ASCRC Minutes 11/27/12
GBB 225, 2:10 p.m.
Members Present: B. Borrie, C. Chandler, G. Coon, W. Davies, J. Deboer, L. Gillison, N. Greymorning,
M. Grimes, C. Henderson, D. Stolle, T. Thibeau, N. Vonessen
Members Absent/ Excused: B. Simpson, D. Simpson
Ex-Officio Present: S. O’Hare, E. Johnson, N. Hinman, B. Holzworth, J. Zink
Guest: L. Tangedahl
Chair Borrie called the meeting to order at 2:13 p.m.
The minutes from 11/20/12 were approved.
Communication Items:

Last week’s General Education Consent Agenda should have included a non-approval for
DANC 334 as a Historical and Cultural Course. The agenda has been corrected in the
minutes. The H was also removed from the course in the Education and Fine Arts Consent
items.
Business Items:

Two pending items from Humanities were approved. The subcommittee is still waiting for
follow-up on FILM 481.
HSTA 313
SSEA 202X

New course
Change title from Introduction
to South Asia
The following items from Science were approved.
M 135
NRG 250
Level I

Nature, Knowledge & Empire: The
Environmental History of Early America
Introduction to India
Mathematics for K-8 Teachers I
Change prerequisite
Energy Finance
New course
Energy Technology
Certificate of applied science
The following items from Education and Fine Arts were approved.
HHP Program Modification
Exercise Science Option
Reducing credits from 125 to
120
MAR 305
MAR 323
MAR 333

3D Animation I
3D Motion Design
3D Animation II
New course
change number from 222
New course
The following items from Forestry and Biomedical Sciences were approved.
NRSM 426
CCS Program Modification
Climate and Society
Minor, Climate Change Studies
new course
changes in course designation,
repeatability, numbering, title;
catalog wording

After an extended discussion HC 294, Advocate Leader Seminar was approved. Concern was
expressed as to continued funding for this class, as well as the relationship of assessment
criteria to academic learning outcomes. It did not have unanimous approval from the
Business and Journalism Subcommittee.

Assistant Vice President O’Hare informed the committee that the Provost convened a
Working Group to investigate the Early Alert system. The membership will include
representatives from the Faculty, students, academic advisors and the administration.
Professor Gillison volunteered as the representative from ASCRC.

Consideration of the credit/no credit catalog language was postponed. The Registrar wants to
make sure that all information available to students is consistent, so it is taking more time to
draft. It should be available in a couple of weeks. The draft will be sent once available for
input, but will not be available for ASCRC until the first meeting of the spring semester.

A draft prerequisite guide should be available soon. It will be a two to three page technical
manual that explains the programing logic in Banner and will include good and bad examples
of prerequisites. A worksheet may be helpful to clarify the guide for faculty. ASCRC may
consider establishing standards for prerequisite catalog language at a later date. The
technical consultant on the pre-requisite project, Allan Mozingo, will submit a final report
with recommendations at the end of his contract.
The committee agreed to review spring changes to prerequisites with the availability of the
guide. The deadline memo will need to be available for next week’s Faculty Senate meeting.
The memo from last year will serve as a template and be sent to Assistant VP O’Hare and
others for refining. The deadline for submission will be early spring semester, similar to last
year to allow the Registrar’s Office to enter the changes prior to fall enrollment.

There was a discussion of the current Early Alert system in order to provide feedback to the
Provost’s Working Group. It was suggested that the alert message goes out too late in the
semester and that typically only about 30% of faculty participate which may be misleading to
students (since the Early Alert system is therefore not providing alerts for courses they may
be failing). Some faculty may consider the alert redundant and duplicative of grading and
others may not have had formal assessment at that point of the semester. Faculty members
frequently do not hear from the students that have received an alert, so do not know whether
it is having a positive impact. A concern was expressed that students often do not check their
umontana email account. It was suggested the system requires a lot of work, but has little
demonstrated results. Perhaps it is not doing what it is designed to do? There are other
student information systems that allow faculty to initiate the alert and to identify the type of
deficiency that may warrant investigation.
It was noted that some students are reluctant to drop a course even when they are aware of
poor performance due to financial aid implications. This is especially relevant for veterans
who may be required to pay back benefits for a W but not an F.
One suggestion was to utilize an approach similar to that used with student athletes and
Army reservists where close monitoring and mentoring of academic performance is
available. Concern about athletes’ eligibility provides an additional incentive to be attentive
to academic performance. Thirty percent of the general student body do not yet have a
faculty advisor, as they are undeclared. Students active in the Army Reserves also have to
submit progress reports three times a semester. Student mentors are utilized in some majors.
Good and Welfare

Professor Gillison informed ASCRC that Senators from the Modern and Classical Languages
Department will likely bring a petition before the Faculty Senate at the December meeting to
consider the language requirement motion proposed last academic year by the General
Education Committee.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:00 PM.