Minutes for the Arts and Sciences Curriculum Meeting on February 14, 2006
The meeting was called to order at 3:35 p.m.
by Chair Jim Simon.
Committee members in attendance: Professors
Steve Bayne, Ron Davidson, Ed Dew, Jess Escobar, Johanna Garvey, Olivia
Harriott, Vin Rosivach, Ron Salafia, Jim Simon & Associate Dean Miriam Gogol
1. Appointment of secretary:
Steve Bayne.
2. Approval of the minutes
from the meeting on December 13, 2005.
A. A motion to approve the
minutes was made by Ron Davidson.
B. The motion was seconded
by Vin Rosivach.
C. The motion was
unanimously approved.
3. Old Business: Five year
review of the Irish Studies Program.
A. Jim Simon reminded us
that since at our December meeting many of us had questions about the review document
prepared by Jim Mullan (the Director of the Irish Studies Program), we had
tabled our discussion of the Irish Studies Program until our March meeting so
we could invite Jim Mullan to be present during our discussion.
B. The committee again
raised several concerns about the review document:
1) Jim Simon mentioned four
concerns that he had: 1) He could not find any clear statement of the number of
students who have either graduated with an Irish Studies minor or are currently
enrolled in the program. 2) He saw
no comprehensive attempt to measure whether the objectives of the program were
being met. 3) There was no section
that explained the impact of the program on the students or the university. 4) The section on structure and
governance does not even mention that there is a program advisory committee.
2) Jess Escobar commented
that the hardest thing to gauge from the review document was the number of
students. He also thought that at
times the review document was contradictory and repetitive. Generally, he thought that the review
document was inadequate in terms of clearly and comprehensively following the
Guidelines for the Review of Programs.
3) Miriam Gogol mentioned
that the DeanÕs office thinks that, especially with the Galway study abroad
program, the Irish Studies Program has an enormous
potential that should be taken advantage of. She also mentioned that the DeanÕs office has been concerned
with the repetition they have found in the yearly reports submitted by the
program director.
4) Olivia Harriott noted
that according to the review document, the Irish Studies ProgramÕs funding all
comes from an initial grant that is almost used up—the program has no
university budget. She wondered
whether it is in our committeeÕs purview to raise the issue of what will happen
when the grant money runs out.
Johanna Garvey and Vin Rosivach both said that was an issue for the
Educational Planning Committee not our committee.
5) It was generally agreed
that we would like to see the Irish Studies review document revised.
C. Jim Simon said he would
work with Jim Mullan, he would put the Irish Studies review on the April 11th
agenda, and he would invite Jim Mullan to that meeting. Note: Jim Simon informed us that our
usually scheduled meeting in March falls during spring break, but given the
current committee business he does not see any need to reschedule a March
meeting, so April 11th is our next meeting.
4. New Business.
A. Consideration of course
proposals:
1) MU113 Introduction to
Piano and Elements of Music.
Proposed by Brian Torff.
a) Vin Rosivach moved to
approve the course and Ron Salafia seconded.
b) Discussion:
(1)Vin Rosivach raised his ongoing concern that when proposing new
courses departments are often not paying enough attention to Item 9 of the
course proposal guidelines (ŅWill this course replace another course in the
departmental curriculum?Ó). In
this case, since the course will be taught every semester and no other course
is being replaced, he wondered where the faculty to teach this course would
come from—it seems that adding this course ultimately will require the
hiring of an adjunct.
(2)Jess Escobar argued that there are a number of mitigating
factors in this case.
(a) As
a result of the recent comprehensive curriculum review by the Visual and
Performing Arts department a number of courses had already been deleted from
the departmental curriculum.
(b)Since the departmental review, Brian Torff has argued that
there have not been enough Music courses and this course is necessary for
students at the introductory level.
(c) Also,
although this course will require the hiring of adjuncts, Brian has assured him
that University College is willing to pay for them.
(3)Johanna Garvey raised the issue of whether requiring the
students to have a small keyboard for practice would be a financial burden on
them. Olivia Harriott suggested
that they are not expensive, so it would be just like buying a book.
c) The course was
approved with 7 in favor and 1 abstention.
2) RS202 Finding God in All
Things: the Spiritual Legacy of Ignatius of Loyola. Proposed by Elizabeth Dryer and Frank Hannafey,S.J.
a) Jess Escobar moved to
approve the course proposal and Ron Davidson seconded.
b) Discussion:
(1)Jess Escobar noted the relevance of the course and the
incredibly thorough presentation of the course.
