Arts and Sciences Curriculum Committee
Minutes of the meeting of Nov. 13, 2007
Convened at 3:32 p.m. in CNS 100
Present: Professors Steven Bayne (chair), Sara Brill, Jessica Davis, Shannon Harding, Olivia Harriott, Laura McSweeney, Joan Weiss, Maggie Wills; Dean Raymond Poincelot
1. Announcements.
Prof. Bayne announced that a proposal for the
Master of Arts in Communication is forthcoming.
2. Approval of minutes of October 16, 2007.
Moved by Prof. Brill and seconded by Prof.
Harding. Prof. Weiss jokingly
commented that the minutes stated that meeting ended at 5:24p when the
committee adjourned at 5:07p. The
last sentence in the minutes will be removed to eliminate the confusion. The amended minutes were approved
unanimously.
3. Update on course approvals for American
Studies and Math Master's programs
Prof. Bayne met with Sue Peterson, Prof.
Schlichting (Director of the American Studies Master's Program) and Prof. Fine
(Director of the Mathematics Master's program). For the math program, all but 6
courses had course descriptions and syllabi that were included in the original
Master's program proposal. Prof.
Fine was unsure if those courses received course approval then, but since the
department had discussed those courses when the original proposal came through,
Prof. Bayne was willing to treat those courses as approved. Of the 6 courses
that weren't approved, four were discussed by the Math Department in the
spring. The continued discussion
of these 4 courses is on the Math Department agenda for its meeting on
11/27/07. The other two courses (an independent study and capstone course) will
be brought to our committee by the May 2008 deadline. Also, Prof. Fine will
write a proposal for the Certificate in Financial Mathematics and send it
through the proper channels for approval.
In American Studies, Prof. Schlichting brought
a proposal which stated that the American Studies Curriculum Committee (AMSCC)
will review all current courses and sunset any courses that have not been
taught in the past 5 years. The
AMSCC hopes to send us the minutes of their discussions and copies of the syllabi
for our December meeting. The
proposal also stated that any new course would be discussed by the AMSCC and
then the new course proposal form would come to our committee. There was discussion that this does not
follow the procedure for new courses.
The college procedure states that the department or program faculty must
meet, discuss and approve the course. Also the minutes from the
department/program meeting are required by the course proposal form.
Motion: The ASCC accepts
the procedures outlined in the Review of Graduate American Studies courses proposal
with the modification that 2a be changed to read "be reviewed by the American
Studies Curriculum Committee and the American Studies faculty using the new
course proposal procedures/forms".
Motion made by Prof. Brill and seconded by Prof.
Wills. The motion passed
unanimously.
4. One Time Approval for SA 133 Photography I.
The photography course needs to be switched
from using traditional cameras to digital cameras due to liability issues associated
with developing the film. The new
course that uses the digital format was allowed to run in the fall with Dean's
approval under the assumption that the new course would go through the standard
approval process before it could be run again. Prof. Yarrington is asking that
the old course (SA133) be allowed to be run in the spring. The content of the course for the
spring is similar, but the format will be digital instead of traditional
film. Prof. Bayne stated that he
was willing to let this run for one more semester, but he wanted the department
to review the new course and to verify that the content of the new course
hadn't really changed with the transition to digital photography.
Motion: The committee recommends that SA133 (Photography I) be
allowed to run one last time in Spring 2008. However, the new course would need
to go through the standard approval process before the course could run again.
Motion made by Prof. McSweeney and seconded by Prof.
Weiss. The motion passed unanimously.
5. New Course Proposals.
A. MFA in Creative Writing Courses.
1) Residency
Courses: ENW 444 (Fiction), 445 (Non-fiction), 446 (Poetry)
Prof. Weiss asked
how these courses could contribute to the American Studies, Irish Studies and
Women Studies programs when these are graduate courses. There was a discussion of the grading
criteria (pages 104, 114, and 124). More information is needed to clarify what
is meant by "successful completion of both workshops".
Suggested corrections:
1.) Pages 103, 113
and 123, the 17th line down.
The word "peer" should be "peers".
2.) Pages 102, 112,
122, the 2nd line after 6a.
The students receive "three credits for each of the first four residencies,
or a total of 12 credits" should be "six credits for each of the
first four residencies, or a total of 24 credits".
Prof. Bayne said
that he would check the most current version of the proposal to see if these
changes have already been made.
Motion: The
committee approves ENW 444, 445 and 446.
Motion made by Prof.
McSweeney and seconded by Prof. Brill. The motion passed unanimously.
