ASCRC Minutes 2/4/14
Poetry Corner, Mansfield Library, 2:10 p.m.
Members Present: J. Deboer, L. Eagleheart, K. Easwaramurthi, C. Henderson, L. Gillison, S. Samson,
T. Thibeau, M. Triana, E. Uchimoto, N. Vonessen, G. Weix
Members Absent/ Excused: T. Manuel, J. Laine
Ex-Officio Present: J. Hickman, N. Hinman, B. Holzworth, B. Howard
Director of the Undergraduate Advising Center, Beth Howard was welcomed to the committee
and members introduced themselves. Beth is representing the Office of Student Success. The
meeting started with discussion of the theatre production write-up sent by Professor DeBoer.
Members appreciated the information and agreed that it will be helpful for faculty who may wish
to incorporate a performance in with course assignments.
The minutes from 12/3/13 were approved.
Communication Items:

The meeting with the Office of International Programs and Foreign Student and Scholar
Services is scheduled for February 18th. The OIP Director’s and Linguistics Department’s
responses to ASCRC’s questions were sent electronically to members.

Chair Henderson provided an update from the December Faculty Senate meeting.
Discussion and action on the General Education Language motion was postponed. Senators
received email communications from the Anthropology and Forestry. The ASUM leadership
indicated that the students were not in favor of the motion.

The Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate met with the Provost regarding crosslisting.
The Provost indicates that UM will maintain crosslisting in some form. However, there may
be only a limited number of cross-listed courses (which may not show on transcript).
Moving forward, we will need defined criteria for cross-listed & multi-program rubrics.
Professor Miller Shearer is willing to continue to chair the workgroup focused on
implementation of cross-listing and new rubric development
New multi-program rubrics interdisciplinary rubrics may be established when appropriate to
serve students.
There are currently 70 crossslisted courses. Crosslisting is expensive to maintain
(approximately $10,000/yr). An official cost benefit analysis has not been considered.
Anecdotally enrollment in courses could drop by half when not crosslisted. This was the
case with one Classics course, “Women in Antiquity” that lost its crosslisting with Women
and Gender Studies. However, appropriate advertising, and training students to search for
courses differently could resolve the issue.
ASCRC Suggested that the Taskforce survey students in current crosslisted courses to
discover how they found the course.
Business

ASCRC discussed whether it should prepare responses to the correspondence regarding the
General Education Language Motion. Camie will send the various messages for members to
review and circulate comments and the ASUM Leadership will be invited to next week’s
meeting. There is concern that the current budget situation will weigh heavily against the
motion given the perception that the change may require additional courses / resources.
However, current language offerings are not full. ASCRC’s oversees academic standards not
financial matters.

The Committee briefly discussed the pending curriculum items. Professor Gillison has been
in contact with the Mansfield Center and has received revised syllabi for the Korean courses
and is assured that the Chinese syllabi will be sent soon. Follow-up was delayed in the fall
due to staff turnover. The duty fell to a Critical Language Instructor who was in the middle
of preparing students to take the military exam. ASCRC granted the consideration of the
late materials.
Professor Deboer worked with Media Arts in the fall to prepare the program modification
that requires two of the tracks to take symbolic systems. He will send the form to the
committee to consider.
SOCI 212 was missing from the consent agenda. The e-curr form was requesting the
removal of general education designation and should have been reviewed by the General
Education Committee. Camie will follow-up.

Spring Policy / Procedure Review
o ASCRC approved the deletion of 202.60 UDWPA Appeals Subcommittee.
o Chair Henderson is still working on the AP / Clep issue and will soon meet with the
English department.
o There has been an increase in appeals for students with disabilities. It may be
necessary to create a list of acceptable substitutions for these cases and make
recommendations to ASCRC. The Graduation Appeals Committee will consider
whether revisions are needed for 203.50.
o The prerequisite guidelines should be transitioned to a policy format and reviewed.
Not all prerequisites have to be enforceable; they can be listed as recommendations.
According to the Registrar’s Office there are 290 courses that have prerequisites that
are not enforceable. They are in the process of asking departments whether they want
to change the language to be enforceable or leave the language and let the instructor
decide. All prerequisites will be enforced next fall. Professors Vonessen, Thibeau, and
Eagleheart volunteered to review the draft.
o There seems to be a variety of terms used to describe areas of study within majors. ‘Option’
is included on transcripts and must be approved by the Board of Regents. Approved options
are located in the Official degree inventory on the Provost’s website. Other terms such as
tracks and specializations are primarily used for advising. Degree builder will likely help to
clean up some of this language / confusion. The University should use consistent
nomenclature for advising. It was agreed that ASCRC should send a communication to
department chairs clarifying the terms. Director Howard is working on an advising handbook
and will include this information. Chair Henderson will work on the communication.
o
The language in e-curr regarding learning goals and learning outcomes needs to be clarified.
It would be helpful to have good working examples. Professor DeBoer and student member
Triana will work on the language.
o Chair Henderson is researching the experiential learning issues and will report to
ASCRC in March.

Interim Associate Provost Hinman asked whether ASCRC wanted to see revised learning outcomes
for a 400 level course that was approved. The department wishes to clarify the learning outcomes to
assure that it is listed as a unique course in the CCN matrix.

The Registrar’s Office is still receiving responses from departments in response to the dormant course
notice. Bonnie will report to ASCRC once the deadline has passed.

Camie sent notice to department chairs regarding experimental courses offered three times.
Some of the courses in the report are in the schedule for next fall. ASCRC briefly reviewed
these and instructed the Registrar’s Office to remove the courses from the schedule. The
departments will be informed of the decision prior to the removal.

Interim Registrar Hickman will provide ASCRC with the data on dual enrollment courses for ASCRC
to review

Last year ASCRC had a workgroup investigating whether guidelines were needed for study skills
courses. The group originally looked at the current study skills courses to determine whether a
common rubric was needed. The group was chaired by Sharon O’hare, but recommendations were
delayed when the Office for Student Success applied for a grant. There are courses offered through
Trio- Support Services, C & I and the Missoula College. More courses are needed. The Provost has
asked the Office of Student Success to look into how students admitted provisionally are advised into
support courses.
The meeting adjourned at 4:00 PM