Baccalaureate Core Committee

Voting members present: Heather Arbuckle, Aidas Banaitis (remote), Kathy Becker-Blease, McKenzie Huber, Matthew Kennedy, Filix Maisch, Bob Paasch, David Roundy, Kaplan Yalcin
Voting members absent: Daniel Faltesek, Lori McGraw, Steven Morris, Rorie Spill Solberg
Ex-Officio members present: Faculty Affairs – Heath Henry; DPD Director – Nana Osei-Kofi; Ecampus – Craig Rademacher; WIC Director – Vicki Tolar Burton
Guests present: Tam Belknap

Work Group Reports

• Disciplines within Categories
  • This group is looking at disciplines that should ‘own’ a particular category.
    • Set aside the issue of bio and physical science, because the group felt it fell into the double-listing issue.
  • Is there anything in the existing criteria that limits who can teach what discipline?
    • The way it’s currently written, English and Psychology can teach in all categories.
    • Math historically teaches math courses and Physical Education historically teaches PAC courses
      • Skill courses remain in their traditional discipline
    • There’s a lot of cross-disciplinary courses that would be difficult to disentangle
    • The group agreed that Literature & the Arts (LA) courses should be housed within their discipline.
      • There is currently and Engineering course listed in the LA category that does not seem to belong as none of the learning outcomes link to the category. It is cross-listed with Art 352 – the group feels it should be looked during the next category review.
    • All other categories can be open to other disciplines.
  • Are students getting breadth in their major if they can double-dip a course that is required for their major but is also fulfilling a baccalaureate core (BC) requirement?
    • Geography could conceivably have several BC courses as part of their major (up to 6 courses could be taken that are within their major and also fulfill their BC requirement).
• Some rough policy has been developed but it needs some polishing.
• Standing Rules revisions and Syllabus Requirements
  • This group is working on adding language to the APA site so faculty knows what is required.
  • They are also drafting some revisions to the Standing Rules.
    • At least 3 committee members from Liberal Arts (CLA) and 3 from Science (COS); at least 1 teaching member from Cascades; up to 3 Professional Faculty, with at least 1 being an academic advisor.
      • Professional Faculty should be related to teaching or advising
  • APA is working on specific language about requiring a syllabus for all modes of teaching (on campus, Ecampus, Cascades)
  • Question to the Committee:
    • Should the Baccalaureate Core Committee (BCC) require the matrix
      • If there is an option not to use it, the committee noted that an example should be provided on how faculty can make their assessments and connections clear to read and easy to find.
      • The BCC could designate a location in the syllabus for this this information – either in outcome or assessment.
      • How much specificity should the committee expect?
• Double-listing in Multiple Categories
  • The group recommends that no double-listing be allowed. Courses that currently exist in multiple categories will have to choose one during their next category review.
    • They have not yet drafted any policy. Policy and rationale will be developed during the next work group session.
  • It was clarified that an FAQ for BC policies could be housed on the APA website.

Proposals

• H 344
  • Requested revisions were made.
  • The syllabus meets the minimum requirements, but it feels cut and paste on the Ecampus syllabus. Not necessarily a bad thing, but there is some conflicting verbiage.
    • Specifically mentions to ‘do reading before coming to class’.
  • There a some small, but noticeable grammatical errors.
  • There is no instructor listed for either delivery systems.
    • Approve with comments to fix grammatical and consistency errors. Suggest they work with Ecampus to create an Ecampus specific syllabus.