9-15-2010 Administrative Boards Minutes | The Administrative Boards

MINUTES OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE BOARDS
of the General College and the College of Arts and Sciences
Wednesday, September 15, 2010 – 3:00–5:00 p.m.
3020 Steele Building

The meeting was called to order at 3:05 p.m. and chaired by Senior Associate Dean Bobbi Owen.

Members in attendance: Allen Anderson, Chris Derickson, Karen Gil, Kevin Guskiewicz, Jackie Hagan, Li-Ling Hsiao, Jordynn Jack, Kenneth Janken, Erika Lindemann, Rich McLaughlin, Bobbi Owen, Abigail Panter, Patricia Parker, Gary Pielak, Steve Reznick, James Rives, Barbara Stenross, Monika-Truemper-Ritter, Heather Williams

Regrets: Yaakov Ariel, Bruce Fried, Juan Carlos Gonzáles-Espitia, Sudhanshu Handa, Dulcie Straughan, Jane Thrailkill, Adam Versenyi, Dorothy Verkerk, Barbara Wildemuth

Guests: Anna Li, Lynn Williford

Staff: Laurie Holst, Nick Siedentop

1. Remarks from and questions for Dean Karen Gil
Dean Karen Gil thanked the Boards for their ongoing contributions to the academic mission of the University: preparing students for the 21st century. Dean Bobbi Owen emphasized the importance of faculty participation in matters concerning the curriculum and student appeals processes.

2. New graduate certificate program: Chemical Biology Training Program
The Boards approved the new graduate certificate program.

3. American Studies MA and PhD program proposal and supporting letters
The Boards approved the proposal. The Boards had previously approved the Department of American Studies’ request to plan the degree program on April 1, 2009.

4. Curriculum and course updates
Carolina Courses Online
Acting on concerns expressed by the Administrative Boards at their meeting on September 9, 2009, Associate Dean Erika Lindemann recently joined the administrative board of the Friday Center. Over the summer she approved COMP 380, PSYC 260, and SPAN 101 as CCO courses to be offered in fall 2010. Boards members offered several comments:

Online courses need to be equivalent to campus courses in every respect; they are posted on university transcripts.
Final exams need to be administered in all undergraduate courses, and exams need to be conducted with appropriate security and integrity.
CCO instructors who are graduate students often fail to receive “top-ups,” which makes their stipends lower than those teaching face-to-face classes. Compensation should be equitable.
Currently the configuration of final exams needs further discussion.

Dean Lindemann will continue to keep the Boards updated on her work with CCO.

Miscellaneous curriculum revisions
The Boards approved miscellaneous curriculum revisions, effective with the fall 2011 semester. These included adding POLI 195 (with approval, based on topic), 469, and 495 (with approval, based on topic); ASIA 490 (with approval, based on topic); CMPL 468; DRAM 289; FREN 398 (with approval based on topic); and GERM 390 (with approval, based on topic) and 391 (with approval, based on topic) to the course list for the major in contemporary European studies (EURO). ASIA/HIST 276 was added to the course list for the major in peace, war, and defense (PWAD); and ENST 207 was replaced by ENST 330 in the Food Cultures Cluster (Supplemental Education).

Enrollment report for courses approved before Fall 2006
Of the 3,872 courses in the course inventory, 861 have not had any enrollment since 2006. A clean-up is warranted. A course number must be retired for five years before it can be reused, and some departments are running out of numbers. Going forward, ConnectCarolina will have the capacity to identify courses with no enrollment for the previous five years. Course deletions will be at departments’ requests, processed by the Curriculum Committee, and approved by the Administrative Boards.

To follow-up:

Nick Siedentop plans to notify the directors of undergraduate studies about the data at their fall meeting on Friday, September 17. For those who request it, Nick will send each department/curriculum its list of courses with no enrollment since 2006. Nick will also remind units when he begins work on the 2011-2012 Undergraduate Bulletin.
Steve Reznick will run a pilot project clean-up with First-Year Seminars.
Kevin Guskiewicz will discuss EXSS courses with no enrollment at his September 20 faculty meeting.

5. Student perceptions of the curriculum
Associate Provost Lynn Williford and Anna Li gave a presentation on “Student, Faculty, and Advisor Perceptions” of the Making Connections curriculum. Overall, students like the interdisciplinary focus of the curriculum, would like to see the number of required courses reduced, and would like to create their own clusters. There were two over-arching problems: difficulty understanding the curriculum and fulfilling its requirements (see attached report).

6. Curriculum Review
Following a brief overview of the reports from the Miscellaneous, Supplemental Education, and Approaches subcommittees, Abigail Panter led the Boards in a discussion of the reports. No decisions or changes will be made until all committee reports are heard. The reports from the Foundations and Connections subcommittees will be discussed in October. The subcommittee reports are attached to these minutes.

7. Announcements from Dean Owen
Mid-term grades are discontinued, and early warning reports will be completed electronically through ConnectCarolina in the spring. Instructors will be notified by the Registrar’s office. Faculty should continue to speak to students first.

Approximately 100 faculty members on the fall schedule have not completed their FERPA training. In order to process their final grade reports, they will need access to ConnectCarolina.

The course submission workflow is being developed. It is anticipated to be operating by January 2011.

The meeting adjourned at 5:04 p.m.