Monday, September 25, 2006
Attendance: Orin Chein, Bruce Conrad, Chris Dennis, Rob Drennan, Jane Evans, Mary Anne Gaffney, Peter Jones, Michele O'Connor, Keya Sadeghipour, Catherine Schifter, Concetta Stewart, Karen M. Turner
The meeting was called to order by Mary Anne Gaffney at 2:05 pm.
The minutes of September 11 were amended to include wording suggested by Michele O'Connor and then approved.
Honors program:
Peter Jones said that changes to the Honors Program are being developed and will be presented to the Board of Trustees.. He mentioned that he would like to be invited to attend a meeting of the Honors Oversight Committee. Orin Chein said that he would ask the chair of that committee, David Zitarelli, to send an invitation to Peter Jones.
EPPC/GEEC Transfer Credit Subcommittee:
Karen Turner reported that the subcommittee is in need of an additional member from EPPC. The current members are Mary Anne Gaffney ( EPPC chair), Valerie Friday (Admissions), David Ryan (GEEC), Karen M. Turner (EPPC and GEEC), Susan McCaffrey (Ambler Advising), Kristen diNovi (Advising), Collin Emley (student GEEC member), Ruth Ost (Honors), Michele O'Connor (Assistant Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies, First Year and Transfer Programs), Patti Vorndran (Coordinator of Transfer Programs), and Debbie L. Bennett-Kenney ( DARS administrator). Catherine Schifter agreed to join the sub-committee as an additional EPPC member.
The committee faces unresolved questions about transfer issues in General Education.In addition to the problem of how to handle the 45+ core-to-core transfer, there are issues involving CLEP and AP credits: to what extent can they be used to satisfy General Education requirements.
Peter Jones pointed out that intra-university transfer can also lead to ambiguities. Consider a student who is migrating from a major that allows for exemptions for General Education science and/or quantitative literacy in CST to a major in CLA that does not allow these exemptions. The student may have completed all but two of the other General Education requirements within the first 62 credit hours, but would be in violation upon arrival in CLA unless the waiver were retained.
Dual enrollment policies allow more students to arrive with high school diplomas and transfer credit for college courses; this also complicates the General Education time line.
The GEEC proposals to postpone the initial year of General Education to begin in the fall 2008 semester, and to remove the cap of 8 courses per area, were approved by the Academic Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees, and will now go to the full Board.
General Education Pilots:
Pilot courses for approved General Education Courses will be offered in the spring semester of 2007. Orin Chein asked if any courses will be piloted with more than one section. In response, Keya Sadeghipour said that there were courses with up to 3 pilot sections. A list of the pilot courses was distributed at the meeting, and is appended to the official copy of these minutes. There was some consternation that the college for each of the courses was listed as 65; the departments as 0650 -- 06509. Chris Dennis explained that the numbers represented General Education curricular units, and did not reflect administrative responsibility. The table presented the "old numbers" [the secretary remarks that old is a strange adjective for the number of a course yet to be offered] and "new numbers" The pattern of the new numbers is first digit 1; second digit 0, 1 for International Studies or 9 for honors (by the way, honours in International studies is thus prohibited); third digit for the General Studies area, 4 for Natural Science & Technology, 5 for quantitative literacy, etc,; and the fourth digit is to allow for up to 10 courses in an area (and may not be enough for Natural Science and Technology). The table also gave the core equivalent for each pilot course: Science B for each Science & Technology course, Quantitative B for each quantitative literacy course. As a corollary, an A-level core course in these areas would be considered to be a prerequisite for the Natural Science & Technology and Quantitative Literacy pilots.
Jane Evans moved acceptance of the core equivalents, and the motion passed unanimously.
General Education courses will require new usages of classroom space. Jim Degnan is looking into this.
EPPC referred to GEEC the following issues:
- Transfer credit
- Student matrix
- Lab fees
- Teaching assistants
- Space usage
- The problem of credit hours.
Item 6 requires explanation. Jane Evans pointed out that the resources needed for a 4 credit pilot course will be difficult to get. Bruce Conrad said that the core QB courses were all 3 credits. To run a pilot, some students would have to be convinced to sign up for a 4-credit course, and this would be a disincentive. Either the course will not run at all, or the students taking the course will not be typical of the population the course must address.
The meeting adjourned at 3:20 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Bruce Conrad
