Present: Adelson, Andereck, Baker, Berman, Krissek, Shanda, Vasey, Dutta, Mercerhill, Mockabee, Mumy, Oltmann, Harder, Breitenberger, Lemberger, Lowry, Yerkes, Trudeau, Francis, Harvey, Corl
- Updates from the Chair:
- Re-Accreditation takes place Sunday through Tuesday next week
i. Criterion 3 – Assessment of academic programs was the focus for CCI
- CAA did not meet this week, will meet next week to discuss Professional College and TAG degree changes to GEC
- ASC Senate meets the 25th
- 597 review complete; 22 courses reaffirmed, concerns for 18 other courses are being addressed by departments
- Approval of the minutes – approved (motion – Shanda, Second – Krissek)
- Upper Division Hours Required to Graduate
- Current requirement is 60 hours
- Suggested that changes might need to be made by degree, major or department, especially in MAPS and BIO that have a number of 100 level requirements
- Most departments do not state an expectation for a specific number of upper level hours in the major
- 22% of students take less than 70 upper level hours; suggested that we might want to make the requirement somewhere between 70 and 80
- Biology Major might not be as affected as thought by such a change – they have a number of required upper-level hours in the major, focus would have to be on taking more upper-level GEC courses
- Suggested that, by rearticulating the rule to higher numbers, we can encourage departments to guide students into more upper level courses
- Concern expressed at the amount of work this might put on departments that would have to re-examine their curriculum or provide a rationale for being exempt from the rule
- Noted that the new BS template was designed under the current rule; concern that amending this rule might add hours to this – suggested that this is an advising concern, that students need to be counseled to take upper level GECs
- Bio Sci does see some students who currently have problems meeting requirement, number of students with problems would increase if hours required are increased
- Many of the students who have problems are transfer students or students who have obviously focused on lower level courses (often the result of changing majors frequently) – these students typically have not sought advising
- Suspected that the students who currently have problems with the hours are lower achieving students – suggested that we need to focus on how this would affect our B+ students
- General Education is meant to provide breadth of knowledge; concern that courses at the upper level have pre-reqs that really provide that breadth
- Suggested that there are other mechanisms for getting students to take the upper-level courses, for example the new Historical Study requirements and possible Cluster pilots
- Question of what we consider breadth? Is it ok for students to focus on American history after 1945 as opposed to Western Civ. survey courses?
- Concern over the range of opportunities in the upper level options in our current GEC – a change to the requirement would affect enrollment patterns
- Question of what the origin of the rule is and what our peer institutions are doing – hypothesized that the rule was created when students were not as strong
- Committee would like to see what our peer institutions are doing – if we are out of line with them, it might be worth revisiting this rule
- Consideration of changes to this rule tabled
- 2nd Writing Requirement in the BS degree
- In 1997, permission was given for BS degree students to double count 2nd writing courses with other GEC categories as determined appropriate given content in specific 367 courses
- BS task force members have recommended that this allowance for double counting stay as an option for some students to regain 5 hours lost from the removal of Drop a GEC
- Suspected that there would be many more courses from the list of second writing courses that would petition to be added to the list of approved courses if this option was made more visible
- If the CCI votes to retain this option, the CCI believes that it needs to be presented to the ASC Senate as part of the complete B.S. template
- Noted that this rule is strongly dependant on students choosing these courses, it is not an automatic
- This rule is crucial for the pre-med students who do a combined degree program – finishing the bachelor’s in 3 years with the 4th year overlapping with med school
- A-deans would like the opportunity to study what impact this rule has on GEC enrollments
- Advising encourages students to take advantage of this currently
- Noted that the hours in the new template have decreased the hours required for GEC, we do not want to add these back by removing this option
Motion: Retain the current opportunity to double count 2nd writing courses in the BS degree – Krissek, 2nd – Lemberger
Vote: 11 yes, 0 no, 0 abstention
- Maximum hours allowed in a single Registrar’s Listing
- Current rule is 80 hours
- This is a problem in areas such as Sociology because they have 2 majors with the same Registar’s Listing - Sociology and Criminology
- Data provided regarding number of students who exceeded 80 hours in a single listing spring 06 (see data report included in CCI packet)
- Hours that are over the 80 do not count toward graduation
- Rule’s intention is to prevent over-specialization
Motion – Remove the rule limiting permitted hours in a Registrar’s listing to 80 hours. – Shanda, 2nd – Krissek
Vote: 11 yes, 0 no, 0 abstention
- Pass/Non-Pass option in the GEC
- Currently students can elect to take 30 hours of course work as Pass/Non-pass, these courses may not be taken in the major, minor or GEC and may elect the option until the 3rd Friday of the quarter
- Proposal is to allow students to take one course in the GEC Pass/Non-pass, excluding the Skills category, to encourage students to take courses that they might not otherwise take out of fear of a bad grade on the transcript (ie an upper level course or a subject they feel is outside of their comfort level)
- Proposal also allows students to retroactively change to a letter grade should they do well in the course
- Proposal would eliminate the current petition process
- Suggested that this is “adjusting our system down” and allowing students to say they will not take a course unless they can get an A
