Curriculum Committee
November 5, 2013
Members Present:
Debbie Buti, Jane Church, Begoña Cirera-Perez, Mireille Giovanola, Mary Ines
(SSCC), Lynn Klein, Larry Leach, Wayne Pitcher, Kent Uchiyama, Patricia Wu
Ex-Officio:
Edna Danaher, Kaaren Krueg, Dale Wagoner
Guests:
Laura Alarcon, Marcia Corcoran, Karina Contreras, Tom deWit, Jacquelyn
Fernandez, Donna Gibson, Matt Kritscher, Sean McFarland, Patricia Molina, Jan
Novak, Becky Plaza, Ashmond Robinson, Patricia Shannon, Gerald Shimada,
Susan Sperling, Felicia Tripp, Ernesto Victoria, Zac Walsh, Tyri Watson, Lani
Wilson
1.
Call to Order
The meeting was called to order at 2:07 by the chair, Wayne Pitcher.
2.
Minutes of October 29, 2013
MSC (Cirera-Perez/Klein) to approve the minutes of October 29, 2013, as presented.
3.
American Cultures Presentation
At Wayne’s invitation, Susan Sperling presented an overview of what she remembers
about the development of American Cultures courses at Chabot. She distributed
background notes compiled by Kaaren Krueg. The degree requirement was implemented
in 1995. Susan noted that at that time diversity was not well reflected in our staff or our
pedagogy, and this was an effort to shift to a more inclusive manner of infusing diversity
across the curriculum. The program was based on a model developed at U.C. Berkeley.
There was much controversy, and it took 3 years of meetings and many rewrites to arrive
at the current requirement.
Approval of courses was first granted by an American Cultures subcommittee and then
evolved to use of a tracking form that was submitted as part of the division’s curriculum
packet.
Jane Church spoke to recent situations in which existing courses are being modified and
proposed for American Cultures. She questions whether the modifications are sufficient
to qualify the courses as American Cultures because they do not satisfy the request that
presentations should be “through the voice of the groups that are being presented.” She
wants to be sure that the committee upholds the intent of the original developers of the
requirement.
Susan replied that it is easier to find supporting information “in the voice of…” in
disciplines such as Language Arts, History, Sociology, and Ethnic Studies, than it is in
others, such as Health and Mathematics.
Wayne explained that he invited Susan to give the committee an overview of the
background of American Cultures because most of the committee members are fairly
new. He thanked Susan for coming and said that her input had been quite helpful in
educating the committee.
4.
New Courses
The following courses were developed and presented by Jan Novak, Sean McFarland,
and Patricia Shannon.
Curriculum Committee
11/5/13, Page 2
GNST 49xx, Passion and Purpose, 1 unit (for Spring 14 implementation)
GNST 5, Passion and Purpose, 1 unit (for Fall 14 implementation)
Wayne outlined the previously developed rules to ensure collegial discussions.
Proposing Faculty Presentations
Sean McFarland distributed a document entitled “Resources/components of this
General Ed course” and summarized its contents. He touched upon the wide range
of texts, the Cal connection, and use of meta-cognition. He thinks this is an
academic intellectual course. He asked the following students to share their
experiences.
Karina Contreras, a former Chabot student now studying at Cal, presented the
syllabus of a course she will be teaching at Cal in Spring 2014 (pages 3 and 4 of
Sean’s document). She emphasized collaboration with Chabot and the
culminating Spring Carnival/Symposium.
Tyri Watson told of investigating areas of Hayward and how good he felt about
sharing his knowledge of local resources with other students.
Patricia Shannon became interested in this project when she discovered that only
one in four students gets through Chabot in a reasonable time. She added that
research shows that students who have some idea of what they are doing here and
where they are going next have more chance of success. She was looking for a
solution that would be “academically neutral.” She said that it has taken over a year
of meetings and revisions to arrive at this version of the course and added that “it is a
new course and we won’t know its effectiveness until we try it. It is a one-unit
course!”
Jan Novak said that the course outline that the committee has reviewed has been
changed slightly. In answer to Jan’s saying that she has been told that there are
disadvantages to a student’s taking experimental courses, Jane Church clarified that
there is no disadvantage to having a 49xx class on your transcript.
Other Guests’ comments/questions
Wayne asked for interested parties to raise their hands and began a list on the board.
Jackie Fernandez said that she has been comparing and contrasting the Passion
course with the online orientation class and has come to the conclusion that the
Passion course would be more helpful to students by helping them learn about their
community.
Matt Kritscher does see some overlap between the Passion and Orientation courses
and he appreciates the Counseling division’s comments and the opportunity for
feedback. Wayne commented that the Curriculum committee have read the
comments and they are available for curricular area faculty to view on CurricUNET.
Susan Sperling said the course is an exciting opportunity for students, and she
appreciates the cooperation among academic faculty and student services. She thinks
all of us are very familiar with the fact that we teach about passion all the time. The
class is not a replacement for the orientation class.
Curriculum Committee
11/5/13, Page 3
Zac Walsh: This course will help make students more aware of their role in the
community college and the community.
Jane Church: If you have been test driving this in existing classes, why don’t you
add it to other existing classes rather than make it a new class?
Patricia Shannon answered that in her class, she can only infuse parts of the
content, not all of it.
