Faculty Senate

ASCRC Minutes 2/13/07

 

Members Present: B. Bach, I. Crummy, L. Economides, J. Eglin, C. Henderson J. Graham, J. Luckowski, A. Szalda-Petree, H. Thompson

Members Absent/Excused: D. Duncan, V. Hedquist, R. Nalty, A. Tabibnejad, P. Silverman

 

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

Guest: Associate Dean Tompkins, Stephen Kalm- Music

 

Chair Szalda-Petree called the meeting to order at 2:15 p.m.

The minutes from 2/6/06 were approved.    

Communication
 

Chair Szalda-Petree reported that Physics and Astronomy performed an impact analysis and the change would have very little effect on its majors.  They already require at least one semester of a foreign language (students are exempted if they had at least a year of a high school foreign language).  The only change is that students would have to take a "diversity" course instead of another course in one of the perspectives. 

Unfinished Business

• Curriculum follow-up
  
  Business & Journalism -JOUR 477 was approved.
  
  Social Sciences
  The non-profit minor program modification that was pulled from the agenda in the fall has now been signed by Management with some additional language. Chair Szalda-Petree went over these and the proposal was approved.
  
  Ethics
  A request for a one-time only ethics designation for a summer course was sent to the subcommittee at the start of the semester. There has been only one response. The proposal will be sent to the committee as a whole to make a determination
• General Education model discussion
  Guest: Professor Kalm, Chair Music Department and member of the General Education Committee
  
  The Music department has several concerns related to the draft model. They have 1 and 2 credit courses in expressive arts that are very popular and offer an important campus involvement experience. The committee discussed allowing the same exception that currently exists: Except for courses in the Expressive Arts perspective and lab courses in the Natural Sciences perspective, all courses should have at least three credits.
  
  Music professional degrees are all between 80-90 credits and are bound by accreditation standards. Voice and organ require foreign language but the others do not and adding an extra 5 credits would be problematic. This would extend the music education (BME) degree to 5 years. The breakdown of the curriculum will be sent to the committee electronically.
  
  It was suggested that a possible solution would be to make it clear that foreign language was the preferred option, but in cases where there was a justification based on pedagogy, exceptions would be granted; and the symbolic systems option would have to be very narrowly defined. However this would be difficult to manage considering students tendency to change majors.
  
  A third issue for the department will be the 100/200 level requirement for perspective courses. The music education students are served by a perspective 3 course at the sophomore level. The BME requires many lower division credits, so the 300 level course is needed to count toward the 39 upper-division graduation requirement.
• Registrar Micus shared data regarding the repeat fee.

Term	Repeat Cards		More than once		Total Enrollment
Fall 2004	389		65		13,558
Spring 2005	346		60		13,039
Summer 2005	111		11		3,251
Total	846		136		29,848
Fall 2005	353		58		13,602
Spring 2006	292		47		13,285
Summer 2006	112				3,450
Total	757				30,337
Archive document
Fall 1994	607 (48% repeat because of a D grade)
Spring 1995	609
Total	1216			94,800

                                   
           

At the time the fee was implemented, the Senate approved a policy that allowed instructors of high demand classes to ask "repeat" students to drop to make room for "first-time" students. ASCRC will need to evaluate whether the fee is appropriate, ethical, fair, and whether it is accomplishing a goal.   If there needs to be a deterrent there may be a better way.  Registrar Micus agreed to contact the other MUS campuses to inquire about whether or not they had a similar fee.

New Business- none

Good and Welfare

Associate Provost Arlene Walker-Andrews informed the committee that HB 525 did not make it out of committee.   Also, the Governor appointed Todd Buchanan to the Board of Regents.  He is an Independent, has a degree in Business and Marketing from UM, and served in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua.

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