Core Education Committee

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

Policy for Transition Courses (cont’d)

• There is a need for a policy because the structure and content of the Transitions courses are distinct and are required, by the Faculty Senate, to be similar across all experiences. The General Education Steering Committee made a number of decisions about how transitions would be provisioned, which are reflected in these policies. Critical judgements regarding curriculum in these polices were made by a Task Force of faculty experts on student development.
• Proposed policy:
  • All Transitions courses will be titled “Transitions”.
  • The catalog description of all Transitions courses will match that of the centralized offering.
  • Transitions courses will not include course-specific learning outcomes outside of the Core Ed category learning outcomes; any course-specific Learning Outcomes will be placed in a separate co-req class.
  • Transitions courses will be exactly 2 credits.
  • Ten week-long modules have been centrally developed by subject experts for use in Transitions courses; all Transitions courses must include the three centrally developed modules on Mental Health, Building Inclusive Community, and Financial Literacy as they are written; inclusion of additional centrally developed modules is strongly encouraged or rationale must be provided in the proposal in the university curriculum management system for how all category Learning Outcomes and criteria are met.
  • The Mental Health module will be offered in the first five weeks of the term.
  • Transitions courses must use learning resources that are freely available to students and may not require the purchase of any learning materials.
  • All recitations in Transitions courses will be one hour per week.
• In the policy, does "central course" need to be plural in some places because there will be both the 100 and the 300 level?
• Comment from the Director of Core Education: The next policy topic this committee should broach is compliance and assessing the category; I would like to see Transitions assessed for compliance every two years so we can make adaptations to the courses and policy.

Action: Motion to approve the policy as proposed; seconded. The motion passed with 8 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

Course reviews

• H 225 – Social Determinants of Health
  • Social Processes & Institutions (SPI), being updated for the new Difference, Power and Oppression (DPO) category.
  • The new syllabus seems well prepared.
  • Still waiting for an Ecampus redevelopment proposal
  • Liaison comment: how are they meeting SPI, course specific Learning Outcomes (LOs), DPO and course competencies?
    • Proposers focused on the change to DPO and the alignment to DPO LOs and course specific LOs.
    • Courses staying the old Baccalaureate Core (BC) that are not heavily diverging will be given a legacy status.
    • From the proposal, rationale for remaining in the old BC:
    • This course is currently in the Bacc Core Category: Perspectives-Social Processes and Institutions. Systems of oppression that create social structures that produce social determinants of health are inherent in both examining the social processes and institutions that are specific to health determinants and examining the inequitable distribution of social, economic, and political power, which is now covered in the Core Ed category: Difference, Power, and Oppression Foundations. At a practical level, we have changed the overall course learning outcomes to be more explicit in this area but the activities, class level learning outcomes /scaffolding, and readings/topics remain largely similar.

Action: Motion to approve on the condition that the Ecampus redevelopment proposal is submitted and receipt is confirmed by the Ecampus office. The motion passed with 10 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 1 abstention.

• MTH 111Z – Precalculus 1: Functions
  • Still waiting for an Ecampus redevelopment proposal
  • New Quantitative Literacy and Analysis category
  • Seems to be a good fit for the category.
  • Does have some basic math pre-requisites.
    • Are these considering limiting factors?
  • An evening group mid-term exam is listed in CIM, but not mentioned in the syllabus
  • There is a pre-requisite that is listed in CIM, but not in the catalog. The CIM course has also been deleted.
    • It was terminated from OSU a year ago but is apparently still taught at community colleges.
  • Claim that there is no experiential learning in the course, but the nature of the class feels experiential.
  • There is a highlighted dangling statement for a COVID policy that is incomplete.
  • Core Ed LOs listed far down in the syllabus.
  • Open Educational Resource (OER) materials is subscription based – request an explanation on why they are using this resource and not another option?
    • Also, costs need to be put in the same units for comparison. E.g., $20/month would actually be $60/term, which means no longer classified as "low cost".
    • Can we make a policy about transparency of costs to students? It bothers me that they checked "yes" for OER, but this cost is significant.
      • There are challenges to finding OER materials.
      • Is this within Core Ed purview?
  • The conversation will continue next week.
• OC 201 – Oceanography
  • Per email from Karen Watte: Still waiting for an Ecampus redevelopment proposal.
• BOT 101 – Botany: A Human Concern
  • Not discussed
• BOT 220 – Introduction to Plant Biology
  • Per email from Karen Watte: Ecampus redevelopment proposal has been received.