2) Independent
Studies Courses: ENW 447 (Fiction), 448 (Non-fiction), 449 (Poetry)
Prof. Weiss noted
that on page 134 and 152 under the Requirements section, the course numbers are
incorrect. They should be just ENW
444 on page 134 and ENW446 on page 152.
Prof. Harding pointed out that the prerequisites were listed correctly
in the course proposal form.
Motion: The committee approves ENW 447, 448 and
449.
Motion made by Prof.
Davis and Prof. Weiss. The
motion passed unanimously.
B. LAC 373 Internship in Latin America and
the Caribbean.
Prof. Harding
wondered why the original proposal was not approved last spring. Prof. Weiss commented that the other
course was more service oriented.
She also stated that she would have liked to have seen the service
evaluation form that is mentioned in the grading section. Prof. Wills mentioned
that this evaluation form is worth 30% of the grade, but there is no
description of it in the syllabus. Prof. Harding wondered about the "scientific research" option
and whether the student could write up a lab report or paper on his/her
work. There was discussion about how
this course could count for credit in another department, for example Biology. While the proposal lists several
disciplines where LA373 could be counted, there is no mention in the proposal
about how this would be done. It
also was unclear whether these credits would be double counted. Prof. Weiss
mentioned that independent studies can not count towards the major. Dean
Poincelot stated that students with an individually designed (ID) major would
need to get approval by the ID committee before this course could count towards
the ID major. Prof. Weiss
said that while the course was exciting, she wondered how students could afford
to take this class. There was a
consensus that Prof. Sourieau should be invited to our next meeting to answer
questions and concerns that the committee has about this course. Prof. Bayne will provide her with a
copy of our discussions so that she will be aware of some of the issues and
questions the committee has.
Suggested
corrections:
1.) On page 1 of the syllabus, in the paragraph
above the Eligibility section: "Communications" should be "Communication".
2.) In the Grading
section of the syllabus, change "20% Portfolio" to "20% Portfolio or Report"
3.) On #6a and #11 of the proposal form on
the 2nd to last sentence, the word "intents" should be "intends".
Motion: Table the approval of LAC 373 so that
the committee can get more information.
Moved by Prof. Brill
and seconded by Prof. McSweeney. The motion passed unanimously.
6. Biochemistry Major Proposal
Prof. Davis gave an overview of the proposal. The work on this proposal began during
the 2002-2003 academic year and was chaired by Prof. Coleman. This major would replace the current
major in Chemistry with a Biochemistry Option. While the Biochemistry major would be housed in both Biology
and Chemistry departments. The
Biology and Chemistry departments have worked together to revamp the
introductory courses and this new major should increase the amount of
interdisciplinary work between the departments. This proposed new major was
brought about by student demand and also because many comparable schools have
such a major. About half of the current
Chemistry majors have chosen the Biochemistry option. It is the hope that this program will increase the number of
majors in both departments. Presently,
all courses for the Biochemistry major are being offered. This has been helped by recent hires in
Biology and Chemistry.
Prof. Weiss asked whether students would be
Biology or Chemistry students. Prof. Davis stated that their degree would say "BS
in Biochemistry", but for administrative purposes students would be listed as
both biology and chemistry majors.
Dean Poincelot felt that this major would be attractive to Biology students. Prof. Weiss asked how feasible it is
for students to complete the Biochemistry major since it requires 132
credits. Prof. Davis said that
students would have to come into the program as freshman. She acknowledged that
the program was challenging.
Several people commented that this major was a long time in coming.
Suggested Changes:
On page 4 in item 7, Change "Co-Directors" to "Associate
Directors".
Motion: Moved to approve the major in Biochemistry.
Motion made by Prof. Harriott and seconded by Prof.
Weiss. The motion passed unanimously.
7. Compensation/Credit for independent study
& student research
Prof. Weiss asked whether this issue fell under
the purview of the committee. Prof.
Bayne felt that this topic was more appropriate for the Teaching Equity
subcommittee, although this subcommittee is no longer. He discussed this with Prof. DeWitt,
current Chair of the College, and they both agreed that there is no real College
committee for which this issue would be appropriate. Prof. Weiss stated that it
is really a resource issue. Prof. Harding asked where this issue should
go. Prof. Bayne said that he
thought it is probably a College faculty issue. The committee decided to continue
this discussion at our next meeting.
8. Adjournment
There was a motion to
adjourn. Moved by Prof. McSweeney
and seconded by Prof. Harding. All
were in favor. The committee adjourned at 5p.
Respectfully
submitted,
Laura McSweeney (Secretary
pro-tem)