Arts and Sciences Curriculum Committee

Minutes of the meeting of April 10, 2007
The meeting was called to order at 3:35 p.m.
Present at the meeting: Peter Bayers, Steve Bayne, Ron Davidson, Olivia Harriott, Ray Poincelot (Assoc. Dean CAS), Vincent Rosivach (Chair), Ron Salafia, Tim Snyder (Dean of CAS) , Joan Weiss.

1.    Announcements
The Chair announced that there definitely will be a May meeting, with changes in the Theater program and Black Studies proposed, as well as other business.   

The Chair also called attention to the question of changes in major and minor requirements.  Right now the rule of thumb is that substantial changes must come back through this committee, whereas minor changes can simply come to the chair, who will decide whether to bring them to the full A&SCC.  
The chair wondered if we should we have a policy?  The committee deemed that the current situation appeared acceptable and would leave the decisions to the chair's discretion.

a.    Petition for immediate hearing.  

Dean Snyder petitioned for an immediate hearing on the situation in the photography classrooms in Loyola.  Around one to three photography classes are offered  per semester between CAS and University College.  The University has spent money to keep the studios safe, but the specter of increasing costs as well as observations from the Fairfield Fire Marshal and the requirement of an exterior environmental audit indicated sufficient challenges that required the AVP to cancel photography classes for next semester.  
Both the Dean of University College and Professor Jo Yarrington (Director of the Studio Program) proposed the conversion of the course from film to digital.  However, the current photography course description indicates work with film and developing processes, which would be replaced by digital manipulation and post-exposure software processing.   

Questions and discussion ensued about the proposed transition from film cameras and processing to digital photography, the question of student cameras (SLR or not) and the position of photography in the Studio Program.

The Chair then asked if A&SCC will support the Dean's proposal that the photography course be allowed to run under a different number (to distinguish it from the previous course) on a one-semester Dean's approval, with the understanding that the new course will be brought to the A&SCC in the fall for the standard approval process.  The committee agreed that it would be the correct course of action.  

2.    Approval of the minutes of February 13, 2007
Salafia moved to approve, Bayers seconded.  The minutes were approved with one abstention.

Salafia moved to reorder the agenda, to consider the report of the Subcommittee on Teaching Credit, given the presence of a visitor, Dr. Linda Henkel.  Harriot seconded the motion, which was approved.

3.     Report of the Advisory Subcommittee on Internships & Independent Studies about proposals for teaching equity.

Olivia Harriott reported that the subcommittee was formed as a result of a motion of A&SCC on October 11, 2005, and consisted of Dean T. Snyder, Professors Johanna Garvey, Phil Lane and Olivia Harriott, with the mandate to collect data on the degree to which departments have internships, independent studies and research study activities, as well as departmental plans for equity, if any.

In October of 2006, a questionnaire was distributed, with responses from twenty-six departments and programs in CAS.  The responses were tabulated by Harriott and a spreadsheet was developed.  Three handouts were distributed by Harriott to the A&SCC at this time: the section of the 10/11/05 minutes, the questionnaire and the Psychology Department plan for equity (including summaries of other departments' plans).   
 
Harriott: Some programs and departments have large numbers of students in such activities, with approximately 250 internships per year, 140-160 independent studies and research studies. Most faculty indicated that these activities do not contribute to their scholarship, with the exception of some faculty in the Department of Communication.   Most internships are not paid internships, but in terms of credits, most are three credit courses, depending on the student need.  Responses indicated that, in terms of faculty involvement with students, one-to-one meetings are the norm.

The Dean mentioned that there was a subcommittee formed to address equity in internships, because of variation in requirements, and so forth.  Some internships are within the CAS curriculum, some are not.  But because of difficulties among the subcommittee members, no report was issued.

Harriott indicated that faculty responsible for a small number of students are generally not receiving compensation.  Moreover, there is a need to distinguish between supervised vs. independent research.  While full-time faculty do not necessarily receive compensation for this extra teaching, some adjunct faculty do get stipends for independent study courses.  Solutions to inequity cannot be uniform, because different departments have different needs, and we cannot increase the adjunct pool.  Options for equity include remuneration, plans for course release for faculty, or for departments to seek grants, donations or other external funding.

Professor Linda Henkel was invited as a guest to review the Psychology Department's teaching equity plan.

Professor Henkel explained that faculty in Psychology do a lot of student research advising, but are not compensated for it and seldom does it contribute to their scholarship.  The Department put together a plan, based on their survey of various departments having student-based research in CAS and in view of the Council on Undergraduate Research Survey on Compensation for undergraduate/graduate research mentoring.  Some places count a research course as a low enrollment course, or have a banking system for accrual of points, or may have small stipends, or competitive grants for course release time.  

