A&S Curriculum Committee Minutes Apr 18 2008

College of Arts and Sciences

Curriculum Committee Minutes

April 18, 2008

Members present: B. Bradley, J. Burnet, K. Chandler, P. Eason (Chair), C. Hanchette, M. Rohmann, R. Taylor

Members absent: N. Polzer

Guests: K. Christopher (WGST), E. Patton (HUM); E. Schoening (A&S Advising); T. Soldat-Jaffee (HUM); E. Wise (HUM)

The minutes of February 8, 2008, were approved as circulated, with the correction of typos in paragraph 5, line 1.

Proposed changes to the minor in Military Science were withdrawn at the request of the department.

Changes to the major and minor in Spanish were approved, effective Fall 2008. The requirement in the major for one elective at the 300 level and one elective at the 500 level was changed to two electives at the 300-level or above. The requirement in the minor for one elective at the 300 or 500 level was changed to one elective at the 300-level or above.

JA 435: Comparative Criminal Justice Systems was approved for WR credit, effective Summer 2009.

LING 525/ENGL 525: Teaching English as a Second Language and LING 526/ENGL 526: ESL Portfolio were approved as new courses, effective Summer 2008.

The committee responded to a request from the Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs to review the policy on conflict of interest in educational materials adoption. The committee recommended that the college policy correspond to the university policy, with the dean to determine how departments report on the procedures followed when materials developed by a faculty member are adopted.

The committee discussed questions raised by the Registrar’s Office and Enrollment Management regarding the policy for dealing with repeated courses. The committee supported the Registrar’s recommendation on automated exclusion of repeated courses when a student has not filed a Repeat Option, with the understanding that this procedure will affect the student’s total hours, but will not affect the student’s grade point average.

Currently, when a student repeats a course, but does not file a repeat option, the advisor will manually add a corresponding number of hours to the total hours required to graduate to compensate for the duplicate credit. The recommendation, supported by the committee, was that the Registrar automate this process by setting a code which will remove the duplicate hours received for the repeated course from the total hours earned. The code, it was stressed, will not affect the student’s grade point average. If the student subsequently files for a Repeat Option, the code will be removed, so that the appropriate adjustment to the grade point average is made.

The committee came to no recommendation on a question regarding different unit policies concerning the use of a first attempt at a course when a second attempt has earned a lower grade.

[04/18/08]