- Concern over the practice of this proposal – faculty will have to take extra steps to convert the grade and be sure to do more than grade students as pass/non-pass – suggested that it would be possible to require all students to be given a grade and let the registrar’s system to convert to pass/non-pass
- Preference expressed to have students who are fully engaged in the course, concern that pass/non-pass students may be disruptive
- Experience of CCI faculty member is that students who take courses S/U do not act differently in class
- Suggested that students will use the option in the Breadth category that they find most difficult
- Question of how frequently this would be used by students
- Student member does not think it is a good option in GEC unless students are required to make a final decision of accepting the grade or not before they take the final exam
- Suggested that this option might help students psychologically in courses that they find very difficult
- This option would be a relief for students who have to take 20 hours in one quarter in order to graduate on time
- Concern that students might abuse this option and use it as an escape from harder topics
- Suggested that proposal be amended to apply to 300 level or higher
- Experience of some members is that attendance is a problem from current pass/ non- pass option
- Straw vote – 5 for proposal, 5 against
- Noted that faculty in freshman seminars feel very strongly about why they have chosen letter grade or S/U
- Request by chair to have members talk to peers in departments about the proposal; curriculum committees will be asked to discuss as well
- Question of whether faculty could opt out of the pass/non-pass option for a specific section of a course; currently it is option of the student, and not choice for instructor
- Tabled until members can discuss option with home departments
- Insight Areas Proposal
- Proposal to require students to take one diversity course and 2nd course that may be chosen from diversity, moral reasoning, technological literacy or visual literacy
i. Possible for majors to designate where the 2nd course is taken
ii. Eliminates some of the “lucky charms” approach
iii. Insight courses would show up on transcript (currently they do not get marked on transcript)
- Chair of Diversity Panel thought that transcript marking was potentially an improvement over current system
- Proposals for technological literacy and moral reasoning would need to be drafted and sent to Senate & CAA
- Panels for Insight Areas were units asked to make recommendations to the CCI only, not to offer binding proposals
- Templates being reviewed by CAA maintain diversity requirements as currently in place because something had to be stated, option is still available to change this
- Concern expressed that task force recommendations are not being followed – noted that task force panels were asked to look at their categories in isolation, not as a part of the entire set of experiences, CCI needs to look at these as a whole
- Proposal helps insight areas be more transparent to students without using symbols that students have to follow
- In 1997 International diversity was attached to social science, western & non-western courses were in Humanities, only 3 courses met requirement for non-western; change was made to open up possible diversity courses in other colleges
- Concern expressed that this proposal does not follow the insight panels’ recommendations, or the McHale proposal
- Concern expressed that some Culture and Diversity courses will be disadvantaged under this proposal
- Noted that we need to focus on the larger picture, and not on maintaining, just as we had to re-evaluate and decrease breadth categories
- Suggested that requirement in proposal be specified as a Social Diversity course
- Noted that over the past 20 years diversity has been embedded in many courses, many of the GEC courses that are being proposed request overlap with diversity
- Question of whether our task is to ensure that every student graduating has a specific experience in the classroom that we can check off on a list, or whether the nature of our GEC allows students to achieve these experiences without having to establish it via a registrar’s listing – view is that our curriculum has changed and the insight areas are embedded in our curriculum
- Noted that previous Task Force that reviewed Ethics found that it was embedded in the curriculum already
- Concern expressed that the Humanities faculty would be required to teach the Moral Reasoning category – noted that this is only a problem if moral reasoning becomes a requirement for all students and that SBS has a number of faculty that would also be able to teach these courses
- Question of what our peers are doing
i. This was researched last year during McHale reviews
ii. Sub E has found that many other campuses package their goals for their students’ education and their Gen Ed in such a way that the goals are not directly translated between the two
- Desire to clarify whether we want to embed these requirements or continue with the “check list” process expressed
- Suggested that GEC proposals could include a section asking if/how the course addresses any of the insight areas
- Noted that last year’s Insight Area proposal was to require that every GEC course proposal address the goals for at least one of the insight areas
- Question of how such changes will affect current course enrollments
- Noted that there are no learning objectives or guidelines for Western Non-US or Non-Western; however a faculty committee vetted these courses with great concern and discussion
- Subcommittees of CCI will be reviewing and revising guidelines of GEC over the next year
- More information regarding peer institutions will be gathered for the committee
- Noted that currently there are not courses that meet the technological literacy guidelines, but proposal allows for it to be listed so that awareness is created
- Noted that CCI needs to determine what the priorities for insight areas are – and how we implement them into the curriculum
- Request to think back before current budget model and imagine how complex we want to make it for an undergraduate student to complete their degree
- Discussion will continue at next meeting