Undergraduate Curriculum Forum
Minutes
Adanti Student Center 301A
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Present: D. Weiss (chair), G. Cochenet, G. Kowalczyk, R. Glinka, A. Abugri, N. Marano, N. Henderson, T. Fleming, D. Marino, E. West, B. Nakamura, T. Radice, R. Mugno, R. Conforti, K.Laird, L. Rebeschi, K. Lacey, D. Flynn, K. Gatzke, K. Cummings, J. O'Hara, K. Marsland, R. Hunter, J. Terpstra, M. Cameron, C. Rosado, J. Mielczarski, K. Rondinone, A. Marsoobian, J. Fields, D. Tomasko, J. Cheng, K. Laing, A. Scott, M. Geelan, M. Heidmann
Absent: M. Narumanchi, J. Manzella, S. Grace, S. Felsenfeld, I. Antonios, M. Generali,C. Coron, E. Schmitt, J. McGinn, C. Simoneau, R. Kustin, J. Irving, D. Pettigrew, J. Sullivan, T. Lin, M. Shea, S. Graves, K. Mauro
I. The meeting was called to order at 9:43 am.
II. Approval of Minutes from February 21, 2008 - Minutes were approved with one abstention, after the following correction:
New Business discussion on FYE: "The policy for faculty release time for those who teach FYE was reviewed" was changed to "The policy for faculty incentives for those who teach FYE was discussed."
III. Standing committee reports and acceptance of minutes; votes on standing committee motions
a. NMC - Minutes were received
b. NPIC
• Minutes were corrected as follows and then received:
HIS 398, Early China will be taught in Spring 2009, not Fall 2008
SOC 398 corrected to SOC 298
• Fifteen special topics courses were presented and logged. They appear in the NPIC minutes.
• The following motion was made by NPIC -
NPIC moves to create a generalized description for all special topic shell courses (XXX 298, 398, 498), available to all departments without having to submit a new/revised course proposal, which would appear in one location in the Undergraduate catalog.
After a short discussion, it was apparent that there were several issues that still needed to be addressed by the committee. The motion was tabled and will return to the committee for further consideration.
• Dr. Weiss requested that all UCF representatives inform their departments that although special topics courses may be taught up to 3 times, each time the course is taught, new paperwork needs to be submitted to UCF. Some departments and faculty have mistakenly assumed that once a ST course has been approved it can be taught a total of 3 times based upon the initial application.
c. UWIC - No minutes - committee did not meet
d. PRAC - Minutes were corrected as follows and then received:
Elana Schmitt should have been marked as present at the meeting.
e. WACC - Minutes were received
A Motion was made to approve the following W courses:
GEO 311 - Geography of the United States and Canada
Faculty: J. Hanson
Committee Recommendation: Approved
Committee Vote: 9-0
GEO 362 - Urban Geography
Faculty: P.C. Heidkamp
Committee Recommendation: Approved
Committee Vote: 9-0
ESC 204 - Environmental Earth Science
Faculty: C. Coron
Committee Recommendation: Revise and Resubmit
Committee Vote: 9-0
The Motion was approved with one abstention
A Motion was made by WACC to Revise the W-Course exigency policy as follows:
New Language:
NOTE: This represents the usual procedure. However, it is understood that unforeseen scheduling difficulties or other issues may occasionally occur. Some examples of these difficulties include the following: illness of an instructor, a new hire teaching a required W class in the major, or an instructor who leaves Southern Connecticut State University suddenly. This list of exceptions is not meant to be exhaustive. There may be other types of issues that create an immediate need for the replacement of a W course instructor. When this need arises, an instructor can be substituted into a W course for the semester in which the need occurs. The instructor will be required to go through the normal W course process in order to teach the course in subsequence semesters.
• The following correction was made: "an instructor can be substituted" was changed to read "an instructor may be substituted"
• It was suggested that the policy include who should be contacted when a substitution occurs
• The following correction was made: "subsequence" changed to "subsequent."
After listening to the suggestions Dr. Marsland moved to table the motion. It will return to WACC for further discussion and revision.
IV. Old Business - There was no old business.
V. New Business
Dr. Weiss presented and opened discussion on the report from the Steering Committee Meeting, March 4, 2008 which primarily addressed the role of the School Curriculum Committees (SCC) in the flow of curriculum proposals for new and revised courses and revised programs. The central question dealt with whether the SCC layer should be eliminated from the flow of proposals. This would result in proposals going directly from the Department Curriculum Committees to the Notifications Management Committee of UCF.
A Motion was made by the Steering Committee as follows:
The UCF Steering Committee moves that proposals for new and revised courses and revised programs flow from the Department Curriculum Committees directly to the Notifications Management Committee of UCF. The School Curriculum Committees would no longer participate in this review process.
The UCF began discussion on the motion which will be continued at the next meeting.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:51 am.
