Baccalaureate Core Committee

Voting members present: Aidas Banaitis, Kelsey Emard, Colin Johnson, Matthew Kennedy, Lori McGraw, Rene Reitsma, Randy Rosenberger, Kari-Lyn Sakuma, Thomas Shelly, Paula Weiss
Voting members absent: Abigail Crowell, Geoffrey Barstow, Daniel Faltesek
Ex-officio members present: Academic Affairs – Heath Henry; Difference, Power & Oppression – Natchee Barnd; Ecampus – Karen Watte; WIC – Sarah Perrault
Guests: Patrick Ball, Stephanie Baugh, Kristin Nagy Catz, John Edwards, McKenzie Huber, Michael Jefferis

Course Review

• MAST 444 – Writing for Marine Studies
  • New course for the WIC program
  • The artifact project seems very interesting and well-structured with weekly feedback.
  • Only concern was around Learning Outcome (LO) 2 – it is not explicitly stated or defined in the syllabus who the audience is for these writing assignments.
    • Mentions a ‘broad or general audience’.
  • Doesn’t stipulate where critical thinking is used or applied. It can be inferred but it is not explicitly stated in the syllabus.
  • The WIC director agrees with the notes brought up by the reviewers but wants to remind everyone that WIC courses are not general education in the same way other Bacc Core courses are – they are for writing within the major and may require more specialist knowledge and may not be as accessible to those outside the major.
  • There is a scholarly support for the artifact that is oriented for the public readership. It is a two-part project.
    • What does the scholarly support provide?
      • Maybe it needs to be more explicit, but it is based on eight sources – the final paper needs to draw out the use of the research more specifically.
      • More specificity on what they’re looking at – what’s the purpose of the artifact?
        • Students are going into a lot of areas after OSU – so it is indicative of what they are going into.
          • Purpose of the paper:
            • Marine studies done from an interdisciplinary, liberal arts-focused perspective is an extremely new field. MAST majors like you are at the vanguard of deciding what this field is. Consider this paper as a defense of why your artefact represents an important facet of the field of Marine Studies, always keeping in mind the MAST degree learning outcomes stated above.

Action: Motion to send back with request for clarity on how audience expectations are evaluated; clarity on how critical thinking is applied; clarity on how research is applied and how the paper is disciplinary, seconded. The motion passed with 11 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

Core Education Assessment of Learning Outcomes (cont’d.)

• The signature assignment would be gathered, and fellows would review the data. It was suggested that faculty could be trained on each category to review that data. Some committee members spoke with their units and the faculty in those seemed to like the idea of assessment fellows. While there may need to be some more clarity on what an assessment fellow is – it seemed the discussion around assessment was good for faculty, as some of them were unaware of what the assessment process included and were glad to get some of their questions answered.
  • The assessment office defined what it would mean to be an assessment fellow.
    • Assessment Fellows will be responsible for scoring student work and interpreting the assessment data. Teaching faculty from each category will be selected using an application process to become assessment fellows for a particular quarter.
  • Having fellows would require a budget. Having it done in each unit might be difficult and could lead to issues in the data.
• Does a three-year cycle consist of a workload that can be handled by the assessment office?
  • It will need to be piloted.
  • The five-year cycle allows for more of a break in Spring term.
  • Adjustments can also be made as we go and determine the actual workload for each category.
  • Collection would begin 2025-2026. Fellows would not be seated until 2026-2027, but there will be some training and rubrics developed before then.
• What happens to data and reports once Core Ed committee sees them? Where does it go next? What do we expect to happen in response?
  • Changes to things like Learning Outcomes would need to go to the Faculty Senate, but most processes would go through this committee and would not need to go any further. Decisions around processes and notable trends in the data could also be disseminated among the faculty in those categories as a means of open communication.
  • Accrediting bodies would also see the data.

Action: Motion to approve the concept of assessment fellows along a three-year timeline; seconded. The motion passed with 10 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.