ASCnet

Details

Date

2007-11-30

Time

Location

Agenda

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

Agenda:
First Hour
1. Music BA, BM & BME major revision proposals (see attachments)
* for individual course proposals, see part II contained in appendix D at: http://artsandsciences.osu.edu/currofc/tracking.cfm?TrackingID=1028  

2. Transfer Module Project Update (Randy Smith)

Second Hour
3. Approval of 11-9-07 minutes

4. Updates from Chair (Insight Areas Discussion; Majors Asmt. CCC Updates)

5. Communication Minors proposal (see attachments)

Notes

Committee on Curriculum and Instruction

Meeting Minutes – November 30, 2007

APPROVED

 

Present: Adelson, Trudeau, Breitenberger, Hume, Harder, Hobgood, Mumy, Berman, Highley, Andereck, Mockabee, Avorbegdor, Ward, Dutta, Vasey, Wanzer, Lowry

Guests: Laura Dobos (Music), Randy Smith, Prabu David and Susan Van Pelt (Communications)

 

1) Music BA, BM, BME  Unanimously Approved

A. Core Changes: Sub B Chair Jay Hobgood summary: see cover letter for details (net effect reduces core requirements by 5 hours, expanding music history sequence and eliminating form and analysis.  BA Music embeds music training, adds flexibility and brings program in line with accrediting agency (NASM). Sub-committee B is enthusiastic about changes and thinks they make good pedagogical sense and will have a positive effect on student experience, thus approving the proposal unanimously.

B. Lora Dobos: Clarification - upper level courses taken out of BA major, off setting additions of elective, resulting in NO net increase in BA credit requirements

C. Context: Changes based on student feedback, peer analysis with benchmarks and similar institutions and proposals were rigorously vetted by college curriculum committee (Mockabee)

D. Forthcoming will be a GEC reduction, resulting in a net credit increase of 0 credits

E. Question: Clarification of increase in BA hours – see Mockabee letter p.2 explained net gain of 3 hours to BA (understood by committee)

F. Concern expressed about double majors who cannot take non-music courses until after 2^nd year.  Q: Does the new proposal change this?  A: No.  A student could delay the Musicology or Music Hist sequence until junior year but the program is intentionally front-loaded so as to provide proper training and knowledge core. 

i. Response: Conflicts with GEC in that students who are juniors and seniors taking 100-200 GEC courses.  Music looked at this, but sees no solution at this point due to high need of training that students do not come in with.  Students are advised to take 1 GEC per quarter in their first year – not ideal, but they do try. 

ii. Q: Is it due to NASM requirements?  No, but it is the nature of the study of music at the U level.  R. Ward explains that it was the same at Oklahoma State, for example, and is unfortunately a characteristic of the field due to the deficit of high school students for academic music study.  Also functions as a filtering process for students benefit so they don’t spend time in degree program only to find out that academic music is not in their capability or interest.  This is a common situation in foreign language study and Engineering, as well as some of the sciences.  There was some concern of late placement of GECs, whether intractable or not.

G. Q: Upper level music electives: Why 9 hours as opposed to 6 so as not to increase net gain in credit hours? (any 300 or above level music class)  A: Music wanted there to be as much upper division courses as possible and the 9 hours brought them in line with NASM standards (according to proposal) Sub B discussed this as well and was satisfied with the choice.  These are also for the purposes of integration, i.e. between theory, practice, and application historical and practical.

H.. Transitional student degree requirement advising/tracking: Some changes are already being handled via advising and textbook choice (i.e. waiving reqs appropriately based on content) temporary number offerings, grandfathered some students’ reqs.  Changes in BA will be grandfathered if a current freshman, for example, chooses to follow program of choice.

           

Motion to vote:  Hobgood

2^nd:  Vasey

Unanimously Approved with     2 Abstentions

 

2) Transfer Modules: Randy Smith

 

A) Background: Our state university system contains 13 universities, 23 technical and community colleges (4/7 tech colleges are located next to our regional college.)  Since early 1990s, efforts have been made to help students move seamlessly among institutions. There are 400,000+ students in this system; 3000-5000 transfer here per year, about a third from Columbus State Community College) To acknowledge this activity and address constituent complaints of courses not transferring, legislators told the Board of Regents (BOR) to do something about this.  BOR developed Transfer Modules (TM) circa 1991. 

All institutions have 5 broad GEC components that were established by a statewide committee.  Randy co-chaired faculty implementation committee which asked schools to submit a subset of GEC that could be on this module based on content areas in 1991. The committee then reviewed all 36 institutions’ submissions (syllabi) for all the courses.  All modules were approved in Summer 1991.  If students completed a full module at one institution they could take it to another institution and have it substitute for the destination institution’s module.  In recent years, it has transferred increasingly on a course-by-course level.  These original TM efforts did not take into account applicability of the transferred courses.

B) The BOR TM committee now meets twice a year (40 faculty) to review any revisions to modules or, when warranted (semester change), whole modules.

C) OSU’s TM was revised in 1997 for reaccreditation but since then there have been no substantive changes (only if a course number changed, for instance, was it updated).  The committee meets again in the beginning of April and we need to submit an updated module by February.  This need not be complete module review, but CCI has owned and developed it and should therefore decide how they wish it to be updated.

