9-23-2014 Administrative Boards Minutes | The Administrative Boards

MEETING OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE BOARDS
of the General College and the College of Arts and Sciences
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
3:30–4:55 PM, 3020 Steele Building

The meeting was called to order at 3:30 p.m. and chaired by Senior Associate Dean Abigail Panter.

Members in attendance: Daniel Anderson, Navin Bapat, Kelly Giovanello, Li-Ling Hsiao, Christian Lundberg, Doug MacLean, Lee May, Abigail Panter, Vladas Pipiras, Michael Rolleri, Chris Roush, Margie Scarry, Mark Schoenfisch, Nick Siedentop, Keith Sockman, James Thompson, Louise Toppin

Absent: Yaakov Ariel, Chris Derickson, Marcie Cohen Ferris, Karen Gil, Louise McReynolds, Christopher Putney, Anna Maria Siega-Riz

Guests: Nancy Allbritton, Kevin Guskiewicz

Staff: Ben Haven

1. Welcome by Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education, Abigail Panter, and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Curricula, James Thompson

Senior Associate Dean Panter welcomed the Boards to the first meeting of the academic year. Panter discussed numerous activities the Office of Undergraduate Education is currently engaged in, including its emphasis on high-impact, data-driven practices and discussing how students succeed by looking at retention rates, focusing on the student experience, and determining how faculty and staff can intervene during high-risk moments. Associate Dean James Thompson introduced the Boards to the work of the Office of Undergraduate Curricula, emphasizing the unit’s focus on maintaining the integrity of the Making Connections Curriculum and finding solutions to General Education requirement bottlenecks.

2. Discussion of the request for authorization to establish a new joint B.S. degree program in Biomedical and Health Sciences Engineering with guests Nancy Allbritton, chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and Kevin Guskiewicz, Senior Associate Dean for the Natural Sciences

Panter invited discussion of the Joint Department (spanning the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University) of Biomedical Engineering’s request for authorization to establish a joint B.S. degree program in Biomedical and Health Sciences Engineering. Guests Nancy Allbritton and Kevin Guskiewicz discussed the proposal and responded to Boards members’ questions. The Boards supported proceeding with the proposal, with concerns about program accessibility, cost, and the freedom of students to enroll in non-programmatic courses outside of the home institution noted. Among the Boards’ recommendations were plans for evaluating the program over time (looking at time to degree, demand on courses at the different institutions, the ratio of students served, and costs), building pathways to program accessibility (an emphasis was placed on accessibility to the whole student population, not just those students who matriculate with distinct academic and credit advantages), addressing student enrollment outside of the home institution, and putting together a strong pre-degree-admissions advising component.

3. Name change for the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures.

The Boards approved the name change from the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures to the Department of Romance Studies. This name change keeps the program current with the nomenclature used within the discipline and will not change the names of the degrees within the department.

4. Revisions to the “Criteria for General Education Requirements”, Associate Dean James Thompson

Thompson discussed proposed revisions to the Criteria for General Education Requirements Document to allow an English Composition and Rhetoric (CR) Foundations course to satisfy the Experiential Education (EE) Connections requirement. No permanent EE attributes will be added at the course level using the Course Request Approval System (CRAS); instead, requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis by the APPLES Office and the Office of Undergraduate Curricula to attach EE at the section level.

The Boards expressed concerns about adding one more General Education requirement to a course that already fulfills the CR requirement. Would this be too much work for the instructor and students? Furthermore, would this inflate graduate student demand to teach the course, as they would gain experience teaching a composition and service learning course? In response, Thompson mentioned that anticipated demand to teach this course is low and instructors are already teaching sections of this course with a service learning component without the EE designation. Students who are interested in doing the additional service learning work should get the EE credit. The Boards also recommended that there be a process in place to prevent students who are not interested in fulfilling the EE component via this course from enrolling in these sections. The Boards supported the proposal with their concerns noted and their recommendation addressed.

5. Curriculum Committee Report, Associate Dean James Thompson

The Boards approved the Curriculum Committee Report with the following corrections noted: 1) ENEC 324 should be cross-listed with GEOL 324 instead of GEOG 324 and 2) BIOL 452L is to be cross-listed with MATH 452L (the Department of Biology will be the sponsor).

6. Curriculum Changes, Nick Siedentop, Curriculum Director

The Boards approved the proposed changes to the minor in cognitive science with a recommendation for the Department of Psychology to follow up with other departments to be sure all the courses listed are still actively taught.
The Boards approved the proposed changes to the Major in Classics (Greek, Latin, and combined Greek and Latin concentrations) as distributed.

The meeting adjourned at 4:55 p.m. The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, November 4, from 3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.