Members Present: I. Crummy, L. Economides, J. Eglin, V. Hedquist, J. Graham, J.
Luckowski, P. Silverman, A. Szalda-Petree, H. Thompson
Members Absent/Excused: B. Bach, D. Duncan, C. Henderson R. Nalty, A. Tabibnejad
Ex-Officio Present: M. Hoell, D. Micus, A. Walker-Andrews
Guest: Associate Dean Tompkins
Chair Szalda-Petree called the meeting to order at 2:15 p.m.
The minutes from 12/5/06 were approved.
Communication
· Professor Economides was welcomed to the committee and members introduced themselves.
·
The committee is short a member in the
professional schools. ECOS is still
working on finding a replacement for Professor Manual who had a schedule
conflict for the spring semester.
Unfinished Business
·
Election of the chair-elect was postponed.
·
Curriculum follow-up
Humanities Professor Eglin received documentation that MSU has been
informed of the proposed Film Students Minor and are supportive. The issues relating to Irish studies have
been worked through with Modern and Classical Language and new forms were
submitted to clarify the cross-listing of all the related courses. The pending items were approved by the
committee.
Forestry & Biomedical Sciences RECM/FOR 476 was approved. The department supplied a course number that
was not in use or proposed.
Business & Journalism AASC 105(T) Deciding Majors and Careers was
approved with a T on the consent agenda, although the intent of the form was to
remove the T. The subcommittee reconsidered
the intent of the form. It supported the
change because several other career courses exist and are beneficial to
students. ASCRC, however, was not in
favor of accepting the course based on the existence of similar courses in
academic departments. A motion to
approve the course as listed on the consent agenda (AASC 105T) was
approved. A larger issue is that catalog
language does not allow Career Skills courses to count toward a bachelor
degree. This is an issue that requires further discussion as a retention
consultant that visited UM recommended developing additional career courses.
Science The science subcommittee had a late submission of a new option
in Field Ecology and associated courses.
The subcommittee hopes to have a consent agenda ready the next week.
·
The Writing Committee decided on catalog
language pertaining to the addition of ENEX as a placement option; however
concerns have arisen regarding the loss of students who are exempt from taking
ENEX 101 from having a choice for their writing course. The committee will be meeting on Friday to deliberate.
·
At the last meeting of the fall semester the
working general education model was refined and the committee discussed the
need to get feedback from departments.
However, Chair Szalda-Petree informally spoke to a few ECOS members and
they are uncomfortable with sending out the model prior to working through the
difficulties with the sciences and professional schools. Some departments are
suspicious that no communication has been forthcoming. It is important for the process to be
transparent and for the effort of the various committees to be apparent. The venue to have dialog with the faculty is
the Senate, but it should be presented as an issue for consideration, not yet
ready for action. However, there is concern that senators wont know the background
and the same issues will be debated again. It was suggested that a white paper
be developed to explain why specific changes were made and the issues
considered.
Chair Szalda-Petree will ask for guidance from ECOS and report back to the
committee.
New Business
·
The committee needs to prepare for the
spring General Education Review. A
subcommittee is needed to review Expressive Arts, and Literary & Artistic
Studies courses. Professor Crummy agreed
to serve as chair of the Literary & Artistic Studies Subcommittee and
Professor Economides will be a member. It was suggested that that Ashby Kinch be
contacted because he has been working on evaluating English courses offered
under Literary and Artistic Studies. Professor
Silverman agreed to serve as a member of the Expressive Arts Subcommittee and
it was recommended to contact Tom Cook as a possible chair. Camie will also solicit members from the
curriculum subcommittees and then contact department chairs if other members
are needed.
· Chair Szalda-Petree received an inquiry about the origin of the 100 fee to repeat a course and whether ASCRC would be the body to make a policy change. There is a desire to do away with this fee. Apparently the Executive Officers considered this at the request of the former Associate Registrar in June 2006 and supported the idea of abolishing the fee. It is suspected that this did not occur because the fee generates quite a bit of revenue
The meeting was adjourned at 3:25 p.m.