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, Jesœs 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) Jesœs 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)Jesœs 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) Jesœs Escobar moved to approve the course proposal and Ron Davidson seconded.

b) Discussion:

(1)Jesœs 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 RenŽe White.

a) Jesœs Escobar moved to approve the course and Johanna Garvey seconded.

b) Discussion:

Jesœs 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) Jesœs 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)  Jesœs 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