February 1, 2006

200 Bricker Hall Printer-Friendly Version

February 1, 2006

3:00-5:00pm

MINUTES

Present Professors: Lora Gingerich Dobos, Richard Gunther, Raymond Noe (Chair), Electra Paskett, Nancy Reynolds, W. Randy Smith (Vice Chair), Harald Vaessin, George Valco

Student Members: Jane Evans and Scott Pearson (Council of Graduate Students); Kevin Freeman (Inter-Professional Council) and Elaine Yeh (Undergraduate Student Government)

Guests: Professor Elliot Slotnick, Associate Dean, Graduate School; Professor Carroll Glynn, Director, and Professors Prabu David, and Susan Vanpelt, School of Communication; Professor Bruce Biagi, Associate Director, School of Biomedical Sciences, and Lori Martensen, Program Manager, School of Allied Medical Professions; Professor Edward H. Adelson, Associate Executive Dean, Jennifer Lando, Advising Coordinator, and Jessica Mercerhill, Director, Curriculum Office, Colleges of the Arts and Sciences; David Roy, Director, Diversity Services; and Brad Myers, University Registrar

MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF JANUARY 18, 2006

Dobos moved approval of the Minutes of the Meeting of January 18, 2006 and Reynolds seconded the motion. With one suggested editorial change, the motion passed unanimously.

COMMENTS FROM THE CHAIR – PROFESSOR RAYMOND A. NOE

• Met with Faculty Cabinet who had concerns about the e-version of the Student Evaluation of Instruction (SEI), and wanted to know if the pilot was still ongoing. There was some confusion about whether it was mandatory to use the e-version of the SEI. Vice Provost Martha Garland and Associate Provost Kay Meyer, Office of Academic Affairs, will be invited to the March 2, 2006, Faculty Council meeting.

Faculty Council had some questions about the Council on Academic Affairs’ timeline for the review of the Report of the Committee for the University-wide Review of Undergraduate Education. It was seen to be ambitious.

There is a revised University policy on the reporting of consensual relations between faculty and students. Council members are invited to
send comments to Faculty Council.

• Faculty Council will meet on February 2, 2006, to discuss and vote on the proposed merger of the School of Public Policy and Management with the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy. Noe and Smith will be attending. Halasek has embedded the compromised language in the ad hoc committee’s report. Confirmation letters from the three Deans who will serve on the proposed committee were provided, as well as two letters of support from the Deans of two other colleges.

COMMENTS FROM THE VICE CHAIR – PROFESSOR W. RANDY SMITH

• Regarding the proposal to establish a Major in Film Studies that was approved by Council on January 18, 2006, Smith said that he had communicated with the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences on issues related to the relationship of English 110 to Film Studies 250. Those issues have been resolved.

• The proposal to establish a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures goes to the University Senate for action on February 9, 2006.

• Three proposals have been received that he has approved.

i) the Department of Geological Sciences completed a large set of changes such as quarter offerings, class meeting times. No content changes were made.
ii) The Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures made a small change to the Chinese B.A. major.
iii) The College of Food, Agricultural, and Environment Sciences has now requested that its program names be changed to parallel the change in name of the School of Environment and Natural Resources.

• He has interacted with the University Senate leadership to provide names of faculty who could serve with Council members on ad hoc committees to review Centers/Institutes and Enrollment Limitation Plans.

PROPOSALS FROM THE GRADUATE SCHOOL – PROFESSORS RAYMOND NOE AND W. RANDY SMITH, SUBCOMMITTEE D

• Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in University Teaching

• Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Disability Studies

• Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization in Comprehensive Engineering and Science of Biomedical Images

• Graduate Minors in Statistics and Statistical Data Analysis

• Graduate Minor in Speech and Hearing Science

• Graduate Specialization/Transcript Designation in Translational Research, Integrated Biomedical Science Graduate Program (IBGP)

GUEST: PROFESSOR ELLIOT SLOTNICK, ASSOCIATE DEAN, GRADUATE SCHOOL

Slotnick said that the Graduate School had provided funding for broader initiatives that made it possible for the development of interdisciplinary specializations. The funding added incentive for facilitating a way for graduate students to get credentialed. The specializations had been thoroughly reviewed by the Graduate School Curriculum Committee which looked for a coherent set of courses, substantial resources by the units, the number of students anticipated, and to see if there was core baseline knowledge that made it possible for a specialization. The Curriculum Committee looked at administrative oversight, and budget implications as well.

Slotnick said the Graduate School spent the most time on the specialization in University Teaching simply because of the number of other units that might be involved. The Graduate School met with representatives from those colleges.

