Baccalaureate Core Committee

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

CIM Proposals

• BHS 323 – Microbial Influences on Human Health – WIC
  • Changing pre-requisites. Distinct advantage of going back through CIM and has been improved.
  • Feedback is not specifically addressed in the student handout, but the Writing Intensive Curriculum (WIC) director confirmed it is being addressed adequately.

Action: Motion to approve BHS 323, seconded. Motion passed with 12 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition, and 0 votes in abstention.

• AEC 251 – Introduction to Agricultural and Food Economics – Social Processes & Institutions
  • Changing from 3 to 4 credits
  • Updated their course description and a few other things.
    • Updated course description is very nice. Small formatting issues, but nothing major.
    • Critical thinking verbiage included in CIM could be included on both syllabi.
    • Connections to other fields is not specific but does seem intuitive. Noted that there is no place to add it in CIM.
      • Consistent with another AEC course.
      • Connection with Agriculture could be seen as embedded in the title.
  • Justification: peer institutions with equivalent courses were 4 credits; an additional credit allows for more time and opportunities to work with students.
  • Connects to Baccalaureate Core learning outcomes.
  • Is this being used as a Major course?
    • Confirmed not just as a major only course. Animal Science students are encouraged to take this specific course as it can relate to their own major. Also confirmed by Assessment office that students come from a wide range of colleges/majors.
    • It was argued that economics, by its very definition, is both a social process and an institution.
    • In the new Core Education, if the course crosses multiple disciplines, more specific questions will be asked in CIM to assist with the submission and review process.

Action: Motion to approve AEC 251 with a recommendation to use the Ecampus syllabus template and include the Critical Thinking paragraph on both syllabi, seconded. Motion passed with 12 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition, and 0 votes in abstention.

Core Education Assessment of Learning (cont’d.)

• Categories
  • Difference, Power, and Opposition (DPO) (both levels)
  • Social Science
  • Writing (both levels)
  • WIC
  • Quantitative Literacy
  • Humanities (both)
  • Communication
  • Scientific Inquiry and Analysis
  • Transitions (both)
  • Beyond OSU
  • Seeking Solutions
    • The Assessment office was looking at global and general humanities – they think it’ll be a good idea to do the same with new Core Education categories to track trends. But what will the timeline be? How often will categories be reviewed? Combining categories will need to be done to make sure the categories are reviewed in a timely ordered.
      • Which categories have similar outcomes?
      • How many courses are in a category?
        • Can adapt as needed – it is unknown, currently, how many courses will be in each category.
      • Accreditation is every 7 years.
        • Every 5 years would be ideal.
        • WIC was spread across years by college. How involved is the WIC team in the review process? There are a lot of WIC courses, and the workload will need to be managed.
          • WIC courses were spread by college and the WIC department was fairly involved in the process.
        • Will the DPO office be under a similar workload to WIC?!
      • Compliance and assessment will be two different processes.
        • Compliance can affect status within Core Education
        • Assessment is student data and does not affect the course’s place in the Core Education curriculum.
      • The WIC rubric still needs to go before the Faculty Senate for approval.
      • Communication is a good unit to experiment with regarding assessment – it is a small unit with a small number of students. They are good with participating in these kinds of experiments.
        • It would be best not to text both compliance and assessment at the same time, so faculty do not conflate the two.
      • Would reviewing by college or unit be better than reviewing by specific categories?
        • We need to roll this up to make sure everything is still making sense and that everyone is getting the Learning Outcomes and that the Learning Outcomes are making sense. Doing reviews at the category level is the best way to do that.
      • Compliance needs to be a census-based process, but does assessment need to be the same? Can assessment be from a stratified random sample?
• The Assessment office was asked to provide a draft schedule for the compliance and assessment schedule for the committee to review next week.