Baccalaureate Core Committee

Baccalaureate Core Committee

May 25, 2016

Minutes

 

Voting members present: Bob Brudvig, Susie Dunham, Kevin Gable, McKenzie Huber, Dennis Bennett, Rorie Spill Solberg

Voting members absent: Gerd Bobe, Isabella Brock, Steve Giovannoni, Kira Hughes, David McMurray, Bob Paasch, Bill Smyth

Ex-officio members present: Academic Affairs - Heath Henry; WIC Director – Vicki Tolar Burton

 

Approved Without Discussion

a. Category II Proposals

• AGRI 411/511 – Introduction to Food Systems: Local to Global – Western Culture and Literature & The Arts
• ENG 214 – Literature of the World
• ENGR 352 – Creative Collaboration – Designing and Building Public Art Work – Science, Technology, and Society
• GEOG 240 – Climate Change, Water and Society – Social Processes and Institutions
• GEOG 311
• PSS 366

 

b. Category Reviews

• FST 260 – Food Science and Technology in Western Culture – Western Culture
• PHL 150 – Great Decisions in Philosophy – Western Culture
• PHL 302 – History of Western Philosophy – Western Culture
• PHL 303 - History of Western Philosophy – Western Culture
• PHL 360 – Philosophy and The Arts – Western Culture

 

Category Review-Follow-up

1. RUS 232 – Russian Culture – Western Culture and Cultural Diversity  

• Reviewer recommended that the instructor better identify BCC Learning Outcomes as Learning Outcomes and Student Conduct Link is incorrect.

Action: Recertify – request above corrections

 

b. RUS 233 – Russian Culture – Western Culture and Cultural Diversity

• Proposer did everything requested in order to recertify.
• Reviewer recommended that the instructor better identify BCC Learning Outcomes as Learning Outcomes and correct the Student Conduct Link.

Action: Recertify – request above corrections

 

c.  GEO 328 – Geography of Latin America – Cultural Diversity

• Requested proposer to make a better connection between assessment and Course Learning Outcomes.
• Indicating ‘the 3^rd Learning Outcome’ for Cultural Diversity is very vague.
• The student conduct link is misdirected and the DAS version is old.

Action: Provisional certification, will revisit in three years – proposer needs to quickly correct above deficiencies in order to qualify for a seven-year review rather than three-year review.

 

d. PSY 460 Advanced Social Research Methods – WIC

• One of the three instructors provided correct information; the other two instructors did not provide any information – need to determine whether the other two instructors will continue to teach this course.

Action: Decertify due to lack of required information. However, if the two instructors not providing information will not be teaching again, the course will be recertified.

 

Category II Courses

     a.  WR 340 – Creative Nonfiction

• This course requires a Writing II 200-level course pre-requisite which is already a course in the Writing II category.
• Vicki explained that creative writers want a robust writing course but, if it’s a pre-requisite, the second course won’t help the student.

Action: Return & request that proposer explain why this needs to be in the Baccalaureate Core given that a WR II 200-level course is required, which would be two Writing II courses for the student. The syllabus was well done, but it doesn’t make sense for the course to be in the Baccalaureate Core. (is this correct?)

 

b. BI 300 – Plagues, Pests, and Politics – Science, Technology, and Society – Change

• Drop the BI designator since the course became HORT 330.
• No clarity whether the assignments will be research driven. (is this correct?) A 1,250 word writing assignment needs to be required.

Action: Return for syllabus explanation of how they’re meeting the 1,250 word writing assignment.

 

c.  GEO 331– Population Consumption, and Environment – Contemporary Global Issues

• Need to separate the Contemporary Global Issues Learning Outcomes from the description of how the course content meets the Learning Outcomes; it’s missing a course schedule.

Action: Return for corrections

 

Matters Arising

• All 300-level Writing IIs have a Writing II pre-requisite (i.e., WR 324 requires WR 224 and WR 341 requires WR 241).

Action: Rorie will advise Peter Betjemann that it seems unusual that these WR 300-level Writing II courses require a WR 200-level Writing II course – why two Writing II courses?

 

General Conclusions/Patterns/Thoughts on Each Category—Western Culture, Cultural Diversity and WIC?

• The tie-in with OSU Cascades is abysmal. Needs administrative encouragement from Academic Affairs and Cascades to be successful.

Action: The co-chairs will write a memo to the Faculty Senate President to be presented to and discussed with the Provost for further discussion with Becky Johnson expressing the need for a stronger connection between OSU Corvallis and OSU Cascades since the majority of Cascades proposals reviewed this year by the Baccalaureate Core Committee were quite problematic or decertified as a Baccalaureate Core course.

 

• Units that centralized well (i.e. History & Philosophy) and engaged as a unit regarding the process of the Baccalaureate Core reviews presented less of a burden to individual faculty members and benefited from discussion of the intent of the Baccalaureate Core and how it functions.

 

• Regarding Western Culture & Culture Diversity courses – many of the problem courses were proceeding on the assumption that because the subject materials were intrinsically related to the category, then the course would meet the category definition without taking into consideration how they are meeting the Course Learning Outcomes.

 

• About 25% didn’t respond to the request for Category Reviews and will be decertified. Heath felt that it was related to having an individual solely responsible for the review, while units that have a committee reviewing the courses are much more likely to submit the required materials. Perhaps suggesting to the units that an associate dean be in charge of category review requests for their college was discussed.
  • It was noted that, in a prior year, when a particular associate dean was responsible for tracking college category review requests to determine that materials for all courses were submitted, all but one course was successfully submitted.
  • If only 75% of the courses were reviewed during the year, would the Baccalaureate Core Committee membership have enough capacity to have reviewed the submissions if all had been submitted?

 

• For courses trying to straddle Cultural Diversity and Western Culture categories, success was difficult and minimal. If this occurs with the Category Reviews next year, it was recommended that the reviewer should suggest that the proposer focus on just one category. It seems inherently difficult to fulfill two category requirements and, if both are fulfilled, it was not done well this year.

 

• Include in the annual report the need for the DAS link to remain constant so that syllabus links are always correct. Request from Academic Affairs/APAA that this occur or request that they indicate why this is not possible.

 

 

 

Minutes recorded by Vickie Nunnemaker, Faculty Senate staff