There are two main pieces to the Psychology Department plan.  
First, a banking system; given that 15 students constitutes a class, faculty may receive credit toward course release, building up to fifteen units, with a weighted system depending on the level of supervision needed in each course.  Several safeguards are built in for the needs of the department.  The estimate is that in five years, there may be eight course reductions, while still meeting the overall curricular needs of the department.  
The second part applies to faculty regularly teaching 10 credit hrs./semester, vs. the normal nine, and is precipitated by the 4 credit lab courses.   Again the system is weighted, similar to the Math plan that allows accumulation of the courses, but again there are safeguards.  The Psychology Department felt the banking system to be the least taxing on the university as a whole.  

Rosivach:  When students are doing independent study, they are paying tuition for that, so there should be some method of faculty compensation in some manner.  

Harriott: For some depts., if a student wants to get credit for summer internship, then the student pays tuition, and a small stipend comes back to the faculty member, because it goes through University College.

Rosivach:  Where shall we go from here?   There is a lot here, a lot to read.  Perhaps we should post as much as possible on the college website, ask for feedback, and get back to it in the fall.  

Henkel: One reason that we did it in Psych is that there seems to be an institutional inertia, so the department went through the process of formulating a plan.  
 
Salafia: I move that we put the Psychology Department plan on the floor for the next meeting as a point on departure.  Seconded by Weiss.

After some discussion, it was realized that there are many factors to consider.
 
Rosivach: I suggest that we have a motion to table the motion by Salafia and that as a second step post the material on the college website and invite comment, and thirdly, have a chance to think about how to move it forward to the May meeting.  

Harriott: This Psych proposal is the only one that seems to make sense.  

Rosivach: We are just unprepared to discuss this intelligently, without advance preparation.  

The prior motion withdrawn by Salafia and Weiss.

Salafia: I move that we put this on the agenda for discussion for next time, with the relevant documents posted on the CAS website.  Davidson seconded.   Approved by five yeas, one abstention.


4.    Approval of new courses

a.    AE 288 Ethical Dimensions of Global Humanitarian Policy
Weiss moved to approve, Salafia seconded.
Discussion ensued about minor inconsistencies in the proposal and irregularities in the manner of its initial listing in the university catalogue.  AE 288 was approved unanimously.

b.    CO 348 Risk Communication
Bayers moved to approve, Weiss seconded.
CO 348 was approved unanimously.

c.    GR 328 Advanced Greek Readings IV
Weiss moved to approve, Bayers seconded.
GR 328 was approved unanimously.

5.    Report of the Subcommittee on Cross-listing

Bayers and Salafia are not yet ready to report, pending information from Pat Newell on cross-listing.   The members hoped to continue it to a further time.

6.    Query on changing course credits

The chair referred to the 4/5/07 email communication from Matt Kubasik, about the desire for the Department of Chemistry to change the credit assigned to Organic I Lab and Organic II Lab (Chem 211/Chem 212) from two units to one, and to change the credit assigned to Instrumentation-Analytical Lab (Chem 326 Lab) from two units to three.  This requested change would not change the credit requirements for the major.   

The Chair asked if we need to discuss this change of credits process?  It raises the larger question of changing credits for courses, in some measure complicated here because it is credit neutral for the major.
 
Dean Poincelot: In terms of the Chemistry Department, the request is innocuous, and brings them in line with normal institutional requirements.
 
Weiss: As this is not a new course proposal and demonstrates a good rationale, there should be no objection.  But it seems that all these kinds of things should come to the committee.
 
Rosivach: May I suggest that Joan Weiss volunteer to make a proposal at the next meeting: Should the ASCC be concerned with credit changes and how we go about it?
 
Salafia. Narrowly and without establishing any precedent, I move that we approve the credit changes requested by the Department of Chemistry.   Bayers seconded, and the motion was approved unanimously.

7.   Other items.  Amendment to the Special Topics Courses proposed guidelines, to be brought before the CAS faculty at the next meeting.

Rosivach:  In the February 13, 2007, A&SCC meeting, the Special Topic Courses guidelines proposal was revived, having already been approved by A&SCC on May 7, 2002, but never brought to the CAS faculty.  However, at the February meeting there was a question as to whether or not the first paragraph precluded the possibility of maintaining one-time dean’s approval for courses.  The chair volunteered to rewrite the first paragraph, and that is now on the table.  Here, the only thing that is an issue is the deletion of the words "There may be merit in" and insertion of "We recommend that 'dean's approval' " in their place.  

Salafia moved to approve the change of language and Weiss seconded.  The motion carried unanimously.  

8.    Bayers moved to adjourn, Weiss seconded.  The meeting was adjourned at 4:55 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Ronald M. Davidson, recording secretary.