ASCRC Year-End Report, 2003-2004

Membership:

Louis Hayes, Chair	Poly Sci	2004
Don Potts, Vice Chair	Forestry	2006
Ed Moore	COT	2004
Tim Bradstock	FFL	2004
Christopher Mullin	Library	2004
David Moore	English	2004
Deni Elliot  (fall-only)	Pract Ethics	2005
Tom Cook	Music	2005
Libby Krussel	Math	2005
Mark Cracolice	Chemistry	2005
Jean Luckowski _________________ Students	Cur & Instr _________	2006 2006
John Case(fall-only)	Student
Rob Welsh Gale Price(fall-only) Vincent Pavlish (fall) Shawna Hagen(spring) Emily Jones (spring)	Student Student Student Student Student

Agenda Items and Issues:

1. Technology has been added to ASCRC meetings and review processes.
   The meetings are held in a technology room, which allows for agenda items to be viewed on the screen.  The Committee now has ready access to a wide variety of documents and records relevant to curriculum review.  Curriculum proposals are posted to the web site to allow subcommittees access via their office computers eliminating the need to produce many paper copies.
2. Graduation Appeals Operating Policies and Procedures
   Guidelines were created to facilitate continuity in the committee as membership changes and provide students with greater understanding of the committees process and criteria used in appeals evaluation.
3. Routine Curriculum Review –new online process
   The fall review consisted of approximately 300 proposal including 15 level I and 3 level II.  Forty-five proposals were reviewed in the spring.  The committee now employs new  table formatted forms and online review of the proposals.  This procedure not only streamlines the process but saves an enormous amount of paper and copying time.
4. Revised General Education review guidelines/policy
   General Education Subcommittees are charged with the following responsibilities:

· a. Review all general education courses every three years to determine if they still meet and conform to the criteria (two perspectives and one competency per year). Each course should be considered as if it were being proposed for the first time.
b. All criteria and learning outcomes will be evaluated in terms of the goals as outlined in the assessment plan.

· At the beginning of the year ASCRC will determine which perspectives are to be reviewed and establish the appropriate subcommittees and timelines.
Subcommittees are to be chaired by member of ASCRC with members from the appropriate disciplines. Subcommittees shall consist of 5-7 members.

· Communicate with each unit, giving a list of courses to be reviewed, and ask for a syllabus for each course and a brief justification of the general education criteria (one paper copy and a digital file). Ask each unit if it wishes to withdraw any courses from general education.

· Check with the Registrar to see how often courses have been offered, and what the enrollments have been in writing courses. Any course not offered within the last three years may be stricken from the list in consultation with the Registrar's Office and the department. Ordinarily, a course for general education ought to be offered at least twice in four years.

· Course syllabi should be compared with the current criteria for inclusion in perspectives. Most courses can be reviewed adequately from the syllabi, but in some cases, a subcommittee may wish to ask for additional materials.
The subcommittee should note any inconsistencies between the course and the criteria. The subcommittee will communicate any necessary adjustments to the department. The instructor and/or chair have the options of requesting reconsideration by ASCRC or of modifying the course to fit the current criteria.

· The subcommittee should determine whether the criteria themselves may require review.

5. General Education review- Perspectives 1 and 2 and Math Literacy
   The Expressive Arts subcommittee was chaired by John Case, student member, The Literary and Artistic Studies subcommittee was chaired by Rob Welsh, student member, and the Mathematical Literacy subcommittee was chaired by Libby Krussel, Math Faculty member. The subcommittees found most courses in compliance.  In a few cases the subcommittees asked for items to be included on syllabi to bring the courses into compliance with gen ed guidelines and removed a few courses from the list.

6. Plus-minus Grading Motion (approved by the Faculty Senate 10/9/03)
   When assigning traditional letter grades, instructors may, at their discretion, utilize the symbols + or -.  Use of the + or - symbols will be limited to A-; B+; B-; C+; C-;  D+ and D-. 
   Quality points are assigned as follows: 4 quality points for each credit of A; 3.67 quality points for each credit of A-; 3.33 quality points for each credit of B+; 3 quality points for credit of B; 2.67 quality points for each credit of B-; 2.33 quality points for each credit of  C+; 2 quality points for each credit of C; 1.67 quality points for each credit of C-; 1.33 quality points for each credit of D+;1 quality point for each credit of D; and 0.67quality points for each credit of D-