Tom deWit: One of the reasons to have this as a stand alone course is the
fundamental learning outcome of service to the community. We’ve yet to ask
ANY student what their major is or counsel them on what to focus on in school.
Lani Wilson addressed the question of minimum qualification for teaching this
course. Wayne replied that there is no General Studies discipline listed in the state’s
Minimum Qualifications Handbook; however, an institution can set its own
qualifications that are more rigid than those listed in the Handbook. Susan Sperling
added that moving General Studies into the Psychology-Counseling discipline was
for administrative oversight and not to restrict general studies courses to be offered
only in that discipline. Dale Wagoner noted that the relationship between an
academic course and its discipline is dependent on TOP codes. Lani then suggested
making this a 3-unit Humanities class.
Becky Plaza is working with the Student Success and Support Program (SSSP).
Their concern is that because this class doesn’t transfer to UC and doesn’t count
toward the general education graduation requirements, students who are in programs
that limit the number of units they can take at Chabot, or in a certain time frame, will
be “wasting” units.
Karina Contreras does not see this course as being a repetition of the orientation
classes. She didn’t want this to be a zero sum game.
Kent Uchiyama commented that he has heard three times that there is repetition and
overlap in the courses under discussion. He also said it would be helpful for the
counselors to point to specific points of overlap that they believed were problematic
and for the folks proposing the course to respond.
Marcia Corcoran commented that in reality there is always going to be some
overlap is certain courses. She used Service Learning as an example of allowing
students to delve more deeply into areas of interest.
Laura Alarcon commented that the counselors did take the time to make comments.
Matt Kritscher added that the counselors do support the GNST class, but are asking
that their comments be taken into consideration in the development of the class.
Committee Members’ Comments/Questions
Larry Leach: Was there interaction between the groups before hand? Was the
counseling group concerned about the class before they saw it on CurricUNET?
Lani Wilson: Tom deWit brought a copy of the outline to a Counseling Division
meeting and said they would like to help counseling. Sean McFarland showed a film
that was very negative toward counseling.
Jan Novak: This idea came out of the Strategic Plan last year. Tom hopes that we
can all cooperate in constructive ways.
Curriculum Committee
11/5/13, Page 4
Begoña Cirera-Perez commented that she attended two or three Passion meetings to
help herself understand more about it. She added that she has lots of overlap in her
classes and that she hates to see this competition over the courses; we need different
kinds of ways to help students because students are all different. She asked:
•
•
•
How many courses, campus-wide, are UC transferable?
How many students go above 100 units?
How do we know what percent of overlap makes a course a duplicate?
Jane Church explained that we have more courses that are transferable to CSU
because we decide what goes on that list, and we are fairly liberal in our
determinations. UC decides which of our courses they will accept.
Mireille Giovanola: In Social Sciences we have two courses that teach about
diversity (Sociology 3 and Anthropology 5). The instructors talk to each other. She
said it is useful for trained people to talk about the same subject in different venues.
She sees value in this.
Jane Church: This could be taught as a colloquium. It could be taught within
individual disciplines using FTEF from those disciplines, such as
Health/Sociology/Psychology 8, which are truly interdisciplinary. You could have a
core outline that could be fleshed out through a syllabus. Patricia Shannon replied
that if it is disciplined, it cuts off the intent. She asked how students would find it.
Jane suggested that we run the experimental version for three terms and do research.
At 3:50 PM it was MSC (Cirera-Perez/Giovanola) to extend the meeting to 4:10.
Donna Gibson noted that the college has 3 different classes on statistics that are
being taught in different disciplines and have different minimum qualifications. She
doesn’t think the courses under discussion should be tied to a discipline.
Jane Church stated that all PSCN classes have a General Studies TOP code. Dale
Wagoner replied that this is an interdisciplinary class such as ISLS, where you have
to have a Master’s Degree in one of the disciplines being taught.
Patricia Shannon: We originally envisioned this as a 3-unit class, and we took it
down to 1 unit to avoid impacting students’ loads.
Gerald Shimada doesn’t think the proposed course takes away from PSCN or the
online orientation. He says the Counseling Division cares about students, and he
hopes that if the course is approved, some of the Counseling faculty take on the
challenge of teaching it.
Tram Vo-Kumamoto thinks that this course should be in a rubric that encompasses
the entire campus. She added that this discussion should focus on curriculum
matters and that the FTES discussions belongs in a different venue.
Felicia Tripp acknowledges that everyone sees the students as being the first
priority but they have different ideas of how to help them. The challenge is being
mindful of all the ways at the same time. We need to help students find their passion
and at the same time be able to “check the boxes” that the state is requiring.
Curriculum Committee
11/5/13, Page 5
Lynn Klein sees an urgency to vote on this course because registration begins next
week.
MSC (Church/Giovanola) to delay the vote on GNST 49xx and GNST 5 until next
week.
Wayne Pitcher: We will vote on the two courses on November 12. There will be
continued discussion before the vote, and guests may attend. He noted that while the
course is a good idea, he does have concerns about the overlap. He read a list of courses
on the books that have overlap and said that he sees a variety of paths forward. Think
about that for next time. Thank you for coming.
5.
Good of the Order
None.
8.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:15 PM.
Next meeting: November 12, 2013, in Room 507.
kk 11/13/13
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