Undergraduate Curriculum Forum (UCF)
Minutes 9/30/04 (revised)
Present
C. Wieder, J. Feng, G. Kowalczyk, G. DeJarnette, R. Glinka, H. Podnar, K. Barrett, T. Fleming, A. Abugri, B. Achhpal, N. Marano, N. Henderson, M. Shea, M. Fede, E. Schmitt, L. Yacher, N. Chrissidis, W. Shyam, J. Fields, R. Mugno, S. Bochain, K. Gatzke, K. Cummings, K. Buterbaugh, K. Marsland, M. Vancour, R. Hunter, S. Jackson, J. Tait, W. O'Brien, P. Whelan, C. Barrett, J. Mielczarski, L. Kohrn, K. Laing, M. Heidmann, K. Mauro, N. Disbrow
I. Call to Order
The meeting was called to order at 9:45 a.m.
II. Announcements
Joe Fields announced that President Norton had given faculty time at the exercise facilities.
III. Approval of UCF Minutes of 9/16/04
The UCF minutes of 9/16/04 were approved.
IV. Reception of Standing Committee Minutes and Approval of Standing Committee Motions
Steering Committee
No report.
Notifications Management (NMC)
The NMC minutes of 9/23/04 were received.
The following NMC motions were approved:
1. "That the course ANT 214/FLA 214/PSC 214 be approved"
2. "That the course ANT 374/FLA 374/ WMS 374 be approved"
3. "That the program revisions to the BS and BA programs in Biology be approved"
New Programs and Innovations (NPIC)
No report.
Program Review and Assessment (PRAC)
The PRAC minutes of 9/23/04 were received.
PRAC would like faculty input about what role they should play in the assessment process. Should it remain as it is, primarily a monitoring body? Or should it become more active in the assessment process? Jim Tait said he would be interested in having PRAC present the information from the freshman survey, and pointed out that PRAC is raising a larger question about the role of UCF: do we want to take the role of reviewing programs? Joe Fields said we will put this on the agenda for a later meeting.
University-Wide Impact (UWIC)
No report.
Writing Across the Curriculum (WACC)
WACC announced that they are just beginning to see what their agenda will be for this semester and that the recommendations from the spring will be looked at again.
V. CAPP Demonstration
Lynn Kohrn and Kim Laing demonstrated the Curriculum Advising Program Planning (CAPP) capabilities.
They announced that faculty can go into to CAPP through faculty services (advising) and do a compliance program against a student's transcript to see which requirements have been met (AURs and major) in their degree programs.. In addition, a student transcript can be matched up against any academic program by using the "what if" analysis.
They demonstrated how the CAPP analysis will show which requirements (AURs and major) are not met by showing them in red. Lynn pointed out the note on the Exercise Science requirement under University Requirements that states, "One course is waived with 12 transfer credits. Two courses are waived with 24 transfer credits." Even though the student may have the transfer credits to meet this requirement, it will still say, "Not met." However, the number of transfer credits is noted in the top portion of the audit. They are working on an enhancement that will show when this requirement has been waived with transfer credits.
There is also a section at the bottom, showing how many L-course requirements have been met. The "courses not used" section lists courses that were initially taken, but from which the student has withdrawn or failed. They also said that the "printer-friendly" version of CAPP is not as printer-friendly as the other version at this point.
Lynn Kohrn (26918) and Kim Laing (28833) will come to department meetings and go through the details for any department that requests this. Department chairs should contact them.
VI. The Question of Enfranchising Interdisciplinary Programs
We returned to a question, raised at the last meeting, about whether programs, as well as departments, should have representation on the UCF. There has been interest from Liberal Studies, Women's Studies, and Urban studies. The chair raised the concern that if we enfranchise several of these programs, we grow our membership, and we have already had trouble getting quorums. He also pointed out the problem of cross-representation, since representatives would belong to other departments, and this may cause a concern about over-representation in certain departments.
Another member suggested we consider only enfranchising interdisciplinary programs that grant degrees; Liberal Studies is the only one of these.
Shirley Jackson raised the concern that if we deny these programs membership, then we are denying these programs, which all offer their own courses, representation on the body that approves these courses.
Karen Cummings suggested that we consider having one representative for all the interdisciplinary programs. Mark Heidmann agreed and suggested the programs get together and select one representative. He pointed out that others could be invited in for relevant issues.
Shirley Jackson expressed concern that if we elect not to enfranchise programs due to the quorum issue, programs are being penalized for a failure of this body to get a quorum, which does not seem fair. Mike Shea agreed that we should not be voting based on quorum issues, but pointed out that a lot of departments already have many different programs within them that already end up being represented by the UCF representative for that department, and that this seems like a rationale for the one-representative-for-all-programs suggestion. Mark Heidmann agreed and argued that the one-representative would not be there to pretend there is consensus between programs, but to articulate their constituency views, including conflicting views.
Jim Tait pointed out that we already have two petitions from Liberal Studies and Women's Studies that need to be acted upon individually, not necessarily as part of a larger issue. Kevin Buterbaugh suggested that we let the programs decide if they want to be represented and then we vote on a case-by-case basis.
Mark Heidmann pointed out that we are currently caught between two constitutions. The new one has a provision for adding representation, but the old one does not, so he suggested we may want to wait for a vote on this issue.
Leon Yacher suggested that UCF request definitions of these programs, definitions which are not currently clear or consistent, in order to understand the issue more fully. He asked that UCF make a written request to the administration for clear definitions of the programs. The chair said he would request this statement from the administration.
Chuck Wieder pointed out that regardless of the definitions, the UCF may want to recognize these bodies, even if the administration does not.
The chair said we will continue the discussion at the next UCF meeting.
VII. Adjournment
The meeting adjourned at 10:45 a.m.
Minutes recorded by Nicole Henderson, Secretary for UCF
