Baccalaureate Core Committee

Voting members present: Aidas Banaitis, Geoffrey Barstow, Daniel Faltesek, Kelsey Emard, Jack Istok, Colin Johnson, Matthew Kennedy, Lori McGraw, Rene Reitsma, Randy Rosenberger, Justin St. Germain, Kaplan Yalcin
Voting members absent: 
Ex-officio members present: Difference, Power & Discrimination – Nana Osei-Kofi, Ecampus – Karen Watte, Academic Affairs – Heath Henry, WIC – Sarah Perrault
Guests: Funmi Amobi, McKenzie Huber, Mike Jefferis, Shain Panzeri, Caryn Stoess

Discussion of Two General Education Policies

• Double Dipping on General Education courses
  • Can Gen Ed (GE) courses be used as part of programs (major/minor/option, etc.)
    • The Baccalaureate Core Committee (BCC) currently has no policy. It is currently allowed for courses to count multiple times between the Baccalaureate Core (BC), majors, minors, options – unless a program has a specific policy against it (e.g. Fish, Wildlife & Conservation Science minor)
    • Disadvantages
      • Majors are credit heavy and removing the ability to double dup with at least the GE. Majors would have to cut back on curriculum to make room for new BC credits.
      • If we don’t allow it for majors, requirements like transitions would have to be taken twice
      • Another committee member noted that College of Public Health & Human Sciences (CPHHS) students count their Difference, Power & Discrimination (DPD) course as electives or major requirements. Disallowing double-dipping would cause them problems.
      • How do you create the exceptions where it is not allowed? What do we do with implicit policies within the framework?
      • What if your students need seats in your Seeking Solutions course?
      • Credit heavy majors would have to remove about 30+ credits to make room for the new BC.
    • What's the disadvantage of passing the buck, allowing the status quo to continue until we hear from the Provost’s work group?
      • Advisors already have a very heavy workload and MyDegrees would be become more difficult
      • The workgroup has been told that BC/GE double dipping is off limits
      • Can a cap on how many credits can be double dipped be implemented?
    • Is there an advantage to formalizing the status quo?
      • Equilibrates the playground for all students across all majors.
      • The current policy is unclear and is mostly at the discretion of each program.
    • Advantage
      • A No Double Dipping policy leads to design cascade
    • Do we want to separate double dipping from scaffolding?
      • Engineering is a good example where there is little room to take non-major courses. With ABET accreditation they have to allow double-dipping in order to fit into reasonable total degree credits.

Action: Matt Kennedy moved to set the policy: A course may fulfill a requirement in the General Education curriculum and other requirements outside of General Education. Academic units may restrict the amount of times a course may apply toward an academic program; seconded. Motion number with 11 votes in favor, 0 votes against and 0 votes in abstention.

• Dual Listing of courses
  • Can courses be in more than one category?
    • Frowned upon and rarely works.
    • In 2019, the BCC took a policy to the Faculty Senate (FS) to prevent courses to be dual-listed. Of 79 dual-listed courses, 66 opted to list in a single category, 13 requested special assessment, 9 continued in one category, 3 were dropped from the core and one continued as a dual-listed course.
    • Disadvantages
      • Too many Learning Outcomes (LOs) to be covered in a 10-week course
      • BCC often found that between sections, different categories were not given enough time to fulfill LOs
      • Dilutes the missions and goals of GE. If learning outcomes are written to properly reflect the spirit of the category, then it becomes ineffectual to list courses in more than one category
    • Some new categories for the BC could theoretically have some crossover. Do we want to allow dual-listing to continue? What benefits do students receive from dual-listing?
      • Creating unique and distinct categories could prevent programs from dual-listing courses.
      • There was an issue with courses not being created for the BC, but trying to be listed in multiple categories.
      • Volume rules about alignment for a category that makes dual listing impractical
      • Advantage
        • Cascades needs fewer classes
      • Can we make a policy that allows for exceptions by special application to the BCC?
        • “the committee will entertain requests for exceptions to this policy, but applicants will be expected to demonstrate why their course should be an exception to this rule."
        • The BC Director asked that the committee also, think about exceptions and what one committee will approve this year will be different than what a committee does in 5 years.
        • Suggested motion to be discussed at the next meeting – dual listing is generally not permitted. In some cases, however, the committee will entertain requests for exceptions to this policy. In those cases, applicants will be expected to demonstrate why their course is exemplary should be an exception to this rule.

Category Review

• HHS 421

Action: Colin Johnson moved to approve HHS 421 with no discussion needed; seconded. Motion passes with 9 votes in favor, 0 votes against and 0 votes in abstention.