Educational Programs and Policies Committee
Minutes for March 3, 2008
Present: Mary Ann Gaffney, chair, Anthony Defusco, Barbara Thornbury, Bruce Conrad, Orin Chein, Catherine Schifter, Keya Sadeghipour, Concetta Stewart, Jackie Resavage, Michele O’Connor, Karen Turner, and Chris Dennis. Peter Jones as a guest.
Meeting convened at 2:05pm.
Approval of the minutes with an additional item 5. “Supported decision not to accept transfer credits designated with grade of “CP” (Collegiate Partnership).”
Peter Jones was with us to discuss two issues.
ROTC update – currently Temple has the Army ROTC, U. Penn has the Navy ROTC, and St. Joes has the Air Force ROTC. Last year Peter came to EPPC regarding the fact that ROTC wants some of their credits to count in degrees. The Army is paying tuition for these courses. EPPC recommended at that time for Peter to visit each of the schools for approval. There were 2 colleges (Engineering and Health Professions) that already counted credits toward degree. He did visit all the schools and all agreed that credits should count. The Council of Deans agreed as well, but stipulated a maximum of 12 credits of upper division courses only to count, starting fall 08.
Currently on the books, there is an agreement with all three ROTC programs that these grades would show up on a Temple transcript if the student were a Temple student. This does not happen. Penn’s courses are not transcripted, therefore there is nothing transferred to Temple. St. Joes may transcript these courses, but they are not transferred back to Temple. Peter recommends creating Temple off campus courses to serve for the Navy and Air Force courses so these will be listed on transcripts and grades as well. Also, the Navy and Air Force would then pay for these credits to Temple. Currently there are about 70-80 Army ROTC students, 10-15 combined Navy and Air Force ROTC students.
If this is approved, EPPC would serve as the oversight committee to review the ROTC courses from all three programs to confirm/review curricula to earn Temple credit.
CATES update – in response to a request from Faculty Senate last year, a committee was formed to review the current CATE forms, with the hope for implementation of revised forms in fall 08 latest. The committee consisted of 7 faculty, 6 administrators and 2 students. There were 3 subcommittees to look at the content, reporting out, and use of data.
Content – given the different configurations of courses and faculty teaching, this committee recommended four separate forms with core questions, but variations in others based on the type of course. The four forms are for a lecture course, a clinical setting (1 on 1 teaching), multiple instructors in a course, and a lecture with lab/recitation. (It was suggested by Anthony that there should be questions about how the lab/recitation actually relates/supports the lecture since sometimes this does not happen and students have no way to report this.) A pilot test was done in summer 2 of 07 and this recommendation is ready to go to the Provost for implementation.
How to report the data – This subcommittee found the data on distribution of results to be skewed. Mean scores with 2 decimal points was misleading. Percentiles were misleading given the scale. The question was how to identify excellence versus the opposite? The proposal currently being discussed and revised is for scores that are 50% at strongly agree = higher; scores 50% in the bottom 3 scores = lower, if other scores = middle level. A person cannot be at both ends of this scoring. With this scheme, we would not be comparing faculty to faculty, but looking at the individual faculty alone. Will still get the mean scores if it is important to a college to make those comparisons, but it’s not required.
Orin noted there should be a recommendation to schools/departments on how to use/report the CATE data. He further noted that when the CATEs first came out that Faculty Senate Steering Committee felt there should be differentiation between lower division, introductory and upper division courses.
Karen asked if the new system will take into consideration issues of gender, which current CATEs do not.
Use of data – There will be a change in the name of the form to Student Feedback Form (SF2). To really evaluate teaching, need teaching materials, portfolios, in-class observations, and more rather than just a rating by students. This new form is being put forth as one part of looking at teaching at Temple and not the only source of information.
Peter noted that they are concerned about the need to report back to the students. It has been recommended to put forward the top 25% of teachers in a Hall of Fame on the Internet. This is still under discussion. The original information would not be available for students to view.
Questions – how would students use the data? How will they recognize good teaching? How can we raise the number of online CATE responses? Suggestion for articles about the new forms in Temple News and the Faculty Harald.
New Business –
Michele reported re GIG meeting information – communication plans mostly on elimination of core courses and what courses in gen ed will substitute for these eliminated courses. They have been working with Owlnet folks to get information there as well as on the OVPUS webpage. A list is being generated of current students with below C- grade in any core course being eliminated. These students will be informed of the changes and what options they will now have. The system will notify students how to make up core deficits. If there is a true link in the system between an eliminated course and a new gen ed, then the repeat policy will work. It was noted that some of the questions about repeating courses seem to crop up in multiple venues and the Gen Ed folks need to be consulted. EPPC asked for clarification from Gen Ed by the next meeting.
Lastly, Michele noted that Patti tried to pilot an IM function for new students, and is looking to implement this option in the fall term.
