CHABOT COLLEGE
Curriculum Committee Minutes
March 4, 2008
Members Present:
Michael Langdon, Jim Matthews, Hilal Ozdemir, Ernesto Victoria, Patricia
Shannon
Ex-Officio
Members Present:
Jane Church, Kaaren Krueg
Guests:
Christine Warda
I.
II.
Call to Order
The meeting was called to order at 2:15 p.m. by committee chair Patricia Shannon.
Approval of Minutes of February 19, 2008
The comment regarding compressed calendar was corrected. It should read “…we
currently teach about 162 days a year; in a compressed calendar, we would be teaching
147 days or about 16 weeks rather than 17.5 per semester.”
Patricia Shannon reported that an electronic vote was taken to determine a new title for
“Certificate of Completion.” “Certificate of Proficiency” received the most votes. The
change will be reflected in the 2008-10 College Catalog.
III.
Proposals
Speech
Christine Warda presented proposed changes to Speech 2B, Oral Interpretation of
Literature II.
Christine reported that because it is hard to get a full class in Speech 2B, it is
currently being taught as a combined class with Speech 2A. She added that many
students would be able to go successfully from Speech 1 to Speech 2B without taking
Speech 2A, especially if they had also participated in oral interpretation of literature
as members of the Forensics Team. The discipline is requesting that “or instructor
recommendation” be added to the prerequisite of Speech 2A. Also requested was the
addition of “Ethnography/Oral History” to Course Content.
Patricia Shannon initiated a discussion by asking about “by audition only” courses in
Music and Theater Arts. Consensus was that using this model may be the most
expeditious way of dealing with the situation. However, that might entail
renumbering the course to break the A/B sequence. Jane Church noted that students
might also bypass 2A via the prerequisite challenge process. There was discussion
on getting the information about prerequisite challenge to students who might be
interested. Jane added that it always helps a challenge to attach a note from a teacher.
In response to further explanation by Christine of how Speech 1 is taught and why
not all sections qualify a student to enter Speech 2B, Patricia summarized that part of
the problem seems to be inconsistency of teaching oral interpretation within
Speech 1. Jim clarified that oral interpretation is a teaching technique sometimes
used in Speech 1, not part of course content. Consensus was that the phrase “or
instructor recommendation” not be added to the prerequisite.
Curriculum Committee
3-4-08, page 2
MSC (Matthews/Ozdemir) to approve the revision of Speech 2B with the addition
of “Course Content 6. Ethnography/Oral History,” but without the change to the
prerequisite. A revised .course outline will be submitted to the Office of Academic
Services.
World Languages
The World Languages subdivision is revising course outlines as part of program
review. As part of the review, one-hour of expected homework is being converted to
one hour of laboratory. Patricia agreed that one hour of lab could be added to the
courses without increasing units.
Jim commented that we should add directions concerning lab hours to the Curriculum
Handbook, stating that if lab hours are being added, lab content must be specified on
the course outline, and that the rationale should justify the additional hours.
Patricia added that colleges are adding lab hours because they are compensated for
the extra time. Title 5 is going to be scrutinizing those labs to be sure that they are
effective.
Business/CAS Courses
In editing the catalog, it became apparent that a discrepancy exists in the credit
notation on Business 5, Business 7, and CAS 20. In the current catalog, the phrase
“(Combined credit for Business 5, Business 7, and Computer Application Systems 20
may not exceed 12 units).” When Business 7 was revised for inclusion in the 200810 catalog, the phrase was omitted. MSC (Matthews/Victoria) that the phrase be
restored to Business 7 until the faculty are able to submit all three courses for
curriculum action during the regular presentation cycle.
Engineering Technology
From the October 31, 2006 minutes: Request to remove the program from the
catalog. Patricia asked how this request fits with Program Renewal or
Discontinuance. She suggested that we ask for guidance from the Senate on how to
proceed with this request, since there is no faculty member in the discipline to
develop a process.
From the 11-7-06 minutes: “Norberto reported that Chad Mark Glen has not
responded to his request for direction from the Academic/Faculty Senate. MSC
(Matthews/Novak) to table a vote on Engineering Technology until the December 5
meeting.”
There was no vote taken on December 5, and the division’s final packet did not
include Engineering Technology.
Patricia suggested that in order to complete the 2008-10 catalog revision, we accept
the request to suspend Engineering Technology. However, she will take the issue to
the next Senate meeting.
Curriculum Committee
3-4-08, page 3
MSC (Matthews/Victoria) to accept suspension of the Engineering Technology
discipline.
IV.
V.
International Students – presentation cancelled.
Subcommittee Meetings for March 19.
A.
Spring semester priorities and calendar (training and division visits), including yearround calendar (Jim, Hilal)
B.
Lifelong learning and new areas of emphasis (changes to AA) (Wayne, Ernesto,
Begoña)
C.
Curriculum handbook revisions and training (Michael, Patricia)
Jane reported that she plans to change the Articulation Forms to a sign-off procedure
similar to the Library’s. This is working at LPC, where faculty changing or
proposing new courses review them with the articulation officer, who reviews the
proposals and writes a recommendation on the form. Consensus was that this is a
good idea. Jane will go ahead with the idea.
VI
Good of the Order
Patricia has placed the differences between the colleges’ course outlines on the agenda
for the District Curriculum Council. Jane enumerated different terms that describe the
relationship of one college’s outline to the other’s: coherence, identical, alignment,
comparable.
The district is looking at a program called DegreeWorks that evaluates students’
coursework. The question of how that program would handle other than identical
outlines was raised.
Jim expressed the opinion that either shared courses must be identical, or the colleges
must make a split and have totally separate coursework.
Ernesto reported on the draft University Transfer certificates presented at the last
meeting. He said that Counseling is not ready to finalize these.
Writing Certificate
The Language Arts Division proposes replacing Business 15 with Business 14 in the
options offered in the Writing Certificate. Kaaren Krueg will send the rationale and
revised program page for an electronic vote. [NOTE: The first 2 responses
(Matthews/Badar) were considered the motion and second; the motion passed
unanimously with all voting members represented. kk]
VII.
VIII.
Next Meeting: March 18, 2008, Room 1506
The meeting was adjourned at 4:05 p.m.
kk 3-7-08
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