Undergraduate Curriculum Forum (UCF)

Minutes 2/10/05 (revised)

Present 

B. Horn, C. LaDousa, B. Phelan, R. Vaters-Carr, G. Kowalczyk, G. DeJarnette, S. DiFransesco, H. Podnar, A. Abugri, B. Achhpal, N. Marano, N. Henderson, M. Shea, D. Marino, E. Schmitt, L. Yacher, N. Chrissidis, N. Disbrow, W. Shyam, L. Bier, J. Fields, R. Mugno, K. Burke, R. Page, R. Kustin, M. Moss, S. Bochain, K. Gatzke, K. Cummings, K. Buterbaugh, C. Novosad, M. Vancour, R. Hunter, S. Jackson, J. Tait, W. O'Brien, J. Mielczarski, L. Kohrn, K. Mauro, T. Fleming, P. Gallup (guest), D. Pettigrew (guest), T. Gemme (guest), D. Sonenson (guest)

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

II.        Announcements

The next cinema du monde will be held on Wednesday, 2/16 at 7:35 p.m. in ENA120 (Where the Green Arts Dream directed by Werner Herzog). The event will be hosted by Bob Workman.
The chair explained that we will eventually replace all "L" courses with "W" courses and that we will have a discussion about this at a later date.
The chair asked us to consider an existing rule - that university requirements for "L" courses cannot be met with special topics courses.  He asked us to discuss with our departments changing this rule to allow special topics courses to meet the AURs for "L" courses (or what will eventually become "W" courses).  We'll be discussing this at a later date.
 

III.       Approval of UCF Minutes of 1/27/05
The UCF minutes of 1/27/05 were approved unanimously.

IV.       Reception of Standing Committee Minutes and Approval of Standing Committee Motions
Steering Committee

No report.

Notifications Management (NMC) 

The NMC minutes of 2/3/05 were received.

    

Motion that revised course PCH 497: Advanced Concepts: Selected Health Issues for Practice be approved

Motion passed unanimously.

New Programs and Innovations (NPIC)

The NPIC minutes of 2/3/05 were received.

Program Review and Assessment (PRAC)

The PRAC minutes of 2/3/05 were received.

PRAC announced that Southern has been accepted as a "Campus Program" Affiliate of the Carnegie Foundation for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) and the American Association for Higher Education (AAHE).

University-Wide Impact Committee (UWIC)

The UWIC minutes of 2/3/05 were received.

UWIC is working on revision of the course proposal forms. 

Writing Across the Curriculum (WACC)

The WACC minutes of 2/3/05 were received.

WACC was given funding for a UA and they discussed that position.  They are also beginning to distribute copies of the 2004 writing contest booklet.

V.        Discussion of the draft document from the General Education Task Force

Dan Sonenson (co-chair, with Terese Gemme) thanked everyone for their input into the process of reconsidering the General Education Program (GEP).  He explained that the document distributed to UCF members represents their best efforts to synthesize those ideas and to fine-tune the document.  At this point, the committee is asking us to endorse these goals.  He also explained that this is still the first part (defining the goals of the GEP) of a three-stage process.

Mike Shea added that the meetings with departments and the UCF were not just helpful, but really exciting and dynamic. He thanked Mike Moss in particular for really seeing and pointing out the illogic in the original draft of this document. 

Karen Cummings questioned the category "Time and Place" under "Areas of Knowledge and Experience."  She said she couldn't figure out what this is intended to mean.  Dan explained that this was meant to indicate history or historical change.  He explained that the committee purposely tried to avoid using terms that suggested disciplinary boundaries.  A discussion ensued around this issue.  Certain members, including Dave Pettigrew, worried that the document seemed to reflect too much of a sense of being in the "eternal present."  He expressed concern over the absence of the word "history."  Others members had similar concerns.  Suggestions were made to include the word "history" and to change the word "space" to "location."  Leon Yacher explained that the idea of using "time and place" is to think in terms of how time progresses and the meaning of cause and effect.  He emphasized the idea that any event that takes place can change the meaning of everything.  The purpose of avoiding the use of the term "history" is to open the door to everything temporal.  He explained that the use and notion of "space" is the same issue. 

Dave Pettigrew was also concerned that the terms "research" and "humanities" were missing from the document.  He pointed out that these terms are explicitly used in the documents of other universities, particularly to indicate a way of thinking about themselves.  He worried that, for instance, the absence of the word "research" might reflect the image of Southern as a university unconcerned with research, an identity Southern has grappled with in the past.

Mike Shea explained that a curriculum built on this model, whether or not it contains the familiar terms, will contain more research, more history, and more humanities than the current curriculum.

A suggestion was made to add the more specific notions of research and creative activity to the closing statement where "thinking in innovative ways" is discussed.

Some confusion ensued over what the task force wanted us to do with this document.  Members wanted to know whether the task force was still open to suggestions for revision or whether they simply wanted us to debate whether or not to accept the document as is. 

Mike Shea explained that this is the document they'd like the university to endorse, despite its flaws. He emphasized that this document is not a curricular model, but a document upon which a curricular model would be built.  He pointed out that the section about "ongoing assessment" was meant to indicate that changes could be made as the process progressed, and even after a curricular model was adopted.  However, the task force did explain that the "competencies" section was still under construction, and while they were working on that, they would also be willing to take today's suggestions into consideration.

Ken Gatzke worried that document is so vague that it is impossible to oppose it.  He said that until the second part of this process takes place, he doesn't know what the document is or means, and he doesn't think anybody else does either.  He said he sees many elementary confusions in this document, including but not limited to a misunderstanding of the notion of "values."  He said we could only support this knowing it says nothing.  He said he has still yet to hear a real answer to what's wrong with the current GEP.

It was agreed that this document (with some revisions, particularly in the "competencies" section) would come back to us next week for more discussion and that a vote would not take place until the document was redistributed and reconsidered.  Next week's discussion is meant to be a debate about whether or not to support the document.  Only at a later date, after this discussion, will a vote take place.

Glenda DeJarnette asked us to look at the document and see if we can find the notions of "history" and "research" embedded in it and bring our results and thoughts to the next discussion.  Nikos Chrissidis suggested we also think about where we would place our own courses - existing ones and new ones - in this document.

Meeting adjourned at 10:47 a.m.

Minutes recorded by Nicole Henderson, Secretary for UCF