7. Traditional Letter Grading (approved by the Faculty Senate, 11/13/03)
   Letter grades represent an assessment of the overall quality of work performed in a given course.  A= Excellent, B= Good, C=Satisfactory, D= Poor, F= Failure
   A--work of superior quality; B--work better than average; C--average work; D--work below average, F--failure.
8. Transfer Articulation (approved ASCRC 9/16/03)
   The judgment of the UM academic department chair or the chair’s designee will prevail in determining the articulation of courses transferred to UM-Missoula from other accredited institutions.  In cases where the department has identified a lower-division course at another institution to be the equivalent in content of an upper-division course at UM, the course will be considered upper-division for the purpose of meeting the 39 upper-division credit requirement.
9. Ethics Perspective edit (approved by the Faculty Senate 11/13/03)
   The following was removed from the criteria: An ethics course should not have another Perspective 5 course as a prerequisite.  Current courses accepted for the ethics designation have prerequisites.
10. Upper-Division Writing requirement (approved by the Faculty Senate 12/11/03)
    The Upper-division writing requirement course(s) required in by the major.
    
    
11. Revised ASCRC policy on Minors
    Minors, Policy on (Approved by Faculty Senate 2/26/04)
    A minor is a coherent program of study as defined by a department or program. Minors are earned by students who successfully complete this prescribed and approved group of courses in a field of study outside their major.

• students are required to pass at least 18 semester hours but no more than 30 semester hours of credit to earn a minor, one-third of which must be at the upper-division level.
• A 2.0 or greater grade point average in courses in the minor is required.
• Adding a minor where a major exists is a Level I proposal; adding a minor where a major does not exist is a Level II proposal and requires Board of Regents approval.
• Courses and other requirements for minors must be stated in the catalog.
• Minors where no major exists require a host department for administration.
• Degree minors are optional.
• Degree minors shall be open to all students.
• Teaching minors are separate entities from degree minors.

12. Approved Revised Admissions Standards (approved 12/9/04 ASCRC)
    The revisions were created by the Enrollment Council to accommodate the Enrollment Enhancement Plan.
13. Grading Option Motion (Approved by the Faculty Senate, 3/11/04)
    Pass/Not Pass grading was changed to Credit/No Credit Grading.  The following excerpts from the motion/catalog language layout the main premise of the change
    No more than 18 pass/not pass CT/NCT credits may be counted toward graduation. The pass/not pass credit/no credit option does not extend to general education courses or courses required for the student's major or minor, except at the discretion of the department concerned.
    A P CT designation is given for work considered to be passing complete (A, B, or C through D-) and therefore deserving credit, and an NP NCT for work of failing quality
    Grading Option Implementation (approved by the Faculty Senate, 4/8/04)
    Courses taken to satisfy General Education Requirements must be taken for traditional letter grade.  Courses required for the student’s major or minor must be taken for traditional letter grade, except at the discretion of the department concerned.
    A CR is given for work deserving credit (A through D-) and an NCR for work of failing quality (F). CR and NCR grades do not affect grade point averages. The grades of CR and NCR are not defined in terms of their relationship to traditional grades for graduate courses.
14. Symbolic Systems
    The Committee addressed a concern that the language governing symbolic systems  is vague and offers little guidance for assessing the appropriateness of course proposals in this area.  Accordingly the following language was added to the guidelines: The system must have a rigor and complexity comparable to a spoken, signed language, or math sequence e.g., MATH 117 and 121, or music sequence 161 and 162
15. Military Science Minor Issue

A proposal for a minor in Military Science was submitted and extensively reviewed by   the humanities and social science subcommittees.  Several problems were identified and   the proposal was returned to the Military Science Department for further refinement and resubmission.

16. Central and West Asian Studies Minor Issue

A proposal for an interdisciplinary minor in Central and West Asian studies was             submitted and extensively reviewed by the humanities and social science subcommittees.  Several problems were identified and the proposal was returned for revision.  It is        anticipated that the new proposal will be a minor in Geography.

17. Online Course Review Discussions
    Given that online courses are presented in a format that is different for that used in on- campus courses, guidelines for evaluating the ability of on-line to meet learning objectives is needed.  To that end a committee was appointed to develop such guidelines and recommend a time frame for evaluation.
18. General Education Subcommittee
    To review the report and recommendations of the General Education Task Force, a       Subcommittee on General Education was established.  The composition of the subcommittee is to consist of representation from all voting groups with the exception of the Law School.