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Undergraduate Curriculum Forum (UCF)

Minutes 9/29/05

Present 

R. Vaters-Carr, J. Feng, G. Kowalczyk, R. Glinka, S. DiFrancesco, H. Podnar, A. Abugri, B. Achhpal, N. Marano, N. Henderson, M. Shea, D. Marino, E. Schmidt, E. West,  N. Chrissidis, N. Disbrow, N. Bobreck,  J. Fields, R. Mugno, K. Burke, C. Dellinger-Pate, R. Kustin, M. Moss, S. Bochain, M. Vancour, D. Flynn, K. Gatzke, K. Cummings, K. Buterbaugh, K. Marsland, R. Hunter, J. Kenty-Drane, J. Tait, C. Kim, W. O'Brien,  J. Mielczarski, L. Kohrn, K. Laing, A. Christopherson, M. Kurowski, M. Heidmann, K. Mauro, T. Lin

I.          Call to Order
The meeting was called to order at 9:40 a.m.

II.        Announcements

The chair announced that the final course bulletin for spring is being reviewed today.
The hail and farewell AAUP luncheon is today.
A Linguistics speaker will give a talk on "multilingualism and emotions" next Thursday from 3:30-4:45 in C112.
The chair and the body welcomed new student government representative, Adam Christopherson.  Mike Shea asked if the UCF invites student representatives outside of student government.  The chair said he would check on that.

III.       Approval of Minutes from  9/15/05

The minutes from 9/15/05 were approved pending the following changes:

Eric West is from Geography, not Geology
A typo in the last section should be workshops, not workshop.
 

IV.       Approval of Standing Committee Minutes from 9/22/05
Notifications Management(NMC)

NMC minutes of 9/22/05 were accepted, pending the addition of "Deborah Flynn" to the roster.

WMS 499 was not recommended by the committee at this time because it was missing a rationale and signature from the SCC.

The following motions were approved with one abstention.

  • Revised course JRN 311 be approved
  • Revised course PCH 432 be approved
  • Revised program BS in English with Certification to teach 7-12 be approved.

New Programs and Innovations (NPIC)

NPIC minutes from 9/22/05 were accepted.

NPIC recommended that the UCF forward an electronic version of the current form for Special Topics courses to every faculty member and the Department Curriculum Committees to advise them of the correct form to use.

The following Special Topics courses are presented and logged:

  • JRN 298-01 Introduction to Photojournalism
  • JRN 298-02 Television Sports Features
  • ITA 498/LIT 498 Politics of Desire
  • SPA 378 La Cultura Musical del Caribe

Program Review and Assessment (PRAC)

PRAC minutes from 9/22/05 were accepted.

PRAC is looking for volunteers for the following:

  • To present successful assessment strategies at upcoming workshops
  • To collect syllabi from members of their departments that use outcome-based assessment language

Writing Across the Curriculum (WACC)

WACC minutes of 9/22/05 were accepted.

The following motions were approved unanimously:

  • Media Studies 280: Media Issues and Problems, submitted by Ro Conforti be accepted as meeting "W" designation criteria
  • Women's Studies 100: Dynamics of Sex, Race, and Class submitted by Ilene Crawford be accepted as meeting "W" designation criteria.

It was explained that by the end of 2007, all writing-intensive courses are expected to meet the "W" designation and the "L" designation will be phased out.  During the interim period, both "W" and "L" designations will appear in the course bulletin and both will meet the requirement.  It was also explained that any courses approved as L-courses since 1998, will automatically meet the new "W" designation, whereas any L-courses approved before 1998 will need to be resubmitted to meet the "W" designation.  This is due to the revision of the standards in 1998.

V.        Discussion of Goals for the Upcoming Year

Members presented the following issues as goals for UCF discussion this year.

  • Plagiarism

Members expressed a need for the UCF to revisit the issue of plagiarism, possibly developing a clearer policy than the one currently in place, a policy that is consistent and clear about the consequences of the offense.  It was noted that when UWIC investigated this issue a couple of years ago, they found there were already other efforts taking place on campus, in the Senate and Student Affairs.  It was concluded that UWIC should find out the status of these discussions and report back to the UCF.  Some members felt that regardless of the Senate's discussion, UCF should have one of its own.  Other members felt that the UCF should be fully represented in the Senate discussion.

  • Online and Hybrid courses

Members expressed a need for a discussion about the standards for online and hybrid courses.  A spirited discussion about whether or not standards should be any different from on-ground courses took place.  It was noted that the issues coming up in the discussion represented the reason why a discussion was needed.  Confusion about which subcommittee should investigate this ensued.  It was suggested that an Ad Hoc committee might be the best choice, and members who are already teaching online courses urged the UCF to make sure they are strongly represented on such a committee, particularly since some who do not teach those courses seem to misunderstand the issues involved.

  • A Teaching and Learning Discussion

It was suggested that UCF begin a discussion about "teaching and learning," perhaps related to assessment, but most importantly, to discuss improvements and innovations in teaching. Some members felt the UCF hadn't taken up such a discussion in quite a while. Members agreed this was a good idea.

VI.       Discussion of draft "standards" document

The following thoughts and concerns were discussed in relation to the new "standards" document:

  1. A concern over the passage involving course ownership, particularly in relation to the sentence "No one owns a course" was raised.  A discussion about a faculty member's right to teach a course he or she develops ensued.  It was noted that an individual faculty member does not own sole right to teach a course that he or she authors, but that the department still has control over that course.  In other words, a faculty member could not decide he or she wants to teach a course authored by a member of another department.  It was suggested the sentence be changed to "No one individual owns a course," and that the sentence "Anyone determined qualified by his or her department may teach the course" be added in order to clarify that the department has control over the course.
  2.  It was suggested that due to the length and scope of the document, it should first go to a subcommittee for discussion.  However, it was decided the larger body should continue to discuss it due to the importance of the issues.  It was also suggested that representatives bring the document to their departments for feedback.  However, the chair, who drafted the document, explained that he wrote it with the UCF body as audience in mind and asked that, because of this, we first consider it here before bringing it to the department. He said he is aware of the controversial issues in the document, particularly involving assessment language, and would like to see us come to some agreement or disagreement before bringing to our departments.
  3. It was decided we would use the next two UCF meetings to focus on a discussion of the standards document.

VII.     Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 10:52 a.m.

Minutes recorded by Nicole Henderson, Secretary for UCF