3-23-2010 Administrative Boards Minutes | The Administrative Boards

MINUTES OF THE
MEETING OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE BOARDS
of the General College and the College of Arts and Sciences

Tuesday, March 23, 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, Yaakov Ariel, Carolyn Cannon, Jacqueline Hagan, Sudhanshu Handa, Li-Ling Hsiao, Kenneth Janken, Erika Lindemann, Bobbi Owen, Gary Pielak, Steve Reznick, Nick Siedentop, Monika Truemper-Ritter, Dorothy Verkerk, Adam Versenyi.

Regrets: Louise McReynolds, Abigail Panter, Patricia Parker, Barbara Wildemuth.

Guests: Laurie Holst..

1. New Minor in Military Sciences

The minor, which will be open to all UNC–Chapel Hill undergraduate students and effective Fall 2010, will include 15 credit hours of coursework selected from among the following courses: ARMY 101, 102, 201, 202, 301, 302, 401, and 402; and PWAD 212, 213, 275, 351, 368, 369, 373, 564, 565, 570, and courses cross-listed with these PWAD courses. To comply with requirements governing all minors in the College of Arts and Sciences, the minor must permit students to complete a minimum of 12 hours of coursework, without restriction, with a grade of C or better. In other words, the 12 hours of C can include any courses, not just ARMY courses, taken to fulfill the requirements of the minor. The Administrative Boards approved the minor contingent on revising the last sentence of the Undergraduate Bulletin text to read as follows: “Students must complete 12 semester hours with a grade of C or better.”

2. New Business: Certificate in Middle East Studies

At the February 24th Administrative Boards meeting, members asked that letters of support be secured from the chairs of the UNC-Chapel Hill departments offering courses for the proposed certificate: Art, Asian Studies, Geography, History, and Sociology. (The chair of the Department of Religious Studies had already submitted a supporting letter.) These letters are attached and are now part of the record. The Administrative Boards approved the graduate certificate in Middle East Studies.

Dean Owen said that the graduate school gives oversight to all certificate-bearing programs, including undergraduate programs.

3. Curriculum Committee Report

Dean Lindemann presented the course review completed by the Curriculum Committee in March, and the report (attached) was approved by the Administrative Boards. The effective term for the approved course additions and revisions will be Fall 2010.

Dean Lindemann reported that 549 courses (additions, revisions, and miscellaneous changes) had been reviewed by the Curriculum Committee since September 2009. The volume was significantly impacted by the moratorium placed on course submissions on September 15, 2009. It is anticipated that the course submission process will reopen in January 2011, in the new ConnectCarolina system.

4. Review of the Undergraduate Curriculum

Dean Owen distributed a document posing questions for each of five sub-committees to consider in reviewing the undergraduate curriculum (attached). A draft roster of sub-committee members also was distributed, and Dean Owen explained that she will distribute a final draft of the sub-committee roster at the April meeting. The sub-committees will be expanded to include students, undergraduate advisors, and faculty from across the College’s divisions and the professional schools. A Blackboard site will be set up for the sub-committees.

In April, two forums will be held in the Pleasants Room, Wilson Library, for students and faculty to comment on the curriculum. The dates are Tuesday, April 6, 2:00-3:30 p.m., and Tuesday, April 13, 12:30-2:00 p.m. Announcements will be made in the Daily Tar Heel. Forum dates also will be added to the university calendar, and an email drop box will be created for additional comments. Abigail Panter will chair the forums.

Dean Owen reiterated that the review was not intended as a wholesale revision of the curriculum, and she reminded members that reports and recommendations from each subcommittee (up to three pages each, not including relevant attachments) should be sent electronically to Abigail Panter by September 15, 2010. Given the timeline, Board members devoted the rest of the afternoon to reviewing their sub-committee’s charge and to determining which syllabuses and how many should be reviewed in the five areas: Foundations, Approaches, Connections, Supplemental Education, and Miscellaneous. The requested syllabuses will be collected throughout the summer and posted to the Blackboard site for each sub-committee.

The meeting adjourned at 4:00 p.m. after which Board members met in their sub-committees for the rest of the afternoon.