Members Present: J. Campana, C. Healow, J. Eglin, V.
Hedquist, C. Henderson, C. Johnston, J.
Luckowski, D. McCormick, D. Potts, M. Roscoe, H. Thompson, A. Szalda-Petree, R.
Welsh
Members
Absent/Excused: S. Derry, V.Pavlish, A.Walker-Andrews
Ex-Officio Present: L. Carlyon
Chair Luckowski called the meeting to order at
The minutes from
Old Business
Chair Luckowski asked whether the subcommittees were fully staffed. Most of the members have been confirmed and the Senate’s website has since been updated.
Dates for subcommittee presentations were agreed upon as follows:
10/18 Humanities
Forestry and Biomedical Sciences
10/25 Ethics
Science and Math
11/1 Business and Journalism
Social Sciences
11/8
The Graduation Appeals Committee Bylaw amendment and
justification, below, was approved unanimously.
It will go to the Senate on 10/13 as a first reading and be voted on in
November.
V. Committee Membership
B. Academic Standards and Curriculum Review Committee
(2)
The committee shall create a standing subcommittee, the Graduation
Appeals Committee, which has power to grant exceptions to the faculty rules for
graduation, admission, retention, and readmission. The subcommittee shall consist of two three
faculty members and one student. The current
chair and vice chair of the
Justification:
The Graduation Appeals Committee needs a third faculty member to share the responsibility for the important decisions this committee makes. It needs more institutional history to assure consistency in decisions from year to year. With this change, two members of the committee will always have previous experience on the committee.
The committee needs to keep an odd
number of votes to avoid a tie. With
this change, the chair and vice chair of the
The committee needs to have an established
faculty assignment structure to help the Registrar’s office in handling student
petitions in a timely manner, including summer.
The Registrar’s office will know that the chair, vice chair, and
immediate past chair of the
The requests for one-time-only general education
designations were reviewed. Initially the
proposal for PSC 195 Writing and Analysis
in
3.
include a substantial amount of
writing. At a minimum courses must include:
a. one paper that provides the student with a significant writing experience, at
least a portion of which must ordinarily be revised and
resubmitted;
b.
or at least three
graded assignments for composition as well as content. Instructors will make written comments on the
quality of the student’s writing as well as the content.
Assignments
should encourage analytic and organizational skills, and at least one
assignment must consist of expository
prose.
The committee noted that PSC 195 requires 8-12 papers; the proposal was then approved.
The request by Kathleen Ryan, the new Director of
Composition, was approved. Her request
was to extend the status of the experimental writing courses (ENEX 195) another
academic year (through spring 2007) to study the needs of the writing program
and whether or not a second composition course should be developed.
Likewise the request from Allan Sillars, chair, Communication Studies to
designate COMM 395 Communication and
Popular Culture as a one-time-only writing course was approved. The syllabus indicated that students had the
opportunity to revise a paper
PHIL 395 Engineering
Life: Ethics and Biotechnology and
RELS 395 Religious Ethics and Modern
Moral Problems submitted for Ethics credit were approved. Several members from the Ethics committee
responded via email that the courses met the criteria.
MCLG 295 Tracing the
Past—Exploring the Present: Ancient
Committee reports:
The
Although the Task Force model fulfills many of the concepts contained in the
Preamble, it has too many credits and would be politically impossible to sell
to the schools. But if the university is
serious about creating engaged global citizens, foreign language should remain
as a competency.
It might be possible to consolidate the perspectives and tighten up the
criteria so that courses are truly foundational. How the perspectives are defined and
maintained is the difficult part. It was
suggested that aspects of general education such as critical thinking should be
found through the curriculum.
The committee also considered relegating the foreign
language / symbolic systems requirement to the departments. Currently many departments specify one or the
other, about 2 to 1 in favor of symbolic systems, with approximately 10
departments with no specification.
It was suggested that the program needs to be simpler. The MUS core should be used as a starting
point. The preamble sets forth lofty
ideals. A more realistic preamble would
be more workable. There are many
practical problems related to implementation of a good general education
system, but one has to start with a principled philosophy and methodology. What does a degree from The University of
Montana mean? Is it coherent? Does it
meet its goals? Protecting turf and
fears about resources are too much a part of the process. Faculty are very
passionate about general education while students view general education
requirements as something that has to be checked off.
The meeting was adjourned at