Minutes of the CSBS Senate Meeting on 3/7/11
Present: Tim Strauss (Chair, Geography), Carol Weisenberger (History), Taifa Yu (Political
Science), Sunde Nesbit (Psychology), Cyndi Dunn(SAC), Annette Lynch (SAHS), Jim
McCullagh (Social Work), Philip Mauceri (Dean)
I.
Approval of the minutes from 2/21/11
The minutes from 2/21/11 were approved with minor corrections.
II.
Curriculum Review: Social Work
The Department of Social Work is making changes to the Conflict Resolution certificate and the
M.A. degree in Social Work. Laura Praglin presented the changes to the Conflict Resolution
Certificate. This involved several additions to the list of electives and the shift of one course
(Minority Group Relations) from the “micro-track” category to the “macro-track” category. The number of students taking the certificate ranges from three to eleven per year. Dean Mauceri stated that this is a good program and the certificate should be more widely publicized.
Cindy Juby was present to discuss the changes to the M.A. in Social Work. There were changes both to the basic two-year foundations program and to the program for students who enter with advanced standing. For students in the two-year foundation program, the required course in
Social Welfare Policy and Services has been replaced with a required course in Injustice and
Oppression. For students with advanced standing, the Injustice and Oppression course was dropped as a requirement on the grounds that these students have already had sufficient exposure to this material in their undergraduate work at UNI. Students in both groups will now be required to take Introduction to Research (formerly required only for the foundation students).
The Senate unanimously approved the proposed changes to the Social Work curriculum.
III.
Curriculum Review: School of Applied Human Sciences
Howard Barnes was present to represent the School of Applied Human Sciences. The biggest curriculum change for SAHS is a merger of the M.A.E. in School Counseling into the existing
M.A. program in Counseling. This has come about as a result of the recent movement of the
School Counseling program from the College of Education to the School of Applied Human
Sciences in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. There will now be one M.A. program with two tracks allowing students to specialize in either clinical mental health counseling or school counseling. This is the typical format of most counseling M.A. programs across the country.
There were two broad changes made to many of the courses in Family Services. One was to introduce a requirement of a minimum of a C grade in all prerequisite courses in order to assure minimal knowledge needed for the more advanced courses. The other change is that many courses formerly gave students a prerequisite choice of 31F:055 (Human Growth and
Development) or 400: 120 Developmental Psychology, or 200:030 (Dynamics of Human
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Development). 200:030 is being dropped as a possible prerequisite because it focuses primarily on childhood and adolescent development and does not provide the lifespan perspective necessary for the family services courses.
Changes were made to several courses in Textile and Apparel in order to simplify the prerequisites, shorten course descriptions, and change the course offering to “variable” in order to permit greater flexibility in scheduling.
One change has been made in the Interior Design curriculum. Based on feedback from Student
Outcomes Assessment, the course 31I:164 Professional Practice of Interior Design, a 3-credit hour course, is being split into two separate courses that students will take at different points in their course sequence. 31I:164 Professional Practice of Interior Design will be reduced to two credits. The remaining one credit will become a new course in Professional Preparation in
Interior Design to be taken in the last semester of the senior year to prepare a portfolio of work for job applications. Although this is listed as a new course, it is actually splitting an existing course into two separate components and will not require any additional faculty resources.
Two new courses are being proposed. One is FamServ 1140 Culture and Marriage. The course has been offered several times as an on-line course. It has been very popular and will provide students with a new option for fulfilling the diversity requirement within the Family Services major. It was suggested that the proposed course title is somewhat restrictive. If in fact the course also covers other types of committed relationships outside of legal marriage, it may be worth considering a more inclusive course title.
The other new course is Families, Alzheimer’s & Related Dementias which is cross-listed in
Family Services and Gerontology (and is thus actually one new course rather than two). This course is being proposed by a faculty member who was recently hired for the purpose of expanding course offerings in the Gerontology program. The interdisciplinary Gerontology program has been restated to eliminate electives that are no longer offered. They have also added a number of new elective courses from Family Studies, Communication Studies, Interior
Design, Communicative Disorders, Sociology, Anthropology, Health Promotion and Education.
The Senate unanimously approved the proposed changes to the School of Applied Human
Sciences curriculum.
IV.
Other Business
The next senate meeting will be held March 21. The agenda includes review of the Women’s and Gender Studies curriculum and a discussion with the LAC Review Steering Committee about proposed models for restructuring the LAC.
Our college will need to elect a new representative to the University Faculty Senate for the 2011-
2014 term. There appear to be candidates for all other open positions for the upcoming college elections.
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V.
Comments from the Dean
The search for an Associate Provost for International Programs is continuing and there is a large applicant pool. They plan to interview in April and make a recommendation to the provost by the end of the semester.
The dean will be sponsoring a brown-bag lunch to discuss the process and criteria for promotion from associate to full professor on March 25. Dean Mauceri encourages all departments which have not already done so to develop formal, written criteria for promotion.
Dean Mauceri has been encouraging department heads to hold more regular department meetings, at least twice a month.
It was noted that departments do not appear to have consistent policies regarding the provision to faculty members of typed versions of the comments from student evaluations of teaching. Given the importance the administration is currently placing on student evaluations, it would seem that typed summaries of all comments should be available to each faculty member and should also be placed in personnel files so they will be accessible to the adminstrators who are evaluating teaching.
The meeting adjourned at 5:00 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Cyndi Dunn
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