(2)Ron Davidson noted that the Religious Studies Department is
very excited about the prospect of having Frank Hannafey and Elizabeth Dryer
teaching this course.
c) The course was
unanimously approved.
3) CO331 American Media /
American History. Proposed by
Robbin Crabtree
a) Ron Davidson moved to
approve the course and Ron Salafia seconded.
b) Discussion:
(1)Ed Dew was concerned that the undergraduate and graduate
requirements are mixed together in the syllabus—he believes they should
be listed in separate syllabi. He
was also concerned that allowing up to 10 points of extra credit seems like a
pretty large percentage.
(2)Vin Rosivach argued that we simply cannot approve this course
because it had not been discussed at a scheduled department meeting and this is
a requirement of the course proposal submission guidelines.
(a) Jim
Simon noted that the guidelines for course proposals do not allow for email
polling of the department to be substituted for the discussion of a course
proposal in a scheduled department meeting.
(b)Vin Rosivach noted that we have this requirement for a
reason—email polling simply does not allow for adequate discussion of a
course proposal. With email
polling as we have here there seems to be an assumption that everything is
already hunky dory with the course proposal, but that is what is supposed to be
discussed by the department in a meeting.
(c) Miriam
Gogol said that the email responses in this case seem more like the blurbs on
the back cover of a book rather than real discussion.
(d)There was agreement that email polling cannot be substituted
for the discussion of a course proposal at a scheduled department meeting.
c) Vin Rosivach moved
to table the discussion of this course proposal and Ron seconded.
d) The motion to table the
discussion was unanimously approved.
4) CL122 Greek Tragedy in
English Translation. Proposed by
Vincent Rosivach.
a) Ron Salafia moved to
approve the course and Ed Dew seconded.
b) Discussion:
(1)Ed Dew wondered whether 33 plays can really be covered in one
semester. Vin Rosivach replied
that although it is not a gut course, it is not an extraordinary work load
either.
(2)Johanna Garvey mentioned that this is being cross listed with
the English Department and she wondered whether they need to do anything with
it. She and Vin agreed that the
English Department probably needs to submit it to this committee.
c) The course was
approved unanimously.
5) SO181 AIDS in the United
States. Proposed by Rene White.
a) Jess Escobar moved to
approve the course and Johanna Garvey seconded.
b) Discussion:
Jess Escobar noted that this was a timely
course, but he noted that it was interesting that the course was not listed as
contributing to any interdisciplinary program.
c) The course was
unanimously approved.
6) PO170 Special Topics in
Politics. Proposed by Don
Greenberg.
a) Jim Simon gave some
background on this proposal. He
noted that Don Greenberg came to him with a course PO132 that he wanted to test
drive. Jim asked him why they
donÕt have a Special Topics course in Politics. So this very late course proposal comes as a result of that
conversation.
b) Ron Davidson thought it
odd that a Special Topics course would be listed as a 100 level course. If it is aimed at Politics Majors
shouldnÕt it be a 200 level course?
He further asked whether the committee should invite the Politics
Department to investigate renumbering their courses.
c) Ed Dew thought that
a 200 level number would be very appropriate for this course and he also noted
that it would be appropriate for the committee to flag the Politics Department
for not having had a department meeting with a real discussion of this course.
d) Jess Escobar commented
that should we approve this course we should remind the Politics Department
that whenever this course is going to be run, a course syllabus must be
submitted to this committee.
e) Johanna Garvey
wondered whether, since the Politics Department is principally looking for
approval to allow Janey Leatherman (an incoming faculty member and Director of
International Studies) to run PO132 in Fall, we should request a special
dispensation for PO132 from the Dean as we have in the past.
(1)Ron Davidson asked Miriam Gogol whether the Dean would be open
to granting a one time exception for this course.
(2)Miriam said she is not fully comfortable with this and she is
not sure that a special exemption would be fully justified in this case, but
she would be happy to bring it up with the dean and get back to us.
f) Jess Escobar
thought that even for a Special Topics course we need to have an attempt at a
syllabus. Saying the course will
change each time it is offered isnÕt good enough. We need to see what sort of topics might be covered in such
a course.
g) Ron Davidson moved
that we table discussion of this proposal and Ron Salafia seconded.
h) The motion to table the
discussion of this proposal was unanimously approved.
i) Johanna Garvey
moved to direct the committee to ask the Dean for a onetime approval for PO132
and Ron seconded.
(1)Discussion:
(a) Vin
Rosivach spoke against the motion.
