Recorded by: Pat Muir
Members present: John Bailey, David Bernell, George Caldwell, Margie Haak, Denise Lach, Cheryl Middleton, Pat Muir, Jay Noller, Susan Shaw (ex officio), Vicki Tolar Burton (ex officio), Annette McFarland
Members absent: None!
Unanticipated guest: Mike Quinn, Faculty Senate President
Old Business
Minutes from meeting of May 4, 2007 were discussed, revised, and approved as revised
Mike Quinn presented Executive Committee (EC) response to the three motions that we passed at the meeting on May 4, 2007. The EC was happy with Motion 1 (“There is no current need to make adjustments to the Baccalaureate Core”) and will keep Motions 2 and 3 in mind, but is unlikely to act on them in the short term (#2 –“These discussions need to continue in a larger forum to determine if a task force should be convened to review the Baccalaureate Core;” #3 – “We propose that a funded assessment of student and faculty perception of the Baccalaureate Core be conducted.”). We discussed whether any revisions to the motions were necessary. ACTION: Vote was unanimous to let the motions stand as passed at the May 4, 2007 meeting.
We encouraged Mike Quinn to publicly acknowledge the generosity of ENG re. the decision to keep WR I, II and III courses and all 100-level ENG courses at the 100 level, and also to acknowledge the shuttle diplomacy conducted by Vicki Tolar Burton in this matter. He will do so at the June Faculty Senate meeting.
Jay Noller updated us on his meeting with the EC about our decision that the Bacc Core does not need to be revised immediately. A question arose about whether some courses have more prerequisites than is reasonable for Bacc Core courses, and about whether language concerning prerequisites in the criteria for Bacc Core Courses should be made more explicit. Decision: We need more information on the current distribution of numbers of course prerequisites in various categories before we decide whether action on this is needed. How common is it for Bacc Core courses to have several prerequisites at present?
New Business
Course Reviews:
PS 425, Gender and the Law – change in prerequisites approved unanimously; Pat will submit approval along with a request that DPD status of the course be included on the syllabus
ME 418, SAE Senior Design Project – change in prerequisites approved unanimously; Pat will submit approval.
DPD and transfer courses:
Susan Shaw, DPD Director, presented her concern that many transfer courses currently used to fulfill the DPD requirement do not actually meet the criteria for DPD courses. She indicated that she will bring a written proposal to us regarding use of transfer courses as DPD for us to discuss at the June 1, 2007 meeting. The hope is that we can vote on the proposal (or a modified version of it) and that, if the vote is affirmative, she can then carry it forward to the EC and onward.
International components of the Bacc Core:
We discussed a proposal sent to the BCC by Jim Johnson (College of Forestry) on behalf of the International Council, which urges that a mechanism be established that would make it easier for students to receive Bacc Core credit for education abroad experiences. Susan Shaw had previously discussed with them her concerns about use of international experiences to fulfill DPD requirements. While the BCC supports the general concept that courses (or other experiences) taken outside the US should certainly be useable for appropriate Bacc Core categories, we were unclear about the mechanism being proposed by the International Council. Action: It was agreed that Pat Muir would contact Jim Johnson and suggest that she or Jay Noller meet with the Council for clarification, with that possibly followed by a representative from the Council meeting with us so that we understand the proposal and can take action on it.
Operating procedures and standing rules:
We discussed whether formal changes are needed in either our operating procedures or standing rules, which would be intended to make more explicit some of the rationale we use to make decisions (e.g., that courses with disproportionately large enrollment and multiple sections receive closer scrutiny at review time than do smaller, single-section courses; that, when reviewing course change proposals, we will consider impact of changes in course credits on access; and others – see a listing in the Agenda for this May 18 meeting). Decision: It is important for the BCC to be transparent about operating procedures, but we also need to retain flexibility for dealing with new or unanticipated situations, hence it is neither possible nor useful for us to try to write out every nuance of our process and considerations. Rather, as situations are encountered, procedures used to address them will be recorded in BCC minutes. Be it here noted that, in addition to items already listed in operating procedures, on the Cat II proposal web site, and on the annual category review web site, the outcome of the BCC’s review of proposed changes to existing Bacc Core courses and of proposed new Bacc Core courses can be affected by:
Furthermore, courses that do not appear to meet one or more criteria can be re-reviewed at a set date in the future, pursuant to notice to appropriate department Chair and faculty.
In addition, we recommend that the BCC continue to send beginning-of-term notice to Chairs/Heads and Office Managers of Departments that will offer Bacc Core courses that term, asking them to remind the appropriate faculty to make the role of the course in the Bacc Core clear to students, most commonly by mentioning the category, rationale, and criteria during an early meeting in the term.
We also discussed whether we should institutionalize the co-chair system that we’ve used this year (via a change in Operating Procedures). Decision: Doing so is unnecessary – as it stands currently, the BCC nominates a chair or co-chairs to the EC, and there is nothing to stop us from nominating co-chairs.
Next meeting:
June 1, 2007, 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. Gilkey 109