200 Bricker Hall
April 19, 2006
3:00-5:00pm
MINUTES
Present:
Professors: Lora Gingerich Dobos, Richard Gunther, Kay Halasek, Raymond Noe, Margaret McMahon, Raymond Noe (Chair), Electra Paskett, Nancy Reynolds, W. Randy Smith (Vice Chair), Harald Vaessin, George Valco, Brian Winer
Student Members: Jane Evans (Council of Graduate Students); Kevin Freeman (Inter-Professional Council), and Elaine Yeh (Undergraduate Student Government)
Guests: Professor Ashley Schafer, Austin E. Knowlton School of Architecture; Professor David Horn, Chair, Department of Comparative Studies; Jefferson R. Blackburn-Smith, Senior Associate Director, Undergraduate Admissions and First Year Experience; Jessica Mercerhill, Director, Curriculum Office, Colleges of the Arts and Sciences; Jed Dickhaut, Associate Registrar, University Registrar’s Office
MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF APRIL 5, 2006
Dobos moved approval of the Minutes of the Meeting of March 1, 2006 and Valco seconded the motion. With a small editorial change, the proposal carried with three abstentions.
COMMENTS FROM THE CHAIR – PROFESSOR RAYMOND A. NOE
• There were no comments.
COMMENTS FROM THE VICE CHAIR – PROFESSOR W. RANDY SMITH
• Congratulated Gunther on receiving the University Distinguished Scholar Award.
• The proposal to merge the School of Public Policy and Management with the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy was approved by the Board of Trustees on April 7, 2006. Effective July 1, 2006, it will be the John Glenn School of Public Affairs.
• Three proposals currently under review by Subcommittees will need review and action by the University Senate’s Faculty Council. If the goal is to have them implemented by July 1, 2006, given the Faculty Council meeting schedule, they will need to be on the agenda of the May 4, 2006 meeting. The proposals are to:
Create a School of Earth Sciences
Establish a Department of Urology
Merge of the Colleges of Education and Human Ecology
• The Honors and Scholars Center has requested an exemption to the current guidelines for honors embedded courses. The Regional Campuses want to be able to offer honors embedded versions of existing courses that have an honors designation but only when they are offered in “off quarters” (quarters when the existing honors version is not being offered). Council members had no objections, as long as this exemption from the current guidelines applied only to Regional Campuses.
PROPOSAL TO REQUEST AN ADDITIONAL DEGREE DESIGNATION FOR THE MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE: MASTER OF ARCHITECTURAL STUDIES – PROFESSOR RAYMOND A. NOE AND W. RANDY SMITH, SUBCOMMITTEE D
Smith commented that this was a follow-up discussion to the meeting of April 5, 2006. The Graduate School had approved the establishment of a new name for one of the current tracks leading to the Master of Architecture. The new name would better reflect the special nature of this track. Council members had asked to see the curriculum for both tracks before acting on the proposal.
GUEST: PROFESSOR ASHLEY SCHAFER, AUSTIN E. KNOWLTON SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
Schafer was asked to clarify the one-year program. She said that students who had
already completed a three-year program in Architecture would be eligible for the one-year track. It would be a more focused program.
• Council members noted that there is also a two-year program. Schafer commented that this is for students who already had some exposure to architectural coursework or experiences.
• Why would a student want to take the one-year program? It would provide more than the general architecture program, it would have a sub-topic focus. Would students have the flexibility to take it? Are studios offered when needed? Schaffer said if students want to come back, the faculty will provide what is needed. They will expand the offerings as needed and have the faculty to do it.
• Will you be recruiting and advertising the program as a focused area? Yes.
• The courses in the three-year track are the same as the one-year track. What if students have already taken 701 and 630? Schafer could not comment on that specific issue.
Smith commented that the program already exists and that Council was only being asked to rename it.
Council Discussion:
If this proposal is approved it has to be made clear that any changes to the track will have to come back to the Graduate School and to Council for approval. Several Council members believed that the proposal was presented in the wrong order, that the changes to the track should have been submitted first, or along with the name change. It should have been more carefully developed.
Subcommittee D recommended approval, Yeh seconded the motion, and it carried unanimously. Smith will notify the School that any changes to the program will have to be brought back to the Graduate School and Council for approval.
UPDATE ON THE FINAL REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE UNIVERSITY-WIDE REVIEW OF UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION – PROFESSOR W. RANDY SMITH, VICE CHAIR
Smith summarized the timeline for review of the Final Report of the Committee on the University-wide Review of Undergraduate Education. The Report was issued on November 15, 2005. The Provost asked for comments by March 15, 2006. Various groups have been meeting on the Report. All Colleges are to respond by the first week in May 2006. The Colleges of the Arts and Sciences has been intensely involved in discussions and is supportive of some small changes, eliminating the history sequence for example.
Smith said that he has convened college representatives from all 15 colleges that have undergraduate programs. He said the Report can be organized into bundles of recommendations: the 180 hours issue; changes in the structure and reduction of hours in the current GEC; flexibility; freshmen clusters; and oversight.
What can be generalized thus far is that: many tagged degree programs cannot reduce to 180 hours but could be reduced by 10 hours if the B.A. degree moves to 180 hours; there is support for the Freshman Cluster, but with suggested modifications to implementation; there is considerable support for flexibility in the curriculum but not the full range of options presented in the Report; and discussions are underway relating to oversight.