He said that it was at the DeanÕs insistence that we gave up the policy
of allowing a course to run one time with just the DeanÕs approval and so he
does not see the grounds for making a special case with this proposal.
(b)Ron Davidson also spoke against the motion. He believed there was a place for
onetime DeanÕs approvals, but now that the Dean has removed this option, it is
a different story. If there is a
need to make room within the curriculum for an incoming senior hire, then it is
the DeanÕs responsibility to do that and it should not be this committeeÕs
place to nudge him to do this.
(c) Vin
Rosivach called the question.
(2)The motion was unanimously rejected.
7) PY252 Tests and
Measurements. Proposed by Tim
Heitzman.
a) Vin Rosivach moved to
approve the course and Ron Davidson seconded.
b) Discussion:
(1)Ed Dew thought that PY186 Group Dynamics was an important
course and he wondered why Psychology would replace it with this course.
(2)Ron Salafia noted that PY186 had been designed and taught by
Mark Worden. It was in his area of
specialization and no one has taught it since he died. He also noted that Tests and
Measurements should have been in the departments curriculum long before this
and it takes precedence over Group Dynamics. Lacking Tests and Measurements has been a serious gap in
their program.
(3)Vin Rosivach argued that the choice of which courses to drop is
something that the department must decide and we should not be second guessing
the position of the department.
c) The course was
unanimously approved.
8) PY272 Hormones and
Behavior. Proposed by Shannon
Harding.
a) Ron Davidson moved to
approve the course and Vin Rosivach seconded.
b) Discussion:
Ron Salafia mentioned that Shannon has
wanted to teach this course for a long time, it is in her main area of
expertise, and she has put together am excellent course.
c) The course was
unanimously approved.
B. Jim Simon said he will
place on the agenda of our April 11th meeting a discussion of how
Special Topics courses should be handled—what the numbers should be, what
sort of syllabus should be submitted with the course proposal, etc.
C. Jim Simon brought up the
issue of when the change in a course number, title, or description requires a
re-submission to this committee.
In the past such changes were simply brought to the chair of this
committee for approval, but he wanted to discuss under what circumstances the
changes are so great that they require a complete re-submission.
1) Vin Rosivach said that
his sense was that people honorable.
When it is a case of a serious restructuring, then they will resubmit
the course. If, however, it is only
an evolutionary change, then it is the responsibility of the professor teaching
the course and their department.
2) Ron Davidson thought that
re-numbering should also be within the scope of the department. He thought most departments are honest
and they donÕt do a bait and switch.
D. Report from subcommittee
on sunsetting of courses.
1) Jim Simon mentioned that
in his discussion with UC about problems with the way adjuncts had been
teaching his journalism courses, UC said they were willing to offer only those
courses that are in the current catalog.
2) Vin Rosivach mentioned a
concern that Rose Rodriguez has concerning online courses offered by UC. Such courses may be competition to the
courses offered by regular full-time Fairfield faculty. Also since these online courses are
taught, in many cases, by people who have never been on campus, there is a
question of whether these are real Fairfield courses or are we just rubber
stamping something that is not of equal value. Ed Dew said he thought that, even for courses taught in UC,
academic departments had the control over who taught their courses and so by
extension this should be true about online courses as well. Vin Rosivach replied that it is not as
simple as that. The journal of
record states that UC is
responsible for the hiring of the teacher.
3) Jim Simon suggested that
we suggest we invite the new Associate Dean Aaron Perkus to discuss these
issues at our April 11th meeting.
E. Jim Simon announced that
the College of Arts and Sciences now has space on one of the new servers to
post announcements through Sue Rakowitz.
He will post the new course proposal forms, our rules for one week
courses, our rules for individually designed majors, and our routing
guidelines. The address is
faculty.fairfield.edu/cas.
F. Jim Simon suggested
making two changes to our rules for New Course Proposal Forms. He does not
believe will require us to go before the full faculty.
1) The first is to
facilitate the move to a paperless system. He wants to include a sentence that says one copy should be
sent as an email attachment to the chair of the committee and that one signed
copy should be sent to the chair by campus mail.
2) He also wants to
emphasize the point about requiring departments to discuss proposals at a
scheduled meeting by adding a sentence that says Note: Course proposals must be
discussed at a scheduled meeting of the department; efforts to gather feedback
by email do not generate a full discussion and will result in a proposalÕs not
being approved.
G. The meeting was adjourned
at 4:41 p.m.
Respectfully submitted by,
Steven M. Bayne