The specialization in Disability Studies was reviewed by the same committee that developed the disabilities studies undergraduate minor. Slotnick said the specialization was in good shape. He and Smith had been involved in the discussions.

Slotnick said the specialization in Comprehensive Engineering and Science of Biomedical Images was a very targeted specialization.

Council members raised the following issues:

• Page 5 of the proposal for a graduate specialization in Comprehensive Engineering and Science of Biomedical Images states that this specialization will be connected to a pre-center grant. Will this provide the license stabilization that the Graduate School was looking for? Slotnick said the specialization was generated by faculty who were interested in working with each other, and they were tremendously committed to it, but he said the Graduate School had to go back and ask them for a proposal that was more oriented to students. So now there is a core group working on it.

• There is concern that the administrative support for this specialization will be on a rotating basis (Page 13). It seems there needs to be more long-term stability. Slotnick said that it is not known why they went in this direction, but they were asked how they were going to do it. He said perhaps it was done to avoid the appearance of ownership with the core course offerings. Slotnick said the Graduate School looks at specializations in the long term to see how they are doing. They will look at them about every five years, especially since resources are involved.

• In the University Teaching specialization proposal (Page 2), what does “18 but not more then 23 hours of graduate-level coursework” mean? Slotnick said that it is a question of differential credits for different types of courses. Anything more than 23 hours is a program and requires a state license. Some Council members felt this wording was confusing.

• There was a question about the funding for staff time to review course approvals and mentored teaching (Page 13). The concern is that mentored teaching will become volunteer teaching associates (TA). What is the difference between the two? Slotnick said that they are trying to distinguish between true mentorships under supervision, with guidance, and feedback, and TA volunteers. He said that this discussion came from unearthing 30-40 courses that could be used and raised issues. There is an ongoing effort to look at each of these courses now, get syllabi for them, and to find ways to utilize graduate students.

Concerns were raised about volunteer TAs. Do the departments get explicit criteria about this? Slotnick said the Policy Standards Committee is going to work on a set of guidelines for the appropriate and non-appropriate use of graduate students. He said that they discovered inadvertently through this proposal that there are a number of structured TA-like experiences evident on campus. Slotnick said they are moving toward the structured mentoring experiences in the context of course credit and to see the extent which students do not have full responsibility for whole sections of a course in which they are not supervised.

• Does a certain number of credits have to be taken outside of the home department - 14 of the 18-23 credits? Slotnick agreed. What if students have more? Slotnick said that it was rare that a unit would have more than one teaching orientated class - maybe two. Some courses might be cross listed. If it turns out that a student has more, then the Graduate School would deal with that on a case by case basis.

• The Disability Studies specialization lists all the upper level courses and a few 200-300 level courses. Why is that? A student gets graduate credit for only 500 level courses and above. Slotnick said that he did not recall why it was done this way. He suspected that they tried to identify all the courses that could apply to the specialization. These courses can be taken out.

Subcommittee D moved approval, Evans seconded the motion, and it carried unanimously.

Slotnick said the proposals for the graduate minors in Statistics, Statistical Data Analysis, and Speech and Hearing Science, were more straightforward than the specializations. Statistics first put forward three minors and asked for funding for each of the three. The Graduate School committee met with them over three months and recognized that there were two distinct minors. One was a mathematical statistics minor and the other was to utilize and understand statistics in an interpretive way. There was a major discussion in the committee that had to do with multiple minors in the same program. These two were substantively different.

• In the Speech and Hearing Science minor, one has to apply in writing before completing more then 10 graduate credit hours. Would a student be turned down if they had more? Slotnick said that it is up to the unit. They wanted early screening because more students are interested than there are spaces available. It’s a quality control issue – they do not want students investing a lot of hours when they might be turned down.

Subcommittee D moved approval of the three minors, Gunther seconded the motion, and it carried unanimously.

Smith noted that Council does not approve transcript designations, those are done by the Graduate School.

PROPOSAL TO REVISE THE UNDERGRADUATE TRACKS IN THE SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION – PROFESSOR HARALD VAESSIN, CHAIR, SUBCOMMITTEE A

Vaessin said that the proposal requested changes in two major areas. They wanted a revision to the pre-major requirements, and to add a new focus area, and to increase credit hours in three of the four focus areas. The Subcommittee had sent the proposers a set of questions and was satisfied with their response. The proposal had the approval of the three levels of the Colleges of Arts and Sciences.

• English 110 is not a requirement, yet in the sample program there were freshmen who had taken it. They had taken it before deciding to major in this program.

