Curriculum Council

Voting members present: John Bailey, Candice Clark, Jake Hamblin, Prem Mathew, Carol McKiel, Mina Ossiander, Jeff Reimer, John Schuna, David Taylor, Allen Thompson
Voting members absent: Michael Harte, Tom Miller, Richard Nafshun, John Schlipf, Michele Swift, Ann Zweber
Ex-Officio members present: Gary Beach – Academic Affairs, Alfonso Bradoch – Extended Campus, Yanyun Zhao – Graduate School, Anne-Marie Deitering

Curricular Policies and Procedures – Reviewing and Updating

• Courses Not Taught in Three Academic Years
  • Clean version
  • Current version and mark-up version
    • If the program wants an extension, the program can send a request to APA for a one-year extension. If terminated, the course is in-residence and can be brought back with no problem as an expedited Category II, but it comes back exactly as when it was terminated – the academic unit would need to ensure that the course is still usable.

Action: Motion to approve passed.

• Repeatability: Repeating Courses for Credit
  • Mina noted that some groups of students have discovered repeatable courses and are repeating them.

Action: Motion to approve passed.

• Minimum Class Size
  • If not a required cancellation why is it an exemption?
  • How is this monitored and enforced? Who reaches out to the academic unit and how does one request an exemption? Rebecca stated that it is loosely monitored by units; the Registrar’s Office will advise when it’s too late for a class to be canceled.

• Jeff questioned why special topics courses were added. John Bailey explained that, historically, they have been offered to one or two students.
• If special topics are included should XX also be included?

• Suggested revisions (blue text indicates proposed revisions by the Curriculum Council and red text indicates proposed revisions forwarded to the Curriculum Council):

Paragraph above the bullets: The authority to make exceptions to minimum class sizes will rest with the deans’ however, deans may choose to delegate such decisions to their department chairs academic unit chair, heads or directors.

Action: Rebecca will work with Allen over the summer to create a more coherent policy.

• Minors
  • This appears to be similar to options with overlap credits.
  • Why would it be 12 credits rather than 18 or 15? Has it changed or was it omitted? Does it align with the academic regulations?

Action: Mina and Rebecca will review and propose combining Minors and Options over the summer.

• Majors
  • Mina felt that the policy was confusing since the topic is majors, but it then mentions merging or splitting an academic unit. It’s an academic policy, but refers to organizational issues.
  • Why is the reference to merge or split an academic unit needed? Delete?
  • Suggestion to replace ‘academic unit’ with ‘academic program’.
  • What is the intent of the policy? Should some of the verbiage reside in Academic Regulations?
  • Should it be renamed “Majors, Certificates, Minors, etc.”?
  • One felt that documents won’t make sense until the CIM is implemented. Why approve language in advance of knowing what it is?

Action: Table discussion – the Registrar will resolve some of the CIM issues, it also needs to relate to Academic Regulations.

CIM (Course Inventory Management) Implementation – Rebecca Mathern

Rebecca provided a brief description of the CIM implementation:

• Overview – Components:
  • Catalog – the ‘go live’ date is June 4, 2018; June 7 begins Phase II of registration – there will be blast announcements to students. There are 35 academic programs currently pending in the CPS, but many have been sitting there for quite a while.
  • Focus Search – hosts Schedule of Classes; very interactive; will also go live June 4.
    • APA has cleared course and program forms, and will be the baseline information – likely delivered in July. From the start of AY 2018-2019 thru mid-November, faculty will offer feedback. It’s anticipated that moving to production will occur by February.
  • Class – Section Scheduler – will allow schedulers in academic units to create schedules online rather than on paper.
  • Schedule Aware – was not purchased at this time – it is very expensive.
• Will need a small group of faculty to pilot the forms. Rebecca wants to work with representatives from the Curriculum Council and Executive Committee, Jim Coakley, Brock McLeod and some select others.
• Is there a reason to push implementation of functionality this term? Would the beginning of a new year be a better time? Rebecca stated that there never is a good time to change; it’s difficult to roll out anything in the middle of the summer. There is a fall back. 

Category II Proposals

Proposals remaining from May 15:

• #103820
  • Replacing a lecture with a lab; it will be confusing if DSGM 355 is not dropped. Need to ensure that the DSGN 357 proposal is in the system. Preference is to hold the proposal until other issues are addressed. John Schuna indicated that DSGN 357 is in the system
• #103693
  • Following discussion with Geosciences, the proposal is acceptable.
• The proposals in the attached file will be approved following the May 23, 2018 meeting.
• The proposals in the attached file will be approved following the May 29, 2018 meeting.
• #100172 – The catalog description has been duplicated; Gary will address this issue.
• #102079 – HC 199 appears to be a regular class on writing, not a topics class; it’s recommended that the class be created, but should not be a special topics class.
• #103656 – WGSS needs to write description requirements more clearly.
• #103725 – Existing misspelling in catalog description needs to be corrected from ‘compliment’ to complement’; Gary will address this issue.

Action: Allen will approve the remaining courses.

Report from the Co-chairs – John Bailey, Allen Thompson

• No report

Report from the Office of Academic Programs and Assessment – Gary Beach

• No report

Minutes prepared by Vickie Nunnemaker, Faculty Senate staff