D) There was a question as to whether or not, in the course of this audit, courses could be added to the transfer module that are not currently on it?  Randy Smith advised against doing so.

E) Only a small set of Registrar’s Office people know about how ours map with other schools

F) The vetting of these syllabi has been good for communication as to what 2-year colleges are teaching and helping them to increase rigor of those courses, giving a better sense of alignment for transfer students and institutions

G) Question: What is the relationship between the Transfer Module, individual course transfers, and Transfer Articulation Guidelines?  In addition to the state-wide TAGS, we have specific course transfer arrangements with seven 2-year institutions in Ohio. This is now a broader world of transfer and 54 credits is not as meaningful. 

i. What does it mean to have completed a transfer module?  That you have completed a formal subset of courses and these are assured that such courses will count.  Gets students and advisors to begin to think formally and ahead of time about what will or will not count, standardizing the individual counting of substitutes.  TAGs are based on applicability and are thus more relevant than the TMs, which were developed earlier.

H) Problems: Consistency of approval given new GEC reqs.  i.e. CSCC has a natural science sequence with coursework that does not apply to either BIO or other fields.  Not enough flexibility of what is good teaching, pedagogy, etc because module is so outdated.

I) Currently a CCI subcommittee will review recent syllabi with reference to applicability and appraise – this work will go up to committee and each panel for 5 areas

J) BOR will begin monitoring transfer student characteristics and progress – it’s an access/success issue, not just access.  Math has been very good about identifying gaps in transfer learning and bringing students up to speed at other schools in anticipation of transfer success

K) Typical transfer student knows that OSU is the eventual destination and institutions tend to have partner feeder institutions.

           

*ANNOUNCEMENT  Randy and Kay are now doing triage on smaller proposals and bringing them directly to CAA so as to expedite approval process and keep proposals out of subcommittee

 

3) Approval of minutes (postponed pending information)

 

4) Updates from Chair

 

A) Cluster approval handout – invite Jess Mercerhill to Jan 11 or Feb 8 meeting for further cluster discussion

B) Major Assessment Updates in CCC – each CCC looks at major plan updates and has discussion to share and synthesize

C) Insight area discussion: Panel chairs will meet to create templates to identify courses in CCCs

D) There is a Faculty Senate meeting this upcoming Wednesday, December 5 ,2007.  The sole agenda item is opportunity for faculty senators to interact with Martha Garland about review of ASC.  All deans are asked to recuse themselves from this meeting so faculty can be encouraged to speak candidly.

E) Revision of web site and that as an impetus for a larger revision/development of ASC proposal requirements/recommendation/suggestions with reference to university and non-ASC college requirements.

 

5) Communication Minors  Unanimously approved

 

A)Mike Vasey Sub-C Chair Summary: In general sub committee was favorably impressed and unanimously approved proposal to add and change minors with contingency to open the appropriate courses to minors.  Adds 3 new specialized minors to the one general minor (Communication Technology, Organizational Communication, and Media and Society – describes each).  They felt that the areas and core courses were well designed.

B) P. David: Context – general minor was breadth minor.  Last year after major revision, 4 well-defined focus areas became apparent.  This is a move to develop these into minors, thus benefiting students with the designation of a minor on their transcripts.

C) 3 minor foundational courses are also part of general minor, providing structural congruity

D)Q:  How will advising work for non-Communications students. A:  Will be advertised as other ASC minors.  Students can decide to add minors by talking with an advisor, structure of minor is intuitive and can be approved by and ASC advisor.  Other disciplines will target their students to make them aware of the new minors

E) Q: Are changes coming for general minor?  A:  Right now no, depends on how many students take it and if # decreases, it may be withdrawn at a later date.

F) 20 credits is minimum University requirement for a minor.  Q: Is there a movement to increase this to 25 credit hours?  A: CAA is thinking of a university-wide minor requirement but Associate Deans are considering it in advance. 

i. Q: If general minor is 25 hours, why not decrease it to 20?  A: On general minor, faculty thought that it is better to encourage depth over breadth in the minor. 

ii. Clarification Q: But aren’t interdisciplinary minors 20 credits? A: One can double-count GECs with a minor in most cases, but not all (dept. decision).  Many 25-hour minors have double-counting which reduces them to 15 hours.

G) Clarification:  foundational courses are not pre-reqs to higher-level minor courses.

H) Q: Media and Society Minor: foundational course is 642 – level seems a bit high, but has no pre-reqs – is this an intimidating level for a beginning student?  A; People are already doing this and 642 has a long history, attractive to a wide variety of students.  There was departmental discussion which considered lowering the level to 342, but dept. was hesitant to change it due to its reputation among students. Communications will probably introduce a new course at 300 level that will be a GEC which may eventually replace the function of 642.

            I) Currently 70 minors, projection total of about 100-120 minors

J) Q: Graduate students taking 642? Not Comm. grad students and historically no grad students from other areas have taken it.

K) Q: New minors tend to have higher numbers than general minors.  Does this go to depth vs. breadth?  Yes       

 

The proposal was unanimously approved.