provide for maximum flexibility. CCI members will be sent new resolution to vote on.

 

2. Discussion of WOVE’s Visual Expression component
1. Debra Lowry presented the Humanities perspective

                                                               i.      Visual expression needs a theoretical foundation to broaden the concept across the curriculum

                                                             ii.      Humanities and Arts see many opportunities for VE, but expressed concern over implementation and resources

                                                            iii.      WAC program supports using 2^nd writing course in sophomore clusters

2. Valarie Mockabee provided Arts perspective

                                                               i.      Arts in favor of concept of visual expression being included, but it needs to go beyond “PowerPoint” type skills

3. Gene Mumy provided SBS perspective

                                                               i.      SBS is interested but concerned about implementation

                                                             ii.      Needs to be open to all academic areas

4. Question of what the definition of visual expression is, including:

                                                               i.      What outcomes assessment can be done?

                                                             ii.      Is it demonstrated skill or breadth of knowledge?

                                                            iii.      Would it be embedded like social diversity?

                                                           iv.      Are we adding more requirements to the GEC? How does this line up with the desire to make it less complicated?

                                                             v.      General feeling that current courses already incorporate VE (or could)

                                                           vi.      Suggested that another requirement not be added, but make it more clear to students when they are using VE

5. Discussion of terminology

                                                               i.      “expression” versus “literacy” – committee prefers the term literacy

                                                             ii.      Implementation requires the definition of VE

                                                            iii.      Implementation should not increase credit requirements.

Motion – committee broadly supports the concept of visual expression/literacy as an explicitly defined component of the GEC.

Motion approved: 11 yes, 1 opposed, no abstentions

 

3. Discussion of the role of WAC program in WOVE
1. Concern over who is responsible for WOVE – WAC program or English Faculty
2. Center for the Study of Teaching of Writing concurs with McHale committee suggestion that there should be an advisory board – this might be made broader to oversee WOVE and include English faculty and/or current and past 367 faculty
3. Question of whether WAC advisory board would be responsible for assessment of learning outcomes

                                                               i.      Concern that such oversight might become a “writing IRB” – more bureaucratic layering, disincentive to be creative

4. Current WAC office is too small to really help with embedding of requirements; CSTW recommends an increase in office staff
5. Possible resolutions:

                                                               i.      Additions and changes to writing courses be reviewed by WAC

                                                             ii.      WAC to provide yearly report to CCI.

                                                            iii.      Maintain current structure of 367 course review in CCI  and require WAC letters of support for course proposals

                                                           iv.      Current WAC needs to be fully funded

6. Discussion of NSSE data which indicates that our students write less than national average; additional information a out data has been requested by CCI
7. Resolution of above issues tabled pending further information

 

4. Third Writing course
1. MAPS – there is a general feeling of faculty not being properly prepared to teach 3^rd writing – increase in support (from WAC?) would help greatly
2. Note that CCI task force found that students were taking 2^nd writing course later than is intended
3. McHale calls for WAC to oversee 3^rd writing – this potentially removes it from CCI oversight
4. Bio Sci does not require 3^rd writing but content is covered over multiple courses – they are leery of the mandate of having to document that material is covered across the curriculum
5. Question of does 3^rd writing course really belong in the major? Departments should be responsible for determining what belongs in their majors.
6. Committee believes writing is central to General Education & first two writing courses are supported and demonstrate this centrality.

Motion: degree programs should be encouraged to include writing across the curriculum. In order to do this, WAC should be fully funded.

Motion approved

 

5. Quantitative and Logical Skills category
1. Discussion tabled to provide time for MAPS to discuss 4^th learning objective proposed by McHale committee
2. Clarity needed regarding what the intent of the McHale proposal in this area

 

6. Definition of Natural Sciences category and changes to sub-categories
1. MAPS – science courses already have technology component to them, but MAPS is not in agreement with the idea of having a technology course that meets the Natural Science requirement
2. Question of where a technology requirement would go. Is this something we are trying to make transparent? Noted that it already exists in many majors
3. Concern over being too narrow in concept of technology requirement
4. Noted that technology is already included across the majors and the relationship of science and technology is included in learning objectives 3 & 4 of the Natural Science category

Motion – committee does not support technology as a component in Natural Science at this time.

Motion approved: 11 yes, 1 opposed, no abstentions

 

7. Changes to Social Science sub-categories
1. General consensus that 3 current categories work
2. Opposed to conflation into 2 categories

Motion – maintain the 3 current sub-categories

Motion approved: 11 yes, no opposed, 1 abstention

 

8.  Deliberation of the Arts and Humanities category
1. CCI feels current number of credits is appropriate and does not support McHale recommendation to decrease hours
2. McHale proposal to eliminate Culture and Ideas subcategory

                                                               i.      Cultures and Ideas originally refereed to as “other” to allow for courses that would not fit established categories

                                                             ii.      Suggested that “other” relates to our perception of other peoples and cultures

                                                            iii.      Humanities working on the definition of the category and sharing it with Arts

                                                           iv.      Committee reaffirmed support for this subcategory

3. Discussion regarding distribution of course requirements

                                                               i.      Committee to consider the following change: instead of current method of choosing one course from literature, one from vpa and one from any of the 3, one must come from each of the 3 categories

                                                             ii.      Discussion tabled pending further investigation

Motion – maintain 15 credit hour requirements in category

Motion – maintain 3 current subcategories;

Motions approved: 11 yes, no opposed, 1 abstention

 

9. Moral Reasoning
1. McHale proposal is to double-count moral reasoning courses similar to the social diversity requirement and includes 3 proposed learning objectives for moral reasoning
2. Nationally – individual courses about moral reasoning are not common; topics of moral reasoning/ethics are found in majors across the curriculum; institutions often offer separate major based courses dealing with ethics in the discipline
3. Question of whether it should be put in major or delivered in one course

                                                               i.      Ethics is very difficult to teach without a foundation students can grasp (i.e. content in the major) and staffing is an issue

                                                             ii.      If required in the major - question of similarity to 3^rd writing course requirement – resources are an issue

4. CCI will start next meeting with this discussion
5. Committee requests that Chair send  Harvard report on Ethics and the OSU Task Force report