Baccalaureate Core Committee

Voting members present: Heather Arbuckle, Ivan Arismendi, Aidas Banaitis, Geoffrey Barstow, Daniel Faltesek, Kelsey Emard, Matthew Kennedy, Randy Rosenberger, Justin St. Germain, Kaplan Yalcin
Voting members absent: Jack Istok, Lori McGraw, Kyle Niemeyer, Rene Reitsma,
Ex-officio members present: Ecampus – Karen Watte; WIC – Sarah Perrault
Guests: Funmi Amobi, McKenzie Huber

Category Reviews – Science, Technology & Society (STS)

• No Discussion Needed
  • HSTS 413
    • Approved with a request to instructor specify word-count on the syllabus.
  • HSTS 419
    • Approved with request to clean up verbatim statement.
  • PHL/REL 444
    • Approved with no discussion needed
  • PHL 474
    • Approved with request to clean up verbatim statement.
  • WGSS 440
    • Approved with no discussion needed
  • WSE 392
    • Approved with no discussion needed
• Discussion Needed
• HSTS 413/414
  • Points of interest from reviewer: Looks interesting, low enrollment and has been for a while based on the amount of reading/writing assignments.
  • Needs specific word count for the writing assignment, just says 6-7 pages.
  • Worried this is a graduate level class since it is a slash course, worry it is not accessible to undergraduate students.
  • Committee cannot comment back on low enrollment.

Action: Motion to request instructor specify word count on syllabus and approve; motion seconded and passed with 8 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 votes in abstention.

• HSTS 415
  • Minimum syllabus requirement of campus type is, grading is bimodal - high withdraw and A rate.
  • Is the course serving all students given the grade dist.
  • Unclear how discussion board is assessed.
  • Alignment between 1/3 needs to be further developed, alignment not syllabus visible.
  • Better delineation of how historical argument meets science/societal interaction – might be doing this but is not clear to reviewer.
  • Need to go back and describe the assessment with STS Learning Outcomes (LOs) and further development of term paper to come back to societal context and relevance.

Action: Motion to send back and ask the originator to describe how the discussion board interactions are assessed, specifically LO 1 and 2 and request that they clarify how the historical foundations argument of the paper achieves LO 3; motion seconded and passed with 8 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 votes in abstention.

• NR 351
  • Does not list specific course materials or learning resources (does not meet minimum syllabus requirements).
  • Writing assignment is an issue, matrix says that assignment assesses and interprets but then the description of the assignment does not align with the matrix – needs to be consistent.
  • Schedule is detailed but both in course materials section and schedule it just says “selected readings, PPT presentation, etc.” need specified information of what these selected things are.

Action: Motion to send back to add learning resources to the syllabus and clarify that paper achieves LO 3 and is adequately synthetic; motion seconded and passed with 9 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 votes in abstention.

• NUTR 312
  • Has enforced pre-reqs and pre-reqs are not Baccalaureate Core (BC) appropriate and it is not an accessible course.
  • Neither syllabi have verbatim statement, Ecampus does not have a paper meeting LO3, on campus needs to declare word counts, not a strong social science inclusion, while the assignment is really interesting it is not framed in social science; normative science perspective is taken in the assignment.
  • Given that we cannot remove pre-reqs through the course review process, the only recourse we have is to decertify the course and recommend they drop pre-reqs in CIM.

Action: Motion to decertify given disciplinary pre-reqs that make the course in appropriate for the Baccalaureate Core; motion seconded and passed with 10 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 1 vote in abstention.

• PHL 325   
  • Moved to next week’s agenda.
• TOX 360
  • Needs to be redone, a lot missing.
  • Foundations are strong, intersection of science and society is present, but no technology is present or frames how individuals make decisions about society, no verbatim statement or outcomes listed.
  • No learning outcomes on the syllabus at all, no statement, no assessment.
  • Writing assignment needs to be a single out of class assignment, misses the word count and no external sources.
  • Statement in syllabus that students can come to office hours for learning outcomes. Significant revisions.
  • We need more information in the table submitted, not adequate – we need to know how the material connects to the outcomes.
  • Motion: decertify for three reasons: a. The syllabus lacks critical details, b. Assessment is not well defined for any LO (as they are not included), c. the paper needs to be revised to meet the requirements

Action: Motion to decertify for the following – the syllabus lacks critical details; assessment is not well defined for an LO; and the paper needs to be revised to meet the requirements; motion seconded and passed with 11 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 votes in abstention.

• WGSS 319

Action: Motion to recertify; motion seconded and passed with 10 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 1 vote in abstention.

CIM Review

• WSE 210
  • Missing ‘reach out for success’ statement and did not move the matrix as asked. Motion to roll the course back to have the matrix included as per the previous recommendation.

Action: Motion to roll back to have the matrix included as per the previous recommendation; motion seconded and passed with 11 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 votes in abstention.