Arts and Sciences Curriculum Committee

APPROVED Minutes of the meeting of May 9, 2006

Convened at 3:35 p.m.

Present: Professors Davidson, Dew, Escobar, Bayne, Brill, Salafia, Harriott, Rosivach, Garvey, Simon (chair), Dean Snyder; Dean Perkus from the University College was invited as a guest.

Agenda

1. Appointment of the committee secretary for the day.

2. Approval of the minutes of the April 11, 2006 meeting. Moved to approve by Rosivach, seconded by Salafia. April 11 minutes were approved unanimously

3. Old Business:

Re: The alignment of A&S courses with University College:

Dean Aaron Perkus discussed the University College procedures for listing courses.

University College consults department chairs for scheduling, as of now only fielding courses from the university catalog and employing adjuncts approved by the chairs of the departments. In preparation for the coming year, chairs were given templates with wish lists of courses along with faculty who had taught them last year. At this point, UC is at the penultimate stage of finalizing course offerings for the fall. Chairs now have the document under consideration. UC deans are trying to calibrate the relationship between evening and day courses: syllabi, course outcomes, requirements, mentoring, and considering pilot classroom evaluations for adjuncts by full-time faculty. Next academic year, UC will try to do a year-long planning procedure rather than semester by semester.

With respect to evaluations, the Deans of UC do not see student evaluations, making it difficult to determine what students actually do, the effectiveness of the teaching, the appropriateness of the requirements, and whether the courses meet university expectations: all of these are assessment issues. From the UC perspective, the deans would like an interdisciplinary outcome objectives, perhaps from faculty focus groups and plugging these into the university wide assessment process.

Rosivach asked to what degree are syllabi and final exams kept on file and shared with the day school departments.

Perkus replied that Curt Naser has helped filing syllabi in the database, and for the fall all syllabi are expected to be filed in the database. Final exams have not been collected and he did not know that the day school did so. It’s clear it would be a useful tool both as a professional development tool and faculty evaluation tool. It is of great benefit for UC adjunct faculty to understand the expectations and requirements for the effectiveness and level of the courses.

Rosivach asked if the chair of a department flagged a syllabus, do we understand that the chair or program director can intervene or the course has to be cancelled because it doesn’t meet the standards of the day school?

Perkus responded that right now it’s up to the chairs to do what they need: syllabi, etc. Once a chair has approved a course and allows it to run, then it would prove awkward to have that course pulled midstream. It would be more appropriate to help determine future hiring.

Dew asked about the students enrolled in day courses and whether this is because they can’t complete the major at night.

Perkus replied that there are a certain number of slots for UC students in the day courses, in part because of the requirements for graduation, but the online courses are helping fill in some gaps.

Rosivach thought that the UC courses should be subject to a certain amount of oversight that the day school doesn’t have, because the faculty are not part of the institution in the same way as the full time faculty. They have neither the interaction with colleagues nor understand the standards exhibited by the full time faculty.

Perkus replied that a good way to compare courses is to compare outcomes, through the random sampling of student work coming out of the class. He indicated that he was uncomfortable with the concentrated optics put on the UC adjuncts as opposed to adjuncts teaching day classes. Parity in scrutiny would be preferable to a different measurement.

Snyder indicated that every semester he hears chairs stating that this will be the year to give greater oversight to the adjuncts, but the reality is that they can’t. One third of our courses are taught by adjuncts. The emphasis on the oversight of full time faculty is because of the greater number of courses they teach, so that time invested is perceived as having greater overall yield. An example of the problem is the department of Modern Languages; despite their involvement with adjuncts, right now adjunct morale is rather low and they seem to feel dispossessed.

Simon said that he would love to have UC reach out even more to the chairs, on questions of hiring and supervision, etc., but right now the chairs’ workload is getting harder and harder. How much feedback does UC actually get from the chairs?

Perkus responded that the chairs sometimes go to the default position of doing nothing, so that UC must schedule the adjuncts irrespective of the lack of input. At this point, no chairs have complained, but some have not been active whereas others have.

Salafia asked if, even though our evaluation form is inadequate, the adjuncts use the form.

Perkus replied that, yes they do. Certain evaluation information is entered into the computer, whereas other data come back to the adjuncts and sit there. Adjuncts apply for neither tenure nor merit, so there is no means to utilize the data. Only if there is a question, could a UC dean require them to submit evaluations.

Simon observed that the use of adjuncts in UC courses sometimes drain the student pool and the full timer courses offered in UC don’t run.

