Arts and Sciences Curriculum Committee
Meeting of October 19,
2010
Attending: Andreychik, Epstein, Im
(presiding), Johnson, Miecznikowski, Petrino, Ruffini (recording), Sourieau, Striuli, Zhang.
With: Associate Dean
Joan Weiss, Dean Robbin Crabtree.
Visiting: Peter Spoerri (CS).
Im calls the meeting to order at 3:33 PM.
1. Announcements
Announcement from the
chair: Im has been approving special topics course
and passing them along to the dean without bringing these courses to the full
committee. This is in keeping with
standard routing practice.
2. Approval
of the Minutes (September 21 & 28, 2010)
Minutes for the ASCC meeting of 9/21
Miecznikowski moves and Sourieau
seconds the motion to approve these minutes.
Discussion.
Weiss: minutes should
usually to count visitors and deans separately from those attending. Miecznikowski:
Give Yaycioglu his last name in RuffiniÕs
comment.
Vote
Motion passes
unanimously, with one abstention.
Minutes for the ASCC meeting of 9/28
Zhang moves and Miecznikowski seconds the motion to approve these minutes.
Discussion.
Im and Schafer are misspelled passim. For Trof read Torff. Under
ÒWeiss commentsÓ we should read Òworld diversityÓ not Òfor multi-listingÓ. Miscellaneous typos to be sent to Striuli for her correction.
Vote
Motion passes
unanimously, with one abstention.
3. MU102
new course proposal (resubmission)
Resubmission by Brian Torff addresses the issues the ASCC sent to him after prior
consideration of his course proposal.
Motion
Epstein moves to adopt
the revised proposal Torff has submitted, with the
motion seconded by Striuli.
Point of Order
Weiss asks whether
both the semester course and the one week course have been approved by the
department. Procedures require both
syllabi for approval; the syllabus for the full-length class is missing.
Motion
Miecznikowski moves and Petrino
seconds the motion to reconsider the proposal at NovemberÕs meeting, pending
receipt of both syllabi.
Vote
Motion passes
unanimously.
4. NM11
new course proposal
Motion
Zhang moves and Sourieau seconds the motion to adopt NM11 as proposed.
Discussion
Im: the proposal had made it through the VPA
meeting and had been approved there, but had not been forwarded to ASCC in time
for our previous round of proposals.
The hard-copy arrived to Im today with Brian TorffÕs signature.
Weiss thinks the course is great, but is not satisfied with the answer
to 9B, which is vague due to the reshuffling of the program currently taking
place.
Vote
Motion passes
unanimously, without abstentions.
5. New
Media and Film 5-year review
Procedural Questions
Im: are we supposed to approve this, or simply
discuss it? Crabtree: It is a
requirement of new program creation that the program submit a review after five
years. No action is needed except
to accept or endorse the review and pass it forward.
Discussion
Im opens the floor for discussion prior to
calling for any motion. Weiss would
have liked more detail on course name and requirement changes which have been
instituted over the last five years.
For instance their original proposal and current listings refer to
different sets of required courses, e.g. NM10, which does not appear to have
existed at the start of the program.
Crabtree observes that certain significant changes might constitute
actual program revision. If these
changes have not been reported, the committee cannot study them. Petrino is
impressed by the growth of the program.
Crabtree thinks that
this process should be called a report, not a review. She has a lot of feedback on future
plans, particularly in regards to the two proposed capstones, and would like to
discuss this feedback with the program.
Im points out that these proposed changes will
just be echoed later when they have to bring the program changes before the
ASCC. Johnson suggests that
comments now could thus help with those proposals later. Crabtree suggests that feedback to them
indicate that it was unclear due to absence of a timeline precisely how all of
the changes in the program came to be, step by step. She is not confident based on prior
practice that all of the necessary procedures for documenting these changes at
the deanÕs level have been followed in the past.
(Parenthetical
discussion: Im observes that the ASCC directory in Eidos has guidelines for routing procedures for all types
of changes to courses. On
consulting this file, Crabtree notes that she does not see material in this
file on changes that only need the ASCC chairÕs notification, etc. Im says that
we can develop a cheat sheet to deal with this issue.)
Im wants to go on record approving of the
reviewÕs narrative of the trajectory of the program, and what the program needs
to do to continue the growth of the program. In that sense, this was a good review
for them. Epstein asks about
staffing requirements; the review indicates a request for two more full-time
faculty members. Crabtree thinks
that some of their proposals make sense, but suspects that they have not fully
thought through the enrollment management issues at stake. Nor was the core question engaged, which
particularly involves how the radio classes continue to serve the core, even as
the radio track is phased out.
