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Undergraduate Curriculum Forum (UCF)

Minutes October 26, 2006

Present

J. Fields, Chair, A. Abugri, R. Vaters-Carr, G. Kowalczyk, J. Goralski, J. Scheuermann, K. Rondinone, E. Schmitt, R. Hunter, K. Mauro, K. Laing, J. Mielczarski, M. Heidmann, C. Suk Kim, L. Rebeschi, J. Feng, M. Kiarie, D. Marino, S. DiFrancesco, D. Flynn, M. Narumanchi, N. Chrissidis, T. Lin, D. Weiss, H. Podnar, N. Marano, M. Henderson, M. Shea, R. Kustin, E. West, D. Pettigrew, N. Novosad, N. Bobrek, W. Shyam, M. Geelan, and M. Rogers.

I.    Call to order - 9:41 a.m.

II.    Announcements

  • Tricia Lin, Women's Studies' Annual Conference will be held this weekend, Oct 27-28
  • Rachel Vaters-Carr, Art, City-Wide Art Council in New Haven - the last weekend is this weekend (Oct 28-29). There are studio spaces for art work to be viewed including some by Southern students at the old Hamden Middle School (New Hall St)

III.    Chair's Report

  • Spoke to Dr. Williams and was informed that there will be funding for a full-time position with UCF starting Jan 2007.
  • Dr. Williams will be coming today around 10 am to answer questions.
  • To save time, the chair recommended that subcommittee chairs highlight minutes of each meeting rather than reviewing all of the events.

IV.    The minutes of 10/12/06 are approved, pending revisions, with one abstention.

V.    Reception of standing committee minutes of 10/12/06

     NMC

  • Minutes were received
  • Motion was made to approve the courses as a block. Motion passed with one abstention.

     NPIC

  • Minutes were received
  • D. Weiss passed out special topics course form for approval by UCF.  Discussion ensued over the number of department votes category.
  • A motion was made that the section "number of department votes" be kept and the form accepted by UCF.
  • A substitute motion was made that special topics need not be put to full department.
  • During discussion, D. Weiss pointed out that this section had been on the original form.
  • There was a call to question and a motion to vote on the original motion (the form be accepted by UCF as is). The motion was approved with all but one abstention.

    PRAC

  •  Minutes were not received?

    UWIC

  • Minutes were received.
  • UWIC presented a motion that the bylaws be accepted.
  • A motion was made: "tabling acceptance of bylaws until bylaws from all committees are ready for approval". Discussion ensued. The motion was seconded and 5 approved, 1 abstained and the rest disapproved.  The motion was disapproved.
  • The original motion was stated: "UWIC bylaws be accepted as written until revisions are made" This motion passed with all but one abstention.

    WACC

  • Minutes were received and revisions were noted.
  • Motion to approve MGT 421 W. All but one abstention approved this motion.

VI. Other Reports

  • Ad hoc Committee on Standards
  • R. Vaters-Carr announced that the draft documents for all proprosal formats for UCF were being revised.

VII. Visit from Provost Williams

  • UCF presented three topics for discussion: the first year experience (FYE) task force, midterm grades, and the program review (assessment.) M. Shea requested a discussion before the others.
  • S. Williams explained the task force has created three scenarios for FYE.  The scenarios: a free-standing course taught by one person (either full-time, adjunct, or staff), a free-standing course taught by a full-time, a student, and staff (too 'rich' to maintain) and the FYE course as a hub around which students would take a block of classes (math, English, and foreign language for example) together and the instructor of the FYE course would be their advisor until they picked a major. The goal is to have 50-60 sections for all incoming freshmen so the second scenario is probably not feasible.
  • The course would be a content course, S. Williams continued, but it would focus on teaching study skills: note-taking, test taking, library research and other similar topics not specifically addressed in other courses.
  • J. Fields asked how this would change orientation. S. Williams explained that many students come to freshman orientation focused on pragmatic issues (i.e., roommate, parking pass) and may not be open to learning about how to succeed in college. Perhaps orientation is not the place to teach all of these things.  His goal is to spread out the information across freshman year.
  • M. Heidmann mentioned SEOP as an option that has worked well in the past.  Ideas from SEOP could be incorporated into FYE.
  • N. Henderson noticed that the placement event over the summer could be reframed as a process rather than testing experience as a better way to welcome them to SCSU.  She also wondered if there would be a teacher cohort as well as a student cohort.  S. Williams mentioned that faculty at his school met to discuss students but not as an official cohort that N. Henderson suggested.
  • J. Feng expressed concern that some of our stronger students might not need a class like this. S. Williams stressed that it was not intended to be a remedial course, but to identify students' strengths and weaknesses and help identify places to go on campus for support (Writing Center, Tutorial Centers).
  • J. Fields wondered about social issues brought up during orientation (sexual assault, diversity training, etc.) and S. Williams mentioned that these issues would not be specifically addressed in FYE, maybe as they come up in other discussions.
  • D. Pettigrew mentioned LINKS as another avenue to use ideas already in motion to enhance FYE. (Since LINKS is already in place, take some of their ideas to enhance FYE)
  • K. Laing brought up the issue of class credits: how many, is it pass/fail or a graded class, and should the grade impact GPA. S. Williams said it should be a 3 credit class, with grades that will impact GPA. R. Kustin asked if it would change the number of credits required and S. Williams did not think so. Discussion ensued about the number of credits available, and it seems that the FYE course would probably be listed as a general elective. K. Laing (?) asked that if the FYE class was given as a block, would the part-time freshmen students be exempt. Time ran out before this could be answered.
  • J. Fields made an official invitation for S. Williams to return to UCF.

VIII.    New business

  • No new business.

IX.    Adjournment 10:50 a.m.
 
Motion to adjourn. Seconded. Meeting adjourned at 10:50 a.m.
Minutes submitted by Kathleen Rondinone