Undergraduate Curriculum Forum (UCF)

Minutes 4/17/03 (revised)

Present:

J. Manzella, C. Wieder, J. Pang, G. Kowalczyk, G. DeJarnette, S. DiFrancesco, R. Glinka, H. Podnar, J. Tait, C. Coron, J. Halstead, B. Achhpal, N. Marano, M. Shea, N. Henderson, J. Yang, D. Soneson, C. Lukinbeal, T. Paddock, M. Thompson, N. Disbrow, W. Shyam, J. Fields, R. Mugno, K. Burke, R. Page, S. Lueder, T. Gemme, S. Bochain, K. Buterbaugh, C. Durwin, V. Breslin, J. Bloch, E. Johnston, W. Elwood, L. Lancor, C. Ogbaa, C. Barrett, J. Mielczarski, M. Heidmann, P. Smith, K. Gatzke, K. Swenson

I. Call to Order

Jim Tait called the meeting to order at 9:40 a.m.

II. Announcements

This is the end of the three-year term that UCF members serve. The end of May, a new group of UCF members will be moving in, and we will have elections for new UCF officers on the last meeting.

There will be a Gen Ed forum with students sharing their opinions on Monday, April 28th. Contact Nicole Henderson or Cara Hood for more details. The Gen Ed taskforce will be meeting to solicit faculty and student feedback on Gen Ed goals on Friday, May 2 at 2:00 p.m., in the Eureka room, Engleman D 125.

III. Approval of Meeting Minutes

The UCF minutes from 4/3/03 were approved.

IV. Standing Committee Reports

Steering Committee

Troy Paddock is leading an effort to improve the flow of proposals.

Notifications Management (NMC) minutes of 4/10/03 were accepted, with one revision.

The approval of PSY 487L refers to approval of the course, not approval of the L writing intensive status of the course, and the sentence implying otherwise should be deleted.

New Programs and Innovations (NPIC) minutes of 3/28/03 and 4/10/03 were accepted, with one addition, and one stipulation:

In addition, THR 498 was approved.

The stipulation is that interdisciplinary minors will be discussed at the next UCF meeting.

Program Review and Assessment (PRAC) minutes of 4/10/03 and 4/11/03 were accepted

University-wide Impact (UWIC) minutes of 4/10/03 were accepted.

V. Constitutional Revisions

Jim reviewed the constitutional revisions recommended by the Senate. Discussion centered around the inclusion of "and the president of the university" to Article V:D, that addressed who must approve amendments to the UCF constitution. After discussing Senate policy and faculty governance issues, the majority of the UCF indicated they did not care one way or the other, and if the Senate wanted that language in, they could have it in.

A motion to approve the revisions made to the constitution, pending edits for stylistic consistency, was made, seconded and passed: 31 were in favor, 0 opposed, and 1 abstained.

VI. The WACC proposal

The ad hoc committee chair reviewed the feedback provided by sense of the body votes on specific issues taken at the last UCF meeting, and decided not to make modification to the proposal. The proposal stands as written, and should be accepted or rejected accordingly.

Jim noted that the writing committee was formed because of complaints that our grads can't write. The reputation is bad for students and bad for the university. Poor writing remains a problem, due to syllabus migration to untrained instructors, the use of L courses to leverage enrollment, and faculty who refuse to teach writing in writing courses.

The writing board was a pilot program designed to take a new approach to build a cohort of faculty to teach writing across the curriculum. These faculty would be dedicated to the task in their courses, supported by workshops, and membership in this cohort would be obtained by submission of the syllabus.

Phil Smith noted that the focus on developing and supporting a cultural of writing has been sidetracked as the conversation has wandered away onto other issues. The focus needs to be how to best support writing for the students. As we move forward on this in some way, we need to recapture some of the enthusiasm.

Faculty discussed the following issues:

Can the program really address the problem of writing in the classroom without some kind of monitoring or evaluation function?

Should we accept students who can't write in the first place?

Is there any conclusive proof that the program works, and student writing skills improve?

Mark Heidmann noted these same arguments have been discussed for the past 5 years, and called the question. 14 were in favor, 11 opposed, and 6 abstained. This did not represent the 2/3 majority necessary to call the question.

Rob Page noted that the one thing faculty indicated interest in at the last meeting, was a need for monitoring and evaluation of L courses, to make sure that writing standards were being taken seriously.

The meeting ended without a vote on the proposed structure of the writing program. Discussion will continue at the May 1st UCF meeting.

VII. Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 10:50 a.m.

Minutes recorded by:

Robert Page, UCF Secretary

Items for Further Discussion

Should the UCF adopt the NPIC resolution for tracking interdisciplinary minors?: "Be it resolved that the administration mandates the Office of the Registrar to establish a procedure to identify, track and certify minors."

Should the UCF adopt Robert's Rules of Order? The Senate uses it, and we report to the Senate.

When should courses receive different credit loads (for labs, writing intensiveness, etc.)?