Baccalaureate Core Committee
May 11, 2000
Minutes
Attendees: Bonnie Avery, Bob Jarvis, John Lee, Kurt Peters, Satish Reddy, Michael Scanlan, and
Christine Snow
1. Minutes of 4/27/00 meeting were approved.
2. Discussion of HST 111, 112, 113 for Cultural Diversity. Roughly half (five of ten weeks) of each of 111
and 112 are devoted to western culture and as much as 80% of 113 may be devoted to western culture.
It is not clear the course is focused primarily on CD. Most other courses already approved for CD seemed
to be more narrowly focused on CD. Some discussion of western culture is needed and appropriate for
comparative purposes. The question is how much. The committee discussed the issue of whether a certain
percentage of a course must be devoted to nonwestern culture for it to count as CD. There was no
agreement reached on this. A danger with too much study of western culture in a CD course is that the
CD aspects could be trivialized. We have the common situation where a course cuts across two Bac Core
categories. Deferred for more information.
3. Initial discussion of the draft of the new fitness criteria: Lecture and lab can be separate courses in the
new proposal. This is done mainly for more choice and to enable other colleges/departments such as EXSS,
Public Health, Nutrition, etc to offer lecture courses that would satisfy the new criteria. Choice was a major
concern for students and some advisors. A possible drawback is that students won't tie together principles
learned in the lecture to the lab activities. Criterion 7 needs to be clarified. It needs to be clear how a lab
activity differs from a PAC.
4. Eng 201, 202, 203 Shakespeare as Western Culture. It is not clear from the materials submitted that
this course has WC as an important element. We are seeking more information from the English Department.
5. Next meeting May 25, 2000 at 11:00 to 12:30