DISCUSSION WITH PROFESSOR CARROLL GLYNN, DIRECTOR, AND PROFESSORS PRABU DAVID, AND SUSAN VANPELT, SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION

Glynn summarized by saying that after the merger of journalism and communication several years ago, they did a rapid “fix” to blend the two programs. They put a curriculum in place, and cleaned up some courses. She said the next phase was to focus on the journalism part and provide a more content-based curriculum rather than a skills-based curriculum. The focus on the Lantern was reduced. It has been opened up to all students now, not just journalism majors, and the change has been good. The newspaper provides more diverse points of view now.

Glynn said that they are requiring a minor in something like science, international studies, or political science – an area where students can have a more in-depth specialization. Students felt that this was a good option. Writing assignments have been scaled back from five courses to four. Journalism has always been a lock-step program and will continue to be so. From the journalism model there is a bridge course to the minor. Students will get a set of skills and one content area.

Glynn said there were some faculty who voted in opposition because they wanted
a stronger emphasis on writing, and preferred the traditional model which was all about
the mechanics of journalism.

Prabu commented that the original program had 45 hours of pre-requisites and that has been scaled back to 15 hours. This will enable students to be admitted earlier, late in their sophomore year.

• Economics 200 is no longer required. Is that not an important subject for students? Yes. Students are encouraged to take economics courses, but there are many courses that will give them more breadth.

• Since the job market is tight is there an effort to do internships? Yes. This is very helpful. Glynn said that they have hired a coordinator of internships to help students get placed. Glynn said they would also like to offer co-ops because this helps students establish relationships.

• How strong is the advising to make sure students get substantial courses in the General Education Curriculum (GEC)? It is getting better. In the old program there was some disconnect because students were not admitted to the major until their junior year so advisors were not seeing them as early. How strong is the commitment? Faculty felt strongly about the program and wanted to see it happen. It will help students to feel more competent too. There are all sorts of combinations – journalism with criminology, journalism with political science. There is potential for trying new things, combining journalism with geography for instance.

Subcommittee A moved approval, Gunther seconded the motion, and it carried unanimously.

UPDATE ON THE UNDERGRADUATE MAJOR IN BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES – PROFESSOR BRUCE BIAGI, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, SCHOOL OF BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES, AND LORI MARTENSEN, PROGRAM MANAGER, SCHOOL OF ALLIED MEDICAL PROFESSIONS

Smith provided background on the Biomedical Sciences Major saying that when Council had approved it, part of the agreement was for annual progress reports. This would be the first.

Biagi said that they had decided to make their mission, vision, and value statements match those of the College of Medicine. The goals were to enroll highly qualified students in the major who would not otherwise have attended OSU, and to gradually integrate them into the medical center. The degree would be granted by the School of Allied Medical Professions but housed in the School of Biomedical Science in Graves Hall. The first class was in 2005. They had 45 applicants and 25 were accepted. Of those, 13 attended. All but two of the students were in-state.

Biagi gave a profile of the students, their average GPA, composite ACT score, and composite SAT score, saying there were four female students and nine males in the first class. Students were surveyed on their decision to attend OSU and various other characteristics such as the importance of scholarship money. Biagi gave an overview of the curriculum noting that there will be experiences in research techniques and special concepts related to health care.

Martensen said their recruitment plans are to have 20-25 students a year. Their goals are to increase the number of non-Ohio residents and of females. Martensen will be attending international science fairs in Washington D.C. and Chicago in hopes of recruiting students. They will be doing more direct mailings to guidance counselors and students, and schedule more Honors Day visits.

New developments are to provide summer internships. There will be eight weeks of intensive shadowing for six students to give them more clinical and research exposure. There will be opportunities for students to make rounds, attend lectures and do case studies. Signature programs have been identified in the different areas of medicine.

• Have there been any elements of the program you want to change next year, such as courses? Biagi said that the courses they offer are only introductory courses and it is too early to tell. They will be trying to meet recruitment goals now that the major has been established. Thus far fifty nine applicants have applied for next year. The target size is for 20 students.

• Asked about long-term funding for the program, Biagi said that it is an expensive program that was initiated by the Dean. Resources were assured. Professor Stephen Wilson, then-Director of the School of Allied Medical Professions, was assigned to develop the program. It is not a money-making proposition, but an attempt to bring in high quality students.

Smith commented that Council should be vigilant in monitoring this program given the long-term plans to move it to the School of Biomedical Sciences in the College of Medicine and that will require state-level approval – a new tagged degree.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:55pm.

Respectfully submitted,

W. Randy Smith
Joyce Rankin