ASCRC Minutes 12/5/06

Members Present: B. Bach, R. Browning, I. Crummy, J. Eglin, V. Hedquist, C. Henderson, J. Graham, J. Luckowski, P. Silverman, A. Szalda-Petree, H. Thompson

Members Absent/Excused: D. Duncan, T. Manual, R. Nalty, A. Tabibnejad

Ex-Officio Present: M. Hoell, D. Micus, A. Walker-Andrews

Chair Szalda-Petree called the meeting to order at 2:10 p.m.

The minutes from 11/14/06, 11/21/06, and 11/28/06 were amended and approved.

Communication

· ECOS met with President Dennison on Monday with regard to the Communicative Disorders / Speech Pathology Program. It decided to put the program on the Faculty Senate agenda under new business as an information item for vote at the February meeting.

· The committee will need to meet the first week of the spring semester in order to finalize curriculum follow-up to go to the Faculty Senate in February for approval.

Unfinished Business

· Curriculum follow-up
Humanities
English and Art have communicated with regard to the Film Studies Option. Art will be adding a course to the option at a latter date.
ECOS requested that Bozeman be contacted with regard to the Film Studies Option. MSU offers a BA in Media and Theater Arts with an option in Motion Pictures and Video. Although their major offers theory courses, it is primarily a production program as compared to the theoretical/analytical emphasis proposed by English. Nevertheless it would be courteous to have a dialogue with MSU prior to the proposal going to the Regents.


Efforts are taking place to sort out the Irish Studies rubric and cross-listing with Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures. Catalog language is needed to clarify that Irish is housed in English and therefore MCLL is not responsible for the curriculum. The general education issue will also require clarification. Students must take Irish I, II, and III in order to fulfill the foreign language competency requirement. These should be completed in time for the courses to be put on the February Faculty Senate agenda.

Forestry and Biomedical Science
The Deletion of the Minor in Nature and Democracy and the accompanying courses FOR 471,472,478,479 was approved.
A different course number is still needed for RECM/FOR 475 Managing Recreation Resources in Wilderness because UG FOR 475, Sociology of Environment and Development was recently approved. [476 was suggested via email]

Social Science
The following items were approved.
UG PSC 451 (was 350) Ancient and Medieval Political Philosophy- course number change
COM 295S International Development & Communication – one-time only Social Science designation

New Business

· The committee briefly discussed the need for revised writing competency language to accommodate ENEX 200 as a third placement option. It was unclear whether students would still be able to be exempted from an ENEX course by their placement test results. ASCRC recommended that the issue be resolved by the Writing Committee.

· The committee discussed how to proceed with discussions of the general education model. The committee will need to bring in the various entities with opposing view points such as the schools and sciences that have a high number of credits required by their accrediting agencies and the humanities that strongly support a foreign language requirement. Ideally the model will need flexibility to accommodate all departments. The issues need to be outlined. It was suggested that the committee evaluate how many courses are available at the 100/200 level.

Expressive Arts 41
Literary & Artistic Studies 35
Historical & Cultural Studies 50
Social Sciences 47
Ethical & Human Values 9
Natural Science 29
Natural Science w/ Lab 23

It should also define the optimal number of general education courses.

It was suggested that correspondence be sent to department chairs requesting information on how their majors would be affected by the model—If implemented what would be required to make it work.

The committee defined some of the components of the model and made revisions. The Foreign Language requirement was defined as a fist semester non-English language or equivalent (test-out). The Ethics and Diversity components were moved to University Requirements rather than general education. This will allow departments to define this requirement in the major and could include upper-division courses or other experiences.

Competencies

English Writing Skills 6
ENEX 101 or equivalent

One approved writing course which may be a perspective course

Successfully pass the WPA

Math Literacy 3

Non-English Language 5

Perspectives

1. Expressive Arts 3

2. Literary & Artistic Studies 3

3. Historical & Cultural Studies 3

4. Social Sciences 3

5. Natural Science (Include one lab) 6

32

All courses must be at the 100 or 200 level

All courses must be foundational

All courses must be at least 3 credits

University/ Major component:
Diversity
Ethics and Human Values
Upper-division writing

The meeting was adjourned at 4:00 p.m.