Baccalaureate Core Committee
January 17, 2007
Minutes
Members present: All present (including Vicki Tolar-Burton,
ex officio) except Margie Haak (gave advance notice)
Old Business:
- Minutes from December 7, 2006
meeting APPROVED
- Message from Vickie Nunnemaker - STS category review
in process with some delays; should go out soon. BCC discussed shortening
the revision period to as little as one month so that we still have
time for
appropriate review.
ACTION: Pat
to relay this plan to Vickie
NOTE
SINCE MEETING: Revision requests have gone out; some departments
have requested delays for a year, and some courses are no longer
offered; our list is shrinking;
Pat has reworked the matrix for reviews to reflect this and balance
BCC workloads.
- Memo to winter-term BCC Instructors - Jay solved
some issues, compiled a list, and distributed the memo intended to
prompt instructors to identify
with and discuss BC purposes with their students. Jay and Pat received
good feedback about this reminder but at a significant time cost.
Though that
cost could be reduced in the future, a better approach may be to
distribute to Academic Chairs to be forwarded to their instructors. In
addition,
we can/will provide verbiage (currently in editing) for syllabi.
ACTION: Jay
to revise verbiage and distribute before spring term
- Course updates: ANTH487 is no longer a CGI (REQUEST FOR
REMOVAL FORM COMPLETED); GEO300X is now GEO390 (APPROVAL SUBMITTED);
H120 has met
our requirements and Pat recommends approval (APPROVAL SUBMITTED)
New Business:
- Faculty Senate "deliberations" on BC: (Based
on partial attendance by Vicki Tolar-Burton with notes from early part
of Senate
meeting). It appears that most concern in the Senate is over pedagogy
in courses
(e.g., student engagement) rather than structure/delivery of the current
BC program, though there was vague talk of "other models" and "objectives
and evaluation criteria." There were no motions or actions taken.
Three groups will likely be considering aspects of the BCC over the coming
year: UCSEE, Assessment Council, and Undergraduate Education Council.
Items #6 and #8 below may pro-actively alleviate some concerns in these
three
groups.
ACTION: Jay and Pat to continue tracking the
work of these three groups
- Moving to more than 3 credits for BC courses: (Becky
Warner, Tracy Daugherty and Michael Oriard visiting). Departments are
considering this
move for their own curricula as well as BC courses to encourage: a) engagement
of students and other related pedagogical issues related to pace of instruction,
and b) better alignment with other universities for transferring credits.
However, there are tough logistical issues involved that are made worse
by current budgetary times (e.g., loss of positions, use of adjuncts
and lecturers, and general lack of course offerings). The BCC feels that
we
have to move to be more flexible and work with departments, which probably
translates into a "minimum core credits" approach by category
with a reduced number of categories so the total remains at 48 credits
(51 including WIC). This new flexibility and reduced categories relates
well to the "outcomes" discussion (#8 below).
ACTION: Jay
to continue work on outcomes; BCC to brainstorm on this new structure
at next special meeting (AGENDA)
- GEO352: approval confirmed from earlier email
(APPROVED)
- New "outcomes language" for BC: Jay
has been processing the current wording of BC categories into outcome
language and is realizing
the similarities among many categories. We also have parallel concerns
that the sum of good pieces does not necessarily translate to a good
whole.
ACTION: Jay to continue revisions including
consultations with Peter Saunders (CTL) and Rebecca Sanderson (NSSE);
BCC to review at the next special
meeting as related to #6 above (AGENDA)
- Jay drafted a paragraph intended to describe the overall purpose for
and vision of the Bacc Core curriculum, which, when finalized, will be
inserted into the Schedule of Classes. Two members had already submitted
comments on the draft text; others are asked to review the draft and
bring comments to the next meeting (AGENDA)
Next meeting: January 31,
2007 9:00-11:00 in Gilkey 109; three agenda items flagged above.
Minutes submitted by John Bailey
