Undergraduate Curriculum Forum
Minutes
Adanti Student Center, Room 301A
Thursday,
April 2, 2009
Present: Deborah Weiss (Chair), Y. del Amo, M. Das, O. Gulacar, S. Felsenfeld, R. Glinka, L. Foss, A. Abugri, N. Marano, M. McClain, C. Coron, E. Schmitt, E. West, B. Nakamura, J. McGinn, C. Simoneau, M. Hartog, D. Flynn, R. Cain, D. Pettigrew, K. Gatzke, K. Marsland, D. Smith, G. Adams, J. Sullivan, J. Mielczarski, K. Barnett, G. Cochenet, K. Rondinone, M. Shea, D. Tomasko, K. Laing, B. Kalk,
Absent: M. Narumanchi, K. Skoczen, R. Vaters-Carr, S. Grace, I. Antonios, M. Fede, W. O'Brien, E. Frank, R. Kustin, J. Irving, L. Rebeschi, K. Cummings, J. O'hara, J. Tait, M. Kiarie, M. Cameron, T. Lin, J. Fields, S. Graves A. Marsoobian, D. Bentley-Drobish, Q. Bright
Guests:
I. The meeting was called to order at 9:35am.
II. Announcements
• D. Pettigrew announced the Holocaust Remembrance events from Apr 20-24. There will be a lecture Monday, a ceremony Tuesday (3:15-4:30), a book panel Wednesday, a showing of the movie The Pianist, and a lecture Thursday by Rafael Lefkin. He reminded us to please check the Faculty Calendar for more information.
• D. Carroll announced that WACC has five winners of the writing contest from 34 submissions.
1st: Bob Uhl $200
2nd: Robin McCombe $150
3rd: Jessica Forcier $100
Honorable Mention: Dana Rozanski $25 Gift Card
Honorable Mention: Colin Ryan $25 Gift Card
• D. Carroll noted a potential problem with the 1,000 word minimum for the Writing Contest. WACC will qualify this word minimum next year, perhaps by allowing more than one paper for a total of 1,000 words.
• She said that WACC is finalizing the speakers for the summer Teaching Academy and Leslie Golden will be coming to help us target more W-courses for math and science.
• K. Marsland is excited about Jean Twenge's visit April 3 in ENA120. The talk is from 1-2, there is a small group discussion for students at 2:30, and faculty are invited for a discussion in B121 at 3:30.
III. Approval of UCF minutes of March 12, 2009
• All approved minutes, pending edits, with 3 abstentions.
IV. Standing committee reports (minutes and committee motions)
a. NPIC - minutes received
• K. Laing noticed that there is a trend towards long subtitles on classes which is not printed on the transcripts.
• Special topics deadlines are for Spring by November 1st and for fall semesters are due by March 1st. E. Schmidt was concerned that the deadlines are too late to find available rooms. Another member mentioned that the special topics courses are by design easier to approve so the deadlines are later to allow more flexibility.
b. NMC - minutes received
• NMC has several motions:
New Course Proposal
ART 493 - Senior Exhibition
MDS 324 - Reading Film II: Approaches to International Film
Revised Course Proposal
MAT 102 - Intermediate Algebra (Extended)
MAT 375 - Abstract Algebra I
MAT 376 - Abstract Algebra II
Revised Program Proposal
B.S. Studio Art
• All approved the motions with no abstentions.
• NMC mentioned that the next 3 meetings will be filled with current proposals and that any proposals sent in from now on will be addressed at the beginning of the fall semester.
• K. Laing mentioned that when Program Revisions are approved, the revisions begin at the start of the next fall semester. Prerequisite changes occur at the start of the next semester, but if registration has already begun, the prerequisite goes into effect the following semester.
• NMC is testing electronic submissions and will report on the progress at the next meeting.
c. WACC - minutes received
• Several W classes were submitted for approval:
Course: WMS 100 The Dynamics of Race, Class and Gender
Faculty: Susan D'Onofio
Course: PSY 227 Social Psychology
Faculty: Gayle Bessenoff
• All approved motion.
• WACC mentioned that there are 130 W courses for the fall which is more than the L courses we had, though they are hoping to get more courses across all levels of the university.
d. PRAC - minutes received
• MOTION - PRAC recommends approval of Department of Psychology Undergraduate Program Review.
• All approved motion with no abstentions.
e. UWIC - no meeting but UCF tabled the motion from the previous meeting.
Motion: UWIC moves that the UCF approve a three-person committee to explore the desirability of creating a General Studies Program at Southern Connecticut State University. The UCF steering committee shall select the committee from volunteers representing the following constituencies: Office of Academic Affairs, the Dean of Arts and Sciences Office, and the faculty at large. The committee will report its findings to UWIC before the end of Fall 2009.
• M. Shea opened up discussion with an explanation of this motion. The Dean of Arts & Sciences is interested in a General Studies program that addresses the needs of students that are in the Liberal Studies program but who are not aligned with the Liberal Studies program. Students in the Liberal Studies program decide in their sophomore year to take 3 minors to create an interdisciplinary major. Many students are using Liberal Studies to create a major after they have taken a majority of their classes and are not completing a 3 minor area of study. The Dean hopes that by creating a General Studies degree, the Liberal Studies program can focus on the needs of the interdisciplinary students and General Studies will address the needs of students who do not have a field of study chosen, are unable to complete a minor (perhaps due to the high GPA), or have enough credits to graduate but no one field in which to graduate. UWIC recommended that a 3 person committee discuss the possibility of having a General Studies program here at Southern.
• Another member mentioned that this program could be designed for students who meet the 2.0 requirement of the university but many departments have higher requirements that some students are unable to meet.
• D. Carroll does not want to create just a "dumping ground" for students.
• D. Pettigrew wanted to be sure that the idea of a 3 person committee where 2 are administration is appropriate for a decision that would affect faculty.
• K. Gatzke said that this is an exploratory committee that will probably need to do the work over the summer to submit their results by Fall 2010.
• D. Weiss prefers more faculty involvement and is wondering who would be interested.
• M. Shea reminded us that they are reporting to UWIC only, not making any decisions about the program, just on the possibility of a program at Southern.
• B. Kalk mentioned that Dean Fredeen has volunteered to be on the committee as the member from the Dean of Arts and Sciences Office, as has Frank Ladore as the member from the Office of Academic Affairs.
• All approved the motion.
V. Ad hoc reports (per committee request)
On-line and hybrid courses - Jane McGinn
• This committee has discovered some issues with our online and hybrid courses.
• First the logistics. There is no method in place to determine how many courses we have that are online, how many courses are hybrid and there is no process for approving online courses.
• The Grad Council has offered some definitions for these courses: online courses are 100% online, hybrid meet a few times on campus, and onground are campus-based courses that may use online information in their courses.
• These are some of the ideas the committee wants to discuss: determining methods for improving online instructors, creating a course proposal - similar to WACC - to approve of online courses, determining the best practices for online courses, aiding instructors on preparing an online course, creating office hour policies for online courses (especially if all courses are online), determining course evaluations (currently there are none that work with computers off-campus).
• They plan to start this discussion and move forward with possible solutions for the online/hybrid programs at Southern.
VI. New Business - Open discussion re UCF priorities. Due to time, this discussion was tabled.
VII. Adjournment at 11:00am
Minutes respectfully submitted by Kathleen Rondinone.
These minutes have been approved on April 16, 2009.
