Baccalaureate Core Committee

Voting members present: Aidas Banaitis, Geoffrey Barstow, Daniel Faltesek, Kelsey Emard, Colin Johnson, Matthew Kennedy, Michelle McAllaster, Lori McGraw, Rene Reitsma, Kari-Lyn Sakuma, Kaplan Yalcin
Voting members absent: Jack Istok, Randy Rosenberger, Justin St. Germain
Ex-officio members present: DPD – Nana Osei-Kofi; Ecampus – Karen Watte; WIC – Sarah Perrault
Guests: McKenzie Huber, Regan Gurung, Michael Jefferis, Caryn Stoess

Discussion of General Education Policies

• Faculty Development requirements
  • Pros
    • General Education (GE) is a distinct curriculum, with distinct needs
    • Ensure awareness of GE, downstream enhancements in assessment and compliance
    • Teach graduate students how to teach – professional development
  • Cons
    • Bottle necks
  • We need a mechanism to enforce this through CLSS 
  • WIC development is required
    • How will this motion affect last minute hires?
    • Faculty development in WIC is a long-term process. It is not a single training process
    • A self-guided training or orientation could be part of the process.
      • Levels: self-guided, enhanced seminars, high intensity work
    • Are we making policies based on accurate assessments?
      • Is there strong evidence that faculty need to improve? Evidence is largely anecdotal
    • Problems with WIC are not problems that can be solved with policies. They are problems related to lack up support for units to follow existing policies.
    • Part of the budget promised by the Provost includes hiring to support for this kind of training effort.
• Course learning platform
  • Pros
    • Standard accessibility 
    • Unify experiences 
    • Aligns with the new Course Specific Learning Outcomes (CSLO) policy
    • Avoids secondary purchases/ala carte LMS vendors
  • Cons
    • Learning curve for instructors
    • Current LMS is not most user friendly
• Syllabus visibility
  • No university requirement to publish, some colleges have policies, seems to not be enforced, syllabi are locked in vaults on Mars – not easily accessible to students.  
  • Pros
    • Students need transparency and access to syllabi so they can make determinations in selecting courses  
    • Transfer student friendly policy 
  • Cons
    • If too accessible, third parties outside the university could see it as an opportunity to litigate, puts faculty at risk from threats