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Undergraduate Curriculum Forum (UCF)

Minutes 3/02/06

Present 

R. Vaters-Carr, J. Manzella, G. Kowalczyk, D. Weiss, R. Glinka, S. DiFrancesco,  H. Podnar, N. Marano, N. Henderson, E. Schmidt, E. West,  N. Chrissidis, J. Fields, R. Mugno, C. Dellinger-Pate, J. Goralski,  R. Kustin, S. Bochain, M. Vancour, D. Flynn, K. Gatzke, R. Hunter, T. Lin, C. Kim, W. O'Brien, K. Mauro

I.          Call to Order
The meeting was called to order at 9:45 a.m.

II.        Announcements

Tricia Lin announced that the women's art show will begin on Thursday, March 9 from 4:30-6:30.  UCF rep Rachael Vaters-Carr will be showing her work, along with others.
Joe Fields reminded us that Mark Kuss will be performing Thursday, March 9 at Yale.

III. Chair's Report

The chair announced that since we had not had a chance to approve the NMC motions at the last meeting, he had signed off on those new course approvals.

IV.       Approval of Minutes of 2/16/06

The minutes from 2/16/06 were approved, unanimously, pending spelling corrections. It was, however, suggested that these minutes be sent to John Mattia, and changes be made if necessary, before publication.  The chair said he would forward the minutes to John Mattia.

V.        Approval of standing committee minutes of 2/9/06 and 2/23/06

Notifications Management (NMC)

NMC minutes of 2/9/06 were accepted.

The following motions were approved unanimously:

  • New course CSC 424: System Administration be approved
  • New course CSC 443:  Fundamentals of Internet Programming be approved
  • New course CSC 453: Information Security be approved
  • New course CSC 463: Development of Distributed & E-Commerce Applications be approved
  • New course CSC 476: Fundamentals of Data Warehousing be approved
  • New course CSC 477: Fundamentals of Data Mining be approved
  • New course EXS 292: Institutional Strategies for Physical Education be approved
  • Revised course CSC 425: Operating Systems be approved
  • Revised course REC 301: Internship I be approved
  • Revised program Computer Science be approved
  • Revised program Computer Information Systems be approved

Writing Across the Curriculum (WACC)

WACC minutes of 2/9/06 were accepted, pending changes that were accepted by Shelly Bochain, chair of WACC.

WACC has been looking at statistics, and has determined that of the 118 L-courses offered in the Spring 06 schedule, only 20 courses meet the "W" criteria.  The committee anticipates as many as 90 proposals from Arts & Sciences alone in the near future.  UCF representatives are encouraged to let their departments know that previously approved L-courses will no longer be able to run unless instructors submit proposals to WACC by January 2008.

Notifications Management (NMC)

NMC minutes of 2/23/06 were accepted.

NMC has received a letter from the Biology department regarding the CSC 421: Bioinformatics proposal and has agreed to provide copies of this letter for the UCF body. This course is still under discussion by NMC.

The following motions were approved unanimously:

  • Revised course EXS 394: Physical Ed (Elementary School) be approved
  • Revised course EXS 495: Physical Ed (Secondary School) be approved
  • Revised course NUR 409: Community Health Nursing
  • Revised course BIO 435: Developmental Biology be approved
  • Revised course PHY 200: General Physics I be approved
  • Revised course PHY 201: General Physics II be approved
  • Revised course PHY 210: College Physics be approved
  • New course IDS 470: Literacy in the Content Areas be approved
  • Program revision in BS-Exercise Science (Teacher Certification) be approved
  • Program revision in BS-Nursing be approved

New Programs and Innovations (NPIC)

NPIC minutes from 2/23/06 were accepted.

NPIC logged the following New Special Topics courses:

  • ENV 398: Environmental Systems Inquiry
  • JRN 398: Current Controversies in News
  • PHI 398/ FRE 398: Contemporary French Philosophy in Paris

Program Review and Assessment (PRAC)

PRAC minutes from 2/23/06 were accepted.

PRAC reminded members that the latest Assessment Workshop will be held on March 8th at 1:00.  Location TBA.

VII.     Other Reports

General Education Task Force

Due to a conflict in meeting times, no representatives from the task force were present to present the report, but it was distributed to members.  Nikos Chrissidis added that he had spoken to Jim Tait from the task force and learned that the response to the call for focus-group participants had not been strong.  He said the response was strong from some departments, but not from others.  He suggested members announce this to their departments.

Ad Hoc Committee on the Standards Document

Rachael Vaters-Carr announced that the committee has been noting inconsistencies in UCF forms and directions.  They continue to work to promote a sense of consistency by looking closely at the language.

Old Business

The following motion was presented by the Steering Committee:

 

  • In the review of curricular proposals, School Curriculum Committees (SCCs) shall abide by published UCF standards and guidelines.  These standards are considered to be a core set of minimal requirements for curricular proposals, and no subtractions from them are acceptable.  If, by faculty referendum, a school approves additions to the above, the UCF will be responsible for publishing these additional standards and guidelines.  The SCCs will be responsible for ensuring that curricular proposals meet these additional requirements.

Discussion ensued.

An amendment, the language of which was composed by Mark Heidmann, was proposed by Nicole Henderson:

 

  • In the review of curricular proposals, School Curriculum Committees (SCCs) shall abide by published UCF standards and guidelines.  These standards are considered to be a core set of minimal requirements for curricular proposals, and no subtractions from them are acceptable.  If, by faculty referendum, a school recommends additions to the above and the UCF votes to accept the recommendation, the UCF will be responsible for publishing these additional standards and guidelines.  The SCCs will be responsible for ensuring that curricular proposals meet these additional requirements.

The amendment was approved with 3 abstentions, and discussion ensued.

In discussion, it was noted that our original purpose in composing this motion was to ensure that the SCCs continued to abide by UCF guidelines.  Some members felt the motion was getting away from this basic principle.

Joe Manzella moved an amendment to strike everything in the motion but the first line, turning the motion into the following:

  • In the review of curricular proposals, School Curriculum Committees (SCCs) shall abide by published UCF standards and guidelines.


The amendment was approved with one opposed and one abstention. 

Time ran out, and the motion was left on the table.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 10:53 a.m.

 

Minutes recorded by Nicole Henderson, Secretary for UCF