Academic Planning Committee
Final Report for Academic Year 2014 – 2015
Committee Membership
Eric Barnes, Secretary
Melissa Bingham, Chair
Ann Epstein
Tom Gendreau
John Grider
David Howard
Laurie Kincman
Sergey Komissarov
Chia-Chen Yu
Committee Activity
This year, in addition to regular business of approving programs, certificates, etc., APC had an
additional charge to consider existing obstacles to the creation of interdisciplinary courses and
programs at UW-L and to consider how the university might restructure in order to better
support such courses and programs.
APC’s first meeting (other than the organizational meeting where the chair and secretary were
elected) was held on 9-26-14 and invited representatives from Nutrition and Environmental
Studies discussed at length both the history and structure of their programs, along with what
they saw as pros and cons of the current structure and obstacles they may have faced. APC
members met again on 10-10-14 to continue discussion of interdisciplinary barriers and
determine what, if anything, we were comfortable recommending based on our meeting with
the invited representatives. Because APC members felt both the home department model of
Nutrition and the college-level model of Environmental Studies had their own advantages (as
well as disadvantages), the committee did not feel comfortable recommending either structure
as the “best” approach for such programs. There was also a general consensus from members
that APC did not feel it was within our purview to suggest a major restructuring of the
university in order to support interdisciplinary courses and programs.
APC did decide to amend its “Procedures and Guidelines” document to include a Memorandum
of Understanding for Interdisciplinary Programs as part of the documentation requested at the
Pre-Authorization Proposal stage. In some ways, this was meant to mimic the required MOU
for programs developed across campuses. We hope that asking for this additional information
as interdisciplinary programs are beginning development will force the invested parties to think
about possible obstacles and solutions to them. This addition to APC’s Procedures and
Guidelines was developed and then approved by the committee at meetings on 10-17-14 and
11-21-14. Additionally, small other changes to the Procedures and Guidelines were made to
make putting together the Pre-Authorization documents less onerous for the parties involved.
These changes were approved by the Faculty Senate on 2-12-15.
Additional work of the committee included reviewing programs and certificates at various
stages. All business that came before the committee during the year was voted on and
approved. The following table provides the action taken by APC along with the meeting date.
Action
Date
Approval of the Pre-Authorization for the Master’s Degree in Data 11-14-14
Science
Approval of the Authorization for the Master’s Degree in Data
Science
2-6-15
Approval of the Authorization for the Ed.D. in Student Affairs
Administration
2-20-15
Approval of the Educational Leadership Certificate
4-3-15
Approval of Pre-Authorization for the Master’s Degree in
Microbiology
4-17-15
Approval to Suspend the Master’s Degree in Sports
Administration
4-17-15
Approval of the Mathematics Honors Program
4-17-15