ASCRC Minutes 9/6/05

Members Present: J. Campana, S. Derry, J. Eglin, V. Hedquist, C. Henderson, J. Luckowski, D. McCormick, V.Pavlish D. Potts, M. Roscoe, H. Thompson, R. Welsh

Members Absent/Excused: C. Johnston, A. Szalda-Petree

Ex-Officio Present: L. Carlyon, A.Walker-Andrews

Guest: Melanie Hoell

Chair Luckowski called the meeting to order at 2:15p.m.

Members introduced themselves.

The minutes from 5/3/05 were amended and approved.

Old Business:

Chair Luckowski informed the committee that the vocational technical motion/information item met with stiff opposition at the Faculty Senate May meeting. After discussion, it was moved and seconded that ASCRC should withdraw the information itemfrom considerationby the Senate. The larger issue will need to be considered carefully before the Board of Regents take action based on difficulties documented in the transferability audit. In the meantime the School of Business can use the appeals process to accommodate the students. There should also be information materials developed to give students a clear understanding of the process. Other possible solutions include creating a new program according to the articulation agreement or re-evaluating the College of Technology courses included in the agreement in terms of the T designation.

Geography submitted additional material for consideration to include GEOG 201 Montana and the West and GEOG 214 Central Asian Environments and Peoples in the Social Science perspective. The Social Science Subcommittee should review this material and report at the next meeting.

New Business:

Subcommittee chairs were identified. The order of presentations will be determined by the volume of proposals reieived. The subcommittee with the least amount of work will start the presentations on October 11^th.

Don Potts Education & Fine Arts

Dennis McCormick Humanities & Cultural Studies

Colin Henderson Business & Journalism

Craig Johnston Forestry & Biomedical Science

Holly Thompson Science and Math

Allen Szalda-Petree Social & Behavioral Science

Sebastian Derry Ethics

Chair Luckowski noted that committees under the Senate are charged with reviewing its procedures at the beginning of each year. She recommends renaming the professional schools subcommittees to better reflect the departments reviewed.

Current Name	New Name
Professional Schools I	Business and Journalism
Professional Schools II	Forestry, Pharmacy and Health Science & Biomedical Science

It was suggested to use Biomedical Science rather than Pharmacy and Health Science.

In terms of procedure it would be more appropriate to integrate College of Technology courses within the subcommittees best represented by the course rather than lump COT courses in Business and Journalism. Most of the courses would logically fit within the subcommittee structure. Henderson will ask the chair of the Industrial Technology Department which subcommittee would be most appropriate to review its courses.

The changes were approved without objection.

Another procedure that should be considered for revision is the structure of the Graduation Appeals Committee. The work of the committee is very important and continuity is critical. According to the bylaws, there are only two faculty members and one student. Chair Luckowski suggests that the progression of membership be norma lized and, if possible, to have someone other than the ASCRC chair serve on the committee . In recent years, the faculty members have been the chair and vice chair of ASCRC, but this is difficult because of the curriculum review work load. At least one member should have previous experience on the committee. It was suggested thatthere should be three faculty members on the committee so at least one would have served the previous year. Associate Registrar Carlyon indicated that the membership on the committee must be an odd number in order to break a tie vote. There was no resolution on this issue and the ASCRC chair and vice chair will continue to serve on the Graduation Appeals Committee.

Valerie Hedquist and Sebastian Derry agreed to continue to serve on Academic Court.

The Executive Committee of the Senate requests that ASCRC review several issues of academic oversight. There is a concern that students may receive letter grades for cooperative educational internshipswith little control over the criteria for receiving such grades. Are there objectives, outcomes, performance criteria? Who is determining the quality of work? Some departments have internal policies that allow students to take internships for credit/no credit because of the possibility for abuse in the system. Potts indicated that there are learning agreements for internships. When he was associate dean he reviewed the mentor’s interim and final report to approve credit. ASCRC could create a policy that only allows credit for internships or use teaching practicums as a model for developing criteria. The internship should be clearly integrated into the major or program. It was agreed that the committee will discuss this issue further.

There was also a concern regarding the upper-division courses taught by University College, recently renamed the Undergraduate Advising Center . The College is not an academic department. Most of the upper-division courses have not been taught recently and Associate Provost Walker-Andrews reported that she has been working with Director Hoell to revise the list of courses. She indicated that proposals willbe coming through ASCRC to delete them from the catalog.

Last year’s Online Standards Subcommittee was not productive. ASCRC does not review faculty teaching methods in traditional courses and therefore should not require this of online courses. However, there are some issues associated with online courses that have ECOS concerned. After a course is developed, the shell is owned by the University and Continueing Education could feasibly have another instructor teach the course. Would this course have any oversight from the department? Perhaps ASCRC should talk with Continuing Education about this issue.

Other Items:

ASCRC will be hearing from the General Education Committee and Writing Committee regularly. The General Education Committee is hoping to have models to ASCRC in time to make the October Faculty Senate meeting.

The Regents have adopted a Program Review Policy that looks at the number of graduates in majors, minors and options over three years. As a result departments will be discussing whether to collapse options, minors or majors that don’t have the required graduate numbers. Associate Provost Walker-Andrews reported that tThis could mean a lot of paperwork coming to ASCRC this year. Academic Affairs may discuss a way to streamline these revisions. Currently there is a seven year review schedule.

Chair Luckowski asked whether there were any other items the committee could address while it is waiting for curriculum proposals. The subcommittee on Cultural Diversity did not meet last semester to work on a definition. The General Education Committee will most likely be working on this issue, so any information collected will be forwarded to the committee.

The next meeting will be on 9/20/05.

The meeting was adjourned at 3:20 PM.