Baccalaureate Core Committee

Voting members present: Heather Arbuckle, Aidas Banaitis, Kathy Becker Blease, Daniel Faltesek, McKenzie Huber, Matthew Kennedy, Filix Maisch, Lori McGraw, Steven Morris, Bob Paasch, Rene Reitsma, David Roundy, Rorie Spill Solberg, Kaplan Yalcin
Voting members absent: Andrew Harker
Ex-Officio members present: Faculty Affairs – Heath Henry; DPD Director – Nana Osei-Kofi; Ecampus – Karen Watte; WIC Director – Anita Helle
Guests present: Tam Belknap

Course Review

• Discussion needed
  • ED 219 – Difference, Power & Discrimination (DPD)
    • All syllabi are missing the DPD statement
    • The syllabi do not list the Baccalaureate Core (BC) outcomes distinctly. They are listed in with the course specific outcomes.
    • They do not provide an assessment table for how the Learning Outcomes (LOs) are met and addressed.
    • There is not enough information in the syllabus to determine if requirements are being met.
    • The students only read one book and watch one film – is this enough content to meet the DPD requirements.
    • The Ecampus and On-campus syllabus are the exact same.
    • How the course meets and assesses the second LO is not clear in CIM or the syllabus.
    • Nothing about class time on the syllabus.
      • Send back requesting the assessment matrix be included. Suggest they work with Academic Programs and Assessment (APA) for more development.
  • HST 367
    • Syllabus contains a typo, referring to the course as 369, instead of 367.
    • No prerequisites listed – how does this course keep freshman students from signing up for a 300 level course?
    • It is believed that the advisors will steer the students appropriately and discourage them from taking the course. There may also be some other restrictions in place.
      • Approve with notes to fix the typos in the syllabus.
  • OC 202
    • New course in the Biological Science category
    • LOs are connected to assignments and assessment
    • No information was provided about the labs, but there is enough information in CIM and the syllabus to determine that the outcomes are being met.
    • It wasn’t initially clear how they examined the nature, value and limitations of scientific methods and the interaction of science with society was met – but other reviewers were able to find examples of how it is met in the syllabus and form responses.
      • Approved with no abstentions

Category Review

• HST/REL/WGSS 378
  • No credit hours are listed for the course. No other issues to address.
    • Recertify with note to fix credit hours

Science/WIC Follow-up Reviews

• PH 111 – Physical Science
  • This course is a resubmission. Had standard boiler-plate issues regarding links and other minor issues. Most issues were addressed.
  • It was clarified that the lab takes place during regular meeting hours. They added verbiage stating it was a “lab-based” course and that students are doing experiments during each class session. It’s otherwise unclear what the lab work entails.
  • This is a pedagogy course aimed at Elementary Education majors.
  • They are restricting the course to only Education majors. The purpose of the BC is that courses are accessible to students regardless of major.
    • There are some lab courses in the BC aimed at specific majors, but while they may have some prerequisites, they do not have a restriction against other majors taking their courses.
    • Students can only enroll with an override and approval to take the course.
    • They are attempting to limit enrollment so that students in the major do not get pushed out by seniors or other students with special enrollment privileges.
      • Adding an Education specific pre-requisite could help with this without adding a college restriction.
  • They were asked to include a matrix, but it was not included.
    • Decertify. If they would like to resubmit before early Fall 2020, they may do so but the committee asks that they remove the college restriction.
      • One abstention, one opposed
• TRAL 375 – WIC
  • It was initially unclear how the writing assignments related to each other.
  • It is missing the assessment matrix.
  • Based on the course content, the WIC Director feels that the writing assignments support the intention of the course.
  • It was noted that TRAL is very interdisciplinary which would account for any conflicts in the course writing assignments. However, while the genre of the course may be unclear, the assignments do reflect the course content.
    • Recertify

Category Review Annual Timeline

• Review proposed timeline
  • The committee discussed moving the deadline to give instructors more time. Suggested moving the deadline to late October.
  • If the date was moved to December, would the Baccalaureate Core Committee have the time to review and provide feedback on 79 double-listed courses?
    • Departments have the option to drop one category and not go through the review process, which would lessen the number of reviews.
  • Further discussion will take place at the next meeting.
• Adopt new timeline – vote required
  • The committee did not vote on a new timeline. They will continue the discussion at the next meeting.

Designee Letters

• Letters went out on March 23 to all colleges
• Letters for reviews will be sent out soon to college designees
  • Template has been created
  • Individual links are prepared
    • Some colleges are confused or unaware of why we are reviewing double listed courses. Please check in with your Associate Deans.
      • The Bacc Core has made changes to review timelines before and are moving the Science, Technology and Society reviews back to focus on Double-Listed courses