NPIC Minutes 2/21/02 meeting

Members present: Elwood, Fleming, Hawley, Lukinbeal, Paddock (Chair),

Wieder (recorder)

Special Topics Courses - Notifications received:

ART 498 --Collage, Paper and Books

ENV 498 --Life in the Shadow of Vesuvius

ENV 498 --Study Tour of Bermuda

HIS 298 --History of Ancient Greece

HIS 298 --History of Ancient Rome to Julius Caesar

HIS 398 --Military History II

JRN 398 --Campus TV News

ITA 498 --Urbino in Poetry and Literature

PSC 498 -- Teaching Tolerance

WMS 298 - Women's literature and history in the secondary classroom.

WMS 398 - 20th century Irish women writers.

Old Business

Paddock circulated a draft of the final version of the statement on the role of school deans in the program/course proposal review process, which was unanimously approved.

The previous paragraph read as follows:

Prior to the submission of any proposal, it must have been approved and signed by the chairperson(s) of the department sponsor(s), the chair of the appropriate departmental curriculum committee, the chair of the school curriculum committee (if it exists). These signatures attest, respectively, that the proposal was approved through proper departmental procedures and that the department and school have the resources to carry out the proposal or are committed to seeking the resources. Signature of the dean attests that she or he has been apprised of the proposal (early consultation is suggested).

The corrected version reads:

Prior to the submission of any proposal, it must have been approved and signed by the chairperson(s) of the department sponsor(s), the chair of the appropriate departmental curriculum committee, the chair of the school curriculum committee (if it exists). The signature of the Dean is also required. The former signatures attest, respectively, that the proposal was approved through proper departmental procedures and that the department and school have the resources to carry out the proposal or are committed to seeking the resources. Signature of the dean attests that she or he has been apprised of the proposal (early consultation is suggested).

New Business

Re the newly approved anthropology major, the committee was asked by UCF Chair Jim Tait to comment on a proposed change in the structure of SCSU's Sociology/Anthropology Department. The proposal recommends splitting the two areas of study within the department - sociology and anthropology - into two separate faculty units. It was unclear to what extent this restructuring plan was initiated by the constituent faculty members in Soc/Anthro. Discussion focused on the implications of this proposed restructuring on the plans for assessment of the Anthro major as stated in the program proposal, and other possible effects of the restructuring on the implementation of this new major. The committee authorized Paddock to draft a statement explaining why, in the committee's view, the proposal was premature.

There was also a preliminary discussion of a draft of a proposed German Studies Minor - toward establishing guidelines/criteria for the development of other Area Studies Minors.

Assignment: To review the (University-Wide) Academic Strategic Plan doc in preparation for discussion at upcoming UCF general meetings.

Statement on proposal to split the Anthropology/Sociology Department:

When NPIC approved of the proposal for the creation of the major in Anthropology in the Fall 2000 semester, it was aware of the long-term goal of establishing a separate Anthropology Department, and was (and still is) supportive of the idea. However, we do not believe that the split should occur at this time for the following reasons:

The Anthropology Program has not yet had the opportunity to fulfill the terms of the original proposal. The proposal called for a five-year assessment. We believe that given Southern CT State University's commitment to outcome based assessments that proposing to split a department before a single year since its approval by the CT Board of Education is premature. Students cannot yet declare a major in Anthropology. (They will be able to in the Fall 2002 semester.) The major cannot be accredited until the following year. It does not seem unreasonable to us to ask that decision to split the Anthro./Soc. department wait until the Anthropology program has had the opportunity to undergo an assessment.

The Program has not yet had the opportunity to acquire the resources necessary to complete its proposal. More specifically, the department has still not had the opportunity to hire a specialist in anthropological linguistics, which is crucial to its program since one of the areas of concentration is in precisely that field. It seems more prudent to have the program fully established before giving it the status of an independent department.

Budgetary considerations: If the Anthro./Soc. Department was unable to hire a specialist in linguistics this year due to the budgetary crisis, does it make sense to create additional expenses, however modest, for the creation of a new department when the original proposal itself has not been funded.

NPIC recognizes the tireless work of the entire anthropology faculty and is confident that it will develop into an outstanding program when it receives all of the support that it has been promised. But we feel that until that entire original proposal has been fulfilled and assessed, any discussion of splitting the Anthropology department away from Sociology is premature. There is nothing in the rationale to demonstrate either the tangible benefit to immediately splitting the program or the harm to waiting a few years to split the department. It should also be noted that it is not uncommon at the university level to have anthropology paired with another disciple, most commonly sociology or geography.