Monday, September 11, 2006
Attendance: Mary Anne Gaffney (FSBM), Chair; Orin Chein (CST); Bruce Conrad (CST); Rob Drennan (FSBM); Chris Dennis (VPUS office); Jane Evans (Past-Pres FS); Phil Harris (CLA); Michelle O'Connor (VPUS office); Jackie Resavage (Registration); Keya Sadeghipour (Dean, Eng/CST); Catherine Schifter (Educ); Concetta Stewart (Dean, SCT); Karen Turner (SCT, GEEC)
Guest: Terry Halbert, Director, GEEC
Chair Gaffney called the meeting to order at 3:06. The minutes of the April 26, 2006 meeting were accepted with no amendments.
Report from Chris Dennis, for Peter Jones, VPUS:
1. ROTC:
The VP has asked ROTC for their revised syllabi, which they have not yet gotten. When they are received, Jones is contemplating visiting each School or College's Dean to see about approval of credits. However, the first step will be to form the Military Oversight Committee, which the FSSC will do upon hearing that the syllabi are in hand.
2. Transfer Equivalents:
All area community colleges have been apprised of Temple's renumbering scheme at this point. The VP's office is working with individual departments to update the A9 tables which show equivalencies between courses offered at other schools and those offered at Temple. The Vice Provost would especially like to have theses tables ready before DARWIN goes on line in academic year 2007/8.
The State Legislature is working on a template by which all classes at community colleges will be equivalent; Temple must provide information to the Legislature by January about how well we fit into this scheme.
Temple is a member of an oversight committee to set standards for foundational courses, so that foundational classes will be able to be transferred in; these standards must be available to the Appropriations and Education Committees of both the House and Senate by mid-December. Temple’s obligations are for data-gathering only. There is a need for the GenEd Committee and EPPC to work on transfer issues. Members of EPPC discussed a solution of forming a subcommittee to work closely with GEEC and Honors; Karen Turner agreed to head the subcommittee.
3. Request from Ben Rifken, Assoc Dean, CLA, to grant foreign language credit to Russian speakers in a course designed by CLA. Michelle O’Connor will ask Ben for a more formal proposal.
4. Honors Program:
There are still jurisdiction issues to be worked out in Schools with departmental honors programs; Dennis reported that not as many upper-level honors students had signed up as was wished. The VP's office is also aware of the inadequate amount of merit-based financial aid to attract honors students, especially in relation to comparable schools. It was reported that the Honors Oversight Committee would like permission to abandon the Honors Faculty designation, feeling that the distinction is not helpful. However, they were reminded that the designation of Honors Faculty is part of the document passed by the Trustees, and if they want to change the document, they will have to go through the Academic Affairs Committee of the Board.
5. Student Academic Rights:
The final document was VERY different from the original, and now follows AAUP guidelines, and previous policy at Temple. Much of this was due to a huge input from the Council of Deans.
6. Advising:
There are severe issues of workspace, quality of advising, loads, and equity of salaries that are being addressed by VPUS. The complexity of the job is increasing with renumbering and the GenEd introduction. Sadeghipour brought up the issue of prerequisites and the issues they raise for advising and retention and he noted that advising includes Deans and faculty. It was agreed that Computer Services needs an overhaul, but VPUS asked if the Deans and Curriculum Committees of Schools have examined their prerequisites to make sure they are current. Tim O'Rourke should be approached to see if DARWIN can be more effective in helping students understand where they are.
7. DARWIN, the upgrade of DARS should be installed by June 07.
8. Report from Halbert:
GEEC has approved 47 classes for the GenEd, from 8 colleges/schools, with $5000 given to each faculty (team) to develop the courses. The T&LC and Area Coordinators are poised to help, and GEEC would like to see each course piloted at least once, and have them count as if they are CORE classes. EPPC will have to endorse this plan and Halbert agreed to bring a mapping of the Pilot courses and the Core Courses they would be equivalent to. When pressed about available resources, Halbert says the GEEC is starting to figure out what is currently available. She is also meeting with Assoc Deans and Deans to discuss this problem.
She noted that President Hart had expressed a desire to see many 'delivery models', and some discussion ensued if that included distance-learning, a topic which has been discussed in GEEC. Terry explained that Fall'08 will be the rollout date of Gen Ed if President Hart gets the okay from the Board.
Some of the issues that still must be addressed: Piloting, Resources, Course approvals and IH.
The issue of dual enrollments was thrown into the mix as an issue that must be addressed by the transfer subcommittee. This is where high school students can take college courses for credit.
There was a discussion about International programs and how students studying abroad can complete GenEd.
9. Dennis reported that the University has instituted a change to the University Policy on Academic Warning, Probation, and Dismissal. Effective 9/8/06, students placed on academic probation will remain eligible to apply for University need-based financial aid, athletic-based aid, and University Housing.
10. New Business:
Conrad raised the issue about limiting the number of times a course can be taken. And what if the course is a prerequisite? It was said that there are multiple repeats in business and in other departments throughout the university. If you limit the number of repeats then in essence you're telling students they have to drop out of the program. It was decided that this would be on the agenda for the next meeting.
J. Evans , K.Turner