Johnson points out the absence of course number for Asian cinema. Crabtree approves of the high level of
course cross-listing in the course list, and thinks that the excess of CO
numbers, an artifact of previous relations between the two fields, should
receive more cross-listing. Thus
she thinks we should encourage them to have more shared conversation with
relevant departments.
Weiss asks for
clarification on the purpose of Appendix C. Crabtree explains that it is a rubric
for learning goals and outcomes, but one that is underdeveloped, and has too
many outcomes. She thinks that some
of the material on outcomes in the report itself is very strong, but not very
well integrated with the appendix. Sourieau asks about the 33-credit major; is there no
college-wide policy on the number needed for a major? Weiss and Crabtree: it varies from discpline to discpline in
response to external guidelines, to the prevailing market, and to self-set
standards.
Crabtree: Media Center
is now under SVPAA, which bodes well for the future of the New Media
program. Im:
this is an important relationship for them to cultivate for security of facilities. Epstein: with only one of their four
professors being tenured, there are long-term staffing issues. Crabtree: growing enrollment numbers for
the program do not seem to have impacted enrollment in other programs; these
students have come to Fairfield just for that program. Striuli: for
such a successful program, how have they addressed the issues of physical space
facing them? Crabtree: they will
need to be more imaginative about space use. Andreychik: we
should encourage them to do more with the standardization of assessment of
goals. More thought in this
direction would be useful. Weiss:
the numbers in Appendix B do not add up; four majors are missing. Did some not finish? What do these numbers represent?
Motion
Johnson moves and Miecznikowski seconds the motion to accept the report.
Vote
Motion passes
unanimously, without abstentions.
6. MACS
program change
Motion
Sourieau moves and Miecznikowski
seconds the motion to approve the MACS program change as submitted.
Discussion
Andreychik: the changes are a good idea, but the student
response forms were not provided, so it is hard to visualize what the final
change will be without seeing the product.
Striuli: we have a standard form that we can
produce. Miecznikowski:
do these colloquia have a set time that students will have to accommodate? Striuli: we
have discussed this and agree that it is better for times to be flexible to
better accommodate students. Im asks about the requirement to make a Ògood-faithÓ effort
to pass the comprehensive exam.
Weiss clarifies that passing the exam is not a requirement to
graduate. A failing mark will go on
your transcript. Now, with this new
requirement, the capstone will guide the programÕs students to become part of
the larger disciplinary community.
Epstein: the English department has been thinking about developing more metacognitive, discursive and reflective portfolios with a
summative essay. Math might benefit
from this sort of approach. Petrino: virtues of this approach are that it can be selective,
it can be formed electronically, and can include portions leading the majors to
be more reflective on their major experience. Andreychik:
this would be a good way to get the students to comment on why / how the events
help them in their field. Weiss:
this is something we have not much considered for our capstone experience.
Point of Order
Crabtree: we do not
have catalog copy, which is necessary for any vote to approve a new
requirement. Therefore tabling is
appropriate. We need for next time
new catalog copy, a revised version of the capstone description and
requirement, a timeline indicating that the colloquium requirement begins for
students in the class of 2015 and beyond, and some indication that the
departmentÕs thoughts on assessment reflect our comments.
Motion
Crabtree moves and Petrino seconds the motion to table the initial motion to
approve the program change.
Vote
Motion to table passes
unanimously.
7. CS
program change
Motion
Andreychik moves and Weiss seconds the motion to adopt
the changes to the CS program as presented.
Guest Report
Peter Spoerri reports: with the same CS program in place for 15
years, we dropped to almost no majors, but were able to get a new hire to
rejuvenate the program. We are now
trying to follow the Association for Computing Machinery guidelines, and have
eliminated our track system. The
proposed changes were discussed over the course of three department meetings,
with minutes included in the proposal.
Epstein: how many majors to you have? 10.
Im says that this is a good direction for the
growth of the program. Miecznikowski: do other schools have similar (ACM)
guidelines? Yes. (Parenthetical note on parliamentary
order: Crabtree notes that technically we did the order wrong. The motion to adopt the proposed changes
has to come after the guest leaves.)
Question: Which courses are ones that only John Lasseter
is qualified to teach? Answer from
the guest: None. Any of the three
of us can teach any of the new CS courses.
Guest leaves.
Discussion
Crabtree: reduction of
load from 15 to 13 classes is a positive change that may get them some more
majors. But it may be a problem to
make program changes rely too heavily on a new faculty member. So it is good that the faculty are
interchangeable in teaching these courses.
Vote
Motion passes
unanimously.
8. New
Business
None.
9. Adjournment
Im adjourns the meeting at 5:10 PM.