Meeting Date: 
October 28, 2019
Date: 
10/28/2019 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm
Location: 
109 Gilkey Hall
Agenda: 
  1. Baccalaureate Core Committee Listening Sessions and Moving Forward with the Baccalaureate Core, BCIL – Mina Carson, Faculty Senate President
  1. New Business
    • Work Groups
      • What will be the priority? Discussion and sign-up
  1. Category Proposals
    • WGSS 414 – Writing Intensive Course and Difference, Power, and Discrimination
    • Discussion Needed
      •  SOC 372 – Difference, Power and Discrimination
      •  PHL 234 – Western Culture
      •  GEOG 103 – Cultural Diversity
    • No Discussion Needed
      • TBD
Minutes: 

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

Baccalaureate Core Committee Listening Sessions and Moving Forward with the Baccalaureate Core, BCIL – Mina Carson, Faculty Senate President

  • The Executive Committee (EC) is teaming up with Undergraduate Education to take reassessment and reorganization of the Baccalaureate Core (BC)
  • Listening sessions have been scheduled so that they can get feedback from stakeholders in the BC (students, instructors, deans, etc).
    • November 5 – 3:00-5:00 – 4001 ALS- McKenzie, Filix, Mathew,
    • November 8 – 9:30-11:30 – FURM 102-  Dan, Heath, Heather
    • November 12 – 4:00-6:00 – Student session – MU 206 – Asian/Pacific-American Room- Heather
    • November 21 – 4:30-6:30 – MU 109 – McKenzie, Rorie, Nana, Vicki
    • December 5 – 1:00-3:00 – LINC 128- Heather, Bob, Kathy
  • A Qualtrics survey has been created and sent out that will ask faculty for feedback and suggestions.
    • After the survey has closed and listening sessions have concluded, a core group will get together in Winter term to create two or three potential models for going forward.
    • The will also reach out to other institutions to see how their BCs operate.
      • One committee member stated that Community Colleges are changing how they do things should also be taken into account.
    • Models will be brought to the Baccalaureate Core Committee (BCC) for input before going to the Faculty Senate for a vote.
  • The BCC would like to know what the driving force is behind the reorganization efforts.
    • The BC is very large and potentially oversaturated with courses that are major requirements and courses that are double-dipping
    • It’s an inhibitor for transfer students and an inhibitor for some major requirements at its current size
    • Does it align with the strategic plan and is the current BC sustainable under the new budget model? Will it continue to meet the needs of the students?
      • The BC as it currently is, is a driving force behind the budgets of many units.
        • Does thinning down the BC negatively affect unit budgets?
          • The EC has been told not to let budget concerns drive the revision process, but they are aware that it will be likely brought up in the Qualtrics form and during the listening sessions.
        • Will thinning down the BC affect how many instructors are hired or retained?
        • Do shifts in the BC affect the size of the majors?
    • The BCIL was dissolved in favor of focusing on the Listening Sessions and Baccalaureate Core reorganization
      • Committee members volunteered to attend each of the sessions.

New Business

  • Work Groups
    • What will be the priority? Discussion and sign-up
      • The committee seemed to agree that all the work groups had their merits but the group will primarily focusing on A, B and C
        • Work Group A – Is it appropriate for courses to count in both Biological and Physics science courses
          • Could be affected by the BC reorganization.
        • Workgroup B – Courses represented in multiple categories and future proposals
        • Workgroup C – Create policy around who can teach in each category. Should there be a college or department contact for each category
          • Committee members each volunteered to participate in a group.

Category Proposals

  • WGSS 414 – Writing Intensive Course and Difference, Power, and Discrimination
    • Postponed
  • Discussion Needed
    •  SOC 372 – Difference, Power and Discrimination
      • Postponed
    • PHL 234 – Western Culture
      • Postponed
    • GEOG 103 – Cultural Diversity
      • Postponed
  • No Discussion Needed
    • None