ARTS & SCIENCES CURRICULUM COMMITTEE

ANNUAL REPORT, 2005 - 2006

Submitted by James Simon, Chair, Spring 2006 semester

The committee met six times through April, and a seventh meeting is scheduled for May 9. Jesús Escobar served as chair in the fall and I served in the spring. There are six items that I think would interest you.

1. Curriculum committee members repeatedly commented on the high quality of new course proposals that came before us. The committee approved 20 new courses over the fall and spring semesters, tabled action on one, and rejected one. The one course was tabled because the New Course Proposal Form says a department must discuss a new course “in a scheduled meeting”; an informal e-mail exchange does not meet that specification. The one rejected course was a proposal for a Special Topics course, and again there was no formal discussion at a department meeting or an attempt at a syllabus.

2. As part of that discussion, the committee wrestled with the issue of how many changes can you make to a current course before having to resubmit it to the committee. Can you change the title without approval? And change the title and description? And change the title, description and the number? We adopted a common sense approach of leaving it up to the department to keep an eye on such changes. If there are “substantial” changes, then we ask that it come back before us. If the changes are minor, the department chair should send a note to the committee chair, just telling us so that when we check the course listings, we know ahead of time that a course simply may have a new name or a new number.

3. The committee discussed the thorny issue of whether students should be allowed to double count the same course toward two majors. The current policy of allowing double counting makes it very easy for students with an individually designed major to complete two or even three majors. The committee polled departments the preceding year about this issue and found strong resistance to changing the current system. No action was taken.

4. A subcommittee headed by Vin Rosivach has been looking at the issue of sun-setting courses. The Journal of Record is specific: if a course has not been offered in five years, it must be dropped and treated as a new course when it is offered again.

The same subcommittee also is looking at the related issues of ensuring that University College only offers A&S courses that are listed in the current catalog, and how to make sure the academic rigor is the same for the A&S version and any UC version. The committee will hear in May from Aaron Perkus, the new associate dean at University College, who has made such issues a priority for his office.

5. In other action, the curriculum committee endorsed the creation of a Master of Arts degree in Communication, the so-called corporate cohort program. We also did a five-year review of the Irish Studies program and recommended that it receive another five-year renewal.

6. Three issues will be passed on to next year’s committee:

a. One is the issue of Special Topics courses. On my last three year term on this committee, we encouraged departments to use the words Special Topics in conjunction with professors “test driving” new courses, or newly arrived professors teaching a new course before it undergoes approval. But on the current curriculum committee, some members feel Special Topics should be reserved for one time only special events like the course on The Sixties that we offered a few years ago. Other members feel the term should be used for a rotating series of courses. For example, in my journalism area, imagine a Special Topics in Advanced Reporting that focuses on environmental reporting one semester, business reporting in a second and political and government reporting in a third. Given the lack of agreement and the lateness of the year, we put off a fuller discussion until the fall.

b. The second issue for next year is even thornier. In the Fall ‘06 listing of graduate courses, there is a Math course that was not approved beforehand by the math department. And the Journal of Record calls for all new courses – including graduate courses – in the college to come before the College Curriculum Committee. Well, this is my sixth year, in total, on the committee, and I have never seen a graduate course submitted.

Some faculty members dealing with gradate courses worry about more bureaucracy and red tape if courses have to come through the curriculum committee. But it’s clear to me that the curriculum committee has to comply with The Journal of Record – or people can amend the Journal of Record. We can’t pick and choose which policies we will honor and which we will ignore. So at our final meeting in two weeks, I expect we will set up a subcommittee to work this summer with the dean and come up with a process to make sure any new graduate course follows the same procedure as a new undergraduate course. The department has to approve it first, and then it goes to the curriculum committee and the dean.

c. The curriculum committee also wanted to remain focused on the lingering issue of whether professors who supervise Independent Studies to package a number of such efforts together and have it count as a course. We created a subcommittee to work with Dean Snyder to move on the issue. The subcommittee failed to meet, and it is expected to continue to work on the issue.

Finally, Sue Rakowitz informs us that there is now space on the faculty server for College or Arts and Science items. We will post New Course Proposal Forms, rules for one-week courses, rules for individually designed majors, routing guidelines, and minutes of college curriculum meetings. We will have that system up in time for the fall semester.

I would like to thank all the committee members – Jesús Escobar, Ed Dew, Ron Salafia, Johanna Garvey, Sara Brill, Ron Davidson, Steve Bayne, Olivia Harriott, Vin Rosivach.

Time permitting, I am willing to entertain any pressing questions.