With regard to oversight, the Colleges of Arts and Sciences already has oversight of the GEC, but the Report recommended university-wide oversight through this Council. Smith suggested that the Arts and Sciences’ Committee could be embellished with people from the other colleges to become the University-level committee, and this approach is gaining support from all colleges.
Smith asked Council members what they thought of the oversight suggestion – recognizing that many details need to be worked out. They were supportive. Would membership rotate? Yes. Support for reduction to 180 hours needs to be accompanied by an explanation of how colleges would find those hours. Smith will provide Council with a summary of the comments that have been provide to the Provost to date.
Evans, a member of the Senate Fiscal Committee, commented that Council will be asked to work with it at some point soon. Noe and Smith already have been contacted. Will they be looking at the Report in a global sense or will colleges be looking at how they interact with graduate education and how graduate assistants will be affected? Evans said that the Committee discussed fiscal issues as they relate to 180 hours alone. Other fiscal issues will be addressed as formal curricular recommendations emerge.
CENTERS REVIEW
Smith updated Council on the work of an ad hoc committee chaired by Professor John Wilkins, a then-member of Council. A report was issued in 2003. There was general support for the proposal, but no steps for formal implementation had occurred through the University Senate.
The proposal recommends three types of centers: those housed within colleges that report directly to the Dean; those that are funded primarily by outside agencies through external grants; and centers that cut across colleges
In the proposal, only centers that have University-level funding and cut across colleges would need Council review. Others would only need to inform the Council through the Office of Academic Affairs.
Smith will have the Report sent to Council members for discussion at a forthcoming meeting.
PROPOSAL TO ESTABLISH AN UNDERGRADUATE MAJOR IN WORLD LITERATURES, COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES – PROFESSOR HARALD VAESSIN, CHAIR, SUBCOMMITTEE A
Vaessin said the major had been developed to introduce a new way of looking at world literatures. He said that Subcommittee A had asked several questions regarding a number of issues. One was why the major in the Department of Comparative Studies could not be used. They were told that this was the collaborative work of ten departments in the College of Humanities. The new major will differ from the existing major in that students will look at world literatures in five geographical regions. Students are not required to take a foreign language beyond 104, but they are encouraged to do more if they wish.
The subcommittee noticed that there were few concurrence letters, but later Horn provided additional letters from five departments. Subcommittee A recommended approval.
• Page 12, lists the goals of the major. How is this going to be achieved?
• Page 13, Section 6, first paragraph. Will this be accomplished through the GEC and electives in social and behavioral sciences?
• Page 22, requirements include two courses at the 200 level and three courses at the 300 level. Does this include 273 and 373?
• Page 21, all students are required to take 273, 373, 573. Is this meant to be a sequence?
• Page 26 is the list of courses. Is this comprehensive? Do they include the options and requirements?
DISCUSSION WITH PROFESSOR DAVID HORN, CHAIR, DEPARMENT OF COMPARATIVE STUDIES
Horn summarized the proposal noting that faculty in the Department had been discussing a new major for the past five years. Students would explore literature and global issues in different regions of the world using literature from those regions. The model is fairly new, and has been attracting attention in the national associations.
• Why not use the existing major in the Department? This major would be interdepartmental with courses from various units in the College of Humanities. Students would learn from literary texts from five regions of the world. Courses would be taught by a collection of faculty.
• Page 12 describes what will be offered, but is there a structured way this is going to be achieved? Students will not only focus on literatures in English, but translated text, and will study a combination of things; history, writing identities, and cultural differences. Advisers will assist students in doing this.
• Is there a capstone experience? Comparative Studies 573 attempts to achieve this goal. Students will have common reading assignments that will permit a lot of discussion and ideas. This course does not really come late enough in the major to help students pull together all the information? No.
• Comparative Studies 273, 373, 737 do not provide opportunities for a reading orientation to North America, Europe, Middle East, Asian, and the South Pacific. Do you see CS 273 and 373 as a place to give a broad overview? They are designed to get students to thinking cross culturally. We will be teaching them about diversity.
• In concurrences has anything been mentioned about teaching loads? No. There are existing arrangements with the Department of English. It has been relatively easy getting faculty to teach the other courses.
• There are limits on the 200 level courses. Would one of them be CS 273? Yes.
Certain courses have to be high level. The major includes course work that introduces students to economic and political challenges.
• Page 13. Will students get coursework in social and behavior sciences/humanities through GEC’s and electives? Yes. It is expected that students will take courses that are relevant to the major.
• Will the major have honors courses? No honors sections are available. We could talk to the departments about it.
• The list is a moving target. Courses keep getting added or changed. Departments have been asked to look at the list through a committee of faculty from several departments. Then the College of Humanities Curriculum Committee vigorously looked at it and pared down the list. We have a good consensus now of the offerings. Students are encouraged to take additional foreign languages, but none are listed beyond 104 is that right? Yes. It is unlikely that students will be able to do it, but through advising those students interested in the foreign languages may find opportunities. It might be helpful to put a note at the bottom of the list that says other options are available. Horn agreed.
Council Discussion:
One Council member said that he was somewhat disappointed that there was not a course at the end of the major to pull all of the learning together.
Subcommittee A moved approval, Halasek seconded the motion, and it carried unanimously.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:35pm.
Respectfully submitted,
W. Randy Smith
Joyce Rankin
