2018-02-27 Minutes
MINUTES
MEETING OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE BOARDS
of the General College and the College of Arts and Sciences
Tuesday, February 27, 2018
3:30–4:30 PM, 3020 Steele Building
Members in attendance: Rita Balaban, Amy Cooke, Mara Evans, Beverly Foster, Kelly Giovanello, Richard Langston, Jennifer Larson, Lauren Leve, Christian Lundberg, Doug MacLean, David Mora-Marin, Ted Mouw, Abigail Panter, Valérie Pruvost, James Thompson, Frank Tsui, Charlie Tuggle, Jonathan Weiler, Lyneise Williams
Absent: Claude Clegg, Kevin Guskiewicz, Cary Levine, Lee May, Nick Siedentop
Guests: Troy Blackburn, Andy Perrin, Christy Stamford
Staff: Ben Haven
1. Updates and Remarks by Abigail Panter, Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education
Panter welcomed the Boards and began the meeting with a couple of updates. A draft script was distributed to faculty regarding classroom safety precautions and protocols. In addition, not all classrooms have locks; instructors should be made aware of this. In advance of the most recent Directors of Undergraduate Studies (DUS) meeting, the Office of Undergraduate Education sent out a survey to look at the role of the DUS. This will help Undergraduate Education to assess how best to serve this community with future meetings.
2. Discussion of the New General Education Curriculum
Andy Perrin, Special Assistant to the Dean, Director of Carolina Seminars, and Professor of Sociology
Perrin updated the Boards on the most recent progress of the new Curriculum proposal. The Coordinating Committee has received all but one report from the feasibility and design committees. The Coordinating Committee will continue to work on the latest iteration of the legislative draft, but will no longer pursue approval in spring 2018. Per a recommendation of the First Year Scheduling Feasibility and Design Committee, the College will pilot some small scale first-year implementations, with the expectation of phasing in all of the curriculum elements over the course of three years.
New Tentative Timeline
- 2018-2019 – small scale pilots for Ideas, Information, and Inquiry (III); ramp up supply of first-year courses
- 2019-2020 – larger scale phased implementations for III and junior/senior communication courses
- 2020-2021 – incoming students will fall under the new general education requirements
The committee would like to test new courses and requirements with a larger scale pilot of 1000 students in 2019-2020. After evaluation, the College would ramp up the first-year course supply and junior/senior communication courses, and might explore the E-Portfolio during this time as well.
There are also some additional tweaks and updates to the curriculum requirements since the last meeting update.
- An FYS alternative could be a gateway course or small, faculty-led version of this kind of course.
- Three faculty will lead the III, which should be an active, inquiry-based course. The intent is to give FY students an introduction to rudimentary data literacy, communication and collaboration, methods and modes of inquiry, and a global perspective. These areas will be uniform across the course offerings, but the theme/content of the course will differ.
- The first-year cohort will be extracurricular. The First Year Scheduling Feasibility Committee could not find a satisfactory way to incorporate cohort groups across class scheduling and registration for multiple terms without taking away student choice.
- A two-credit University 101 course is in development. Planning, familiarity with career services, and wellness will be a part of the curriculum. This course is consistent with the Blue Sky initiative to modernize student support.
- One of the feasibility and design committees has developed a list of focus capacities, and another committee is still working on the recurring capacities.
- Transfer students will take University 101, III, ENGL 105, JR/SR COMM, but may place out of some of these with appropriate credits articulating in. The Committee may open FYS to transfer students. If so, transfer students would be expected to complete an FYS or similar course as part of their curriculum requirements.
- The Coordinating Committee is still looking at multiple General Education (Gen Ed) tags on one course. For the time being, the Committee recommends one Gen Ed per course. If a course is allowed to fulfill multiple Gen Eds, the Committee must decide if students will choose one of the two Gen Eds or if they would get both automatically.
3. Carolina Research Scholar Program, eligibility revision
Troy Blackburn, Associate Dean and Director for Undergraduate Research and Professor of Exercise and Sports Science
450 students have received the Carolina Research Scholar designation; however, the OUR counts 87 students who did research in labs, but had no recognition of these efforts on their transcript. The Office of Undergraduate Research would like to increase the number of students in the Carolina Research Scholar Program. The current criteria is based on specific coursework students undertake, but OUR would like to modify the requirements so that a student can meet the credit with equivalent work (as vetted by the instructor). This would keep the rigor and equivalent requirements, but would open the program up to more students. For instance, 300 hours of mentored research is equivalent to the standard Research Scholar track. With the implementation of these new criteria, students would not be required to jump across different disciplines to obtain the Carolina Research Scholar designation. Students currently in the program would have the option of choosing the new track or staying with the old track. If approved these criteria could go into effect with the incoming class of fall 2018. The Boards approved the proposal as distributed.
4. Hours of C Policy for Undergraduate Majors and Minors
James Thompson, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Curricula and Professor of English
The Office of Undergraduate Curricula and the Office of the Registrar would like to convert the “18 hours of C in the major core requirement” policy to a minimum grade point average of 2.0 in the major core requirement. The policy is complicated (especially when considering science majors which have courses ranging from 1-4 credits), difficult for students to understand (particularly when transfer and/or by-exam credit is included), and is not in-line with peer institutions. There is great disparity in the percentage of hours of the major core in which students must earn grades of C or better. Finally, the policy is difficult to code in the TarHeel Tracker (THT) because it requires specific programming for each program (major, concentration, minor). As a result, the THT fails more than 20% of the time. Students therefore don’t know where they stand at any point in their undergraduate career. Moreover, the current system requires many manual adjustments from advisors, DUS, and the THT degree audit team. If UNC-Chapel Hill updates to the 2.0 requirement in the core, the degree audit team should be able to code this accurately in the THT. Students will know where they stand – and more will be on track for graduation. The degree audit team reports small numbers of students who will be negatively affected by this change, and many more will benefit. The Boards wanted to know how the GPA would be rounded. Christy Stamford from the Registrar’s Office responded that the student transcript will carry to the third decimal point. Undergraduate Education – in partnership with the Registrar’s Office – will continue to research this idea and follow up with Boards in September 2018.
5. Curriculum Committee Report
James Thompson, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Curricula and Professor of English
The Boards approved the Curriculum Committee report as distributed.
6. Undergraduate Program Proposal
Ben Haven, Curriculum Analyst, Office of Undergraduate Curricula
The Boards approved the program proposal as distributed.
The meeting adjourned at 4:30pm.