Perkus responded that the problem mostly concerns online courses. In 2002 online course offerings began, and in 2004 an enrollment drop-off was observed in both normal courses and online, but less drop-off in the online registrations. If full timers want to teach online, they get preferences, but the reality is that UC has to cancel under-enrolled courses, irrespective of the faculty status.

Dean Perkus was thanked by the committee for his willingness to discuss the questions.

4. New Business

The chair indicated that there was much confusion in the college on oversight about masters courses. In March, the Math department reported that it believed that no approval was required for MS math courses. Eventually, correspondence ensued about the graduate math courses, having consequences for A&S masters programs. Dean Snyder indicated that the normal approval process for MA550 had not been engaged, and neither the registrar, nor the math chair, nor the dean clearly understood the normal routing process.

Rosivach provided historical insight by distributing a printout of the Journal of Record, Journal Sequence No: 106—Routing of Graduate Course/Program Revisions, Guidelines. He observed that the undergrad routing procedures go back to around 1987 and the grad procedures go to 1988. The procedures cover both new courses and programs in the college or school. However, the order presented in the current Journal of Record is incorrect, and Rosivach presented a old printout demonstrating the correct sequence, which should be: curriculum area chair > faculty of school or school curriculum committee > dean > UCC. This was the routing approved in 1987, extended to graduate courses and programs in 1988, but when the Journal of Record was transferred to the new computer system, the correct sequence was lost with the formatting.

The roll of the department is not spelled out in the Journal of Record, but is an internal CAS decision, formalized with the ratification of the course approval form. Prior to that there was no formal procedure. The form encoded the authority to decide questions of professional expertise in the hands of the department. The A&S curriculum committee is to ensure that proper review procedures are in place, examine the question of resource allocation, and avoid duplicate courses in different departments.

Snyder asked if a department has to approve a proposed course before it can be brought to the committee.

Rosivach responded that the A&S curriculum committee is also a committee of appeal, which can be invoked in the case of departmental denial. In essence, the same thing happens with the dean as well. If the faculty member decides that both the dept and the A&SCC has rendered a poor decision, he/she can appeal to the dean, in whose hands the ultimate approval lies. The idea of the routing procedures is that, at each stage along the way, there have been recommendations, but there is always an appeal possible.

Simon opined that none of the graduate courses seem to have gone through the various approval processes.

Rosivach responded that, when the graduate program of communications was approved, those courses were also approved. That is not the case for many other masters courses.

Snyder observed that, when the MA550 came up, Professor B. Fine met with the dean and discussed the course, and no one knew of the correct routing procedures. In some masters programs, e.g., American Studies, a majority of the courses are already approved, but other courses have been invented without approval and have run. Likewise, Financial Mathematics courses haven’t all been approved. The question for us is what do we do now for this MA550 course in the fall. If we cancel it , the message about proper procedures would be good, but the problem would be loss of student participation, and there are parity questions with American Studies.

Another issue is the certificate program in Financial Mathematics, which can be applied to getting an MS in math. Basically, there are two tracks: a student may enroll directly in the MS program or go through the Financial Math certificate program and then go into the MS program. The certificate program appears not to have been approved by the A&SCC. If we accept or reject the MA550 course, we still need to send the appropriate message to the chairs involved. My general practice is to cede the power to this committee.

Rosivach indicated that it will be helpful to deal with one issue at a time. The easy solution is the one about new courses. The difficult one will be the certificate program, which should be held off until the new courses are decided. American Studies and others have produced their courses in good faith, so we can grandfather in the things from the past, and henceforth they should go through appropriate channels. The difficult one is the MA550 because it actually went through the departmental process, but was never brought to a vote. This is a classic case for dean’s approval. In the fall, we would return to the specific course for approval.

As a solution, Rosivach made a motion: “Moved to reaffirm standing policy on the review of the new course proposals, grandfather in for a period of two years from today the masters courses that are currently being run or have been run in good faith without approval.” The motion was seconded by Salafia. Approved unanimously.

Dean Snyder thanked the committee for being reasonable and their attention to the process.

Davidson moved that consideration of the Financial Mathematics certificate program be moved to the fall. Garvey seconded. Snyder observed that there are other masters level programs and courses that will need to be reviewed. The motion was approved unanimously.

Rosivach moved to thank our chairs for the year, followed by a round of applause.

Rosivach moved to adjourn; Salafia seconded. Meeting adjourned at 5:00 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Ronald M. Davidson

Recording Secretary