Baccalaureate Core Committee

Voting members present: Nancy Barbour, Patrice Dragon, McKenzie Huber, Bob Paasch, David Roundy, Dana Sanchez, Inara Scott, Rorie Spill Solberg, Kaplan Yalcin
Voting members absent: Pat Ball, Kathy Becker-Blease, Natalie Dollar, Weihong Qiu
Ex-Officio members present: Academic Affairs – Heath Henry, WIC – Vicki Tolar Burton
Guests present: Jon Dorbolo

• A Shared Governance Vision for OSU’s Baccalaureate Core – Jon Dorbolo
  • As they are currently written, the Standing Rules of the Baccalaureate Core Committee (BCC) do not grant any power to the BCC to create or change policies or procedures related to the Baccalaureate Core (BC). The BCC’s focus, at the moment, is entirely on assessment and approval of incoming courses. The hope is to expand the BCC’s duties and allow them to fill more of a leadership role for the BC.
    • A previously done 2-year report indicated the need for a Director of the BC and, while an Interim Director was chosen to oversee the implementation of new policies, no full-time Director was ever selected.
  • The proposal is designed to address 2 key issues with the BC:
    • Change the Standing Rules to make the leadership functions of the BCC more explicit (i.e., policy, planning, strategy).
    • Give the BCC more administrative support to ease the burden of assessments and reviews by providing:
      • A 1.0, dedicated BC specialist in the APA office who can assist with assessments
      • A full-time Director of the BC who can focus on larger scale issues like communication, faculty workshops and determining if the need of the students and faculty are being met.
• Discussion
  • With a change to the Standing Rules, can the BCC do things like change the learning outcomes or revamp the entire the BC?
    • Learning outcomes can already be changed by the BCC, but there’s nothing explicitly stated in the Standing Rules that gives the BCC power to make changes.
  • Both of the proposed administrative positions will have to be approved. If they are, will they be overseeing the category review process?
    • The answer is no, the BCC will continue doing category reviews, but the additional support from the Director and APA will result in fewer send backs and will help streamline the process somewhat. This will allow the BCC to focus on other issues that arise with the BC.
  • APA support is currently at .6 FTE. Will increasing it 1.0 FTE provide enough support ease some of the burden on the BCC?
    • There is a chance that one APA worker will not be enough, but it will demonstrate a need to the administration that the BCC does need the additional support. A 1.0 FTE BC specialist is a start and the committee can go from there, but it should at least allow the BCC to focus more on the overall content of the courses, rather than focusing on small errors that consistently occur.
  • There is concern from the BCC that there may be an issue with conflicting interests with the Director, who would not report to the BCC, but to Academic Affairs. Could the committee be giving up some of the Faculty control over the BC to the Administration?
    • This concern may be alleviated by requesting that the Administration formally document and explicitly state what Shared Governance is and how it is implemented at OSU, including that Faculty oversee the curriculum.
  • One committee member questioned whether the BCC needs to change, or is it being changed because it has ‘been this way for too long’?
    • In case of conflict, it is the belief of the Faculty Senate President that a formal agreement should be made between the Administration and the Faculty Senate.
    • It was also brought up that courses are being continually add to the BC and the BCC should have the ability to asses and determine if things should be pared down, should specific changes be made, and to determine whether or not needs are still being met.
  • Several Committee members believe the proposal should include an informal position summary for the Director to determine what their exact duties would be and how they would support the BCC.
    • Director duties would include assessment/reporting of the BC as a whole, development of surveys for students and faculty, communication about the BC, faculty development, developing strategy
      • Currently advisors disseminate information about the BC to students
  • There is belief that this policy does not necessarily free up the BCC to work on policies and other assessments.
    • Is there a way to pass on some of the review processes to another person so that the Committee itself could focus on things like policy, assessment, development, etc?
      • Rorie moves to approve the changes to the BCC Standing Rules, seconded; approved.
• Proposed 10-year cycle – Heath Henry
  • Not Discussed
• Category II Reviews
  • Discussion Needed; Approve
    • ED 451
      • Not Discussed
    • HSTS 452
      • Not Discussed
  • Discussion Needed; Revisions Required
    • CH 231
      • Not Discussed
    • HST 440
      • Not Discussed
• Academic Policies and Procedures
  • Review of Baccalaureate Core Courses Policy
    • Not Discussed

Minutes prepared by Caitlin Calascibetta