Meeting, May 3, 2012
Gallagher Business Building, Room 123
Members
Present:
D. Beck, M. Bowman S. Bradford, J. Carter, J. Cavenaugh, W. Chung,
J. Crepeau, W. Davies, J. DeBoer, A. Delaney, J. Eglin, D. Erickson,
R. Fanning, C. Galipeau, L. Gillison, A. Glaspey, S. Gordon, L. Gray,
K. Griggs, J. Hirstein, C. Leonard, S. Lodmell, N. McCrady, N. Moisey,
J. Montauban, P. Muench, J. Munro, H. Naughton, C. Palmer, E.
Plant, E. Putnam, M. Raymond, B. Reider, E. Rosenberg, M. Rosulek,
D. Shively, A. Sondag, G. Smith, M. Stark, L. Tangedahl, E. Uchimoto,
N. Vonessen, A. Ware
New Members
Present
B. Borrie, T. Crowford, M. Mayer, C. Merriman, M. Neilson, D. Sloan,
D. Spencer, S. Tillerman
Members
Excused
L. Ametsbichler, R. Judd, K. Harris, E. Hines, N. Levtow, D.
MacDonald, S. Mills, J. Renz, P. Sharma, A. Szalda-Petree
Members
Absent
B. Allen, L. Barnes, W. Davies, P. Dietrich, J. Edwards, D. Hollist, D.
Jackson, B. Layton, M. McHugh, R. Premuroso, P. Silverman, M.
Shogren, S. Stan, D. Stolle, G. Swaney
Provost Brown, Associate Provost Walker-Andrews, Registrar
Johnson
Ex-Officio
Present:
Chair Beck called the meeting to order at 3:10 p.m.
The minutes from 4/12/12 were approved.
Communications:
Provost Brown
President Engstrom apologizes for missing the meeting. He is on his way to San
Francisco.
The format for New Faculty Orientation will change next fall. Instead of short
presentations, faculty will visit tables similar to speed dating. There will be tables with
representatives addressing instruction, research, service, Faculty Senate, and the
University Faculty Association. The hope is that this will be more engaging. There are
approximately 30 new faculty members, so the expectation is to have 4 faculty at each
table.
The process for naming the College of Technology is moving along. Trademark
Lawyers are investigating names to determine whether there are any issues. “Program”
will be dropped from both the Gallatin College Program and the Bitterroot College
Program. The title changes do not change the administrative structure. (Chair Beck
clarified that this would create a college in the university structure that was actually not a
college.) The changes should be approved at the May Board of Regents meeting. Any
concerns should be directed to the Commissioner’s Office.
Questions:
The commencement speaker is Sheila Stearns.
There is potential for a drop in new student enrollment resulting from the publicity of the
rape investigations as well as Pell Grant changes. In response, administration, staff and
faculty are working hard on components to increase yield such as scholarships and
direct contact with potential students. There is also a lot of effort directed toward
retention.
The President was interviewed by CNN last evening. He made the point that the
University has been as up front as possible and is addressing the situation. Many of the
issues are outside of the University. The campus is pretty safe because everyone is
aware of the problems and trying to be as vigilant as possible.
It is believed that the potential enrollment decrease will be covered by the contingency
fund (several million).
It was suggested that the student voice be added to the efforts to combat the negative
publicity.
In the latest investigation, the Assistant Attorney General made a positive statement
about the University’s response by identifying the list of actions in a press conference.
Unfortunately, this was not in the Missoulian. The Department of Justice’s investigation
is civil not criminal. It is looking for improving policies and procedures to help the
community address the issues.
The University does not have a specific crisis public relations individual. University
Relations prepares and distributes news releases.
Chair’s Report
Chair Beck prepared a draft annual report and will circulate to ECOS for consideration
this week. It summarizes the business conducted at the Faculty Senate at ECOS over
the course of the academic year as well as the relationships to the administration, other
campus governance bodies, and the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education
and the Board of Regents. The report will be sent to all senators and posted to the
website.
Committee Reports
Each Chair was given a certificate of appreciation and thanked for their work.
ASCRC Chair Tangedahl
The change to the add/drop date was approved unanimously. The number of days that a
student may add a course was dropped from 15 to 7 instructional days. This will be in
effect next fall. A student may still add through the 15th day with the consent of
instructor. The drop date does not change.
The add/drop dates for winter and summer session may also need to be reviewed.
Executive Director O’Hare will take a look at these dates next fall.
General Education courses are subject to a rolling four-year review. All courses were
reviewed in 2008, so the rolling review began this spring. The General Education
Committee reviewed three groups (4) Expressive Arts- A, (7) Social Science- S, and (8)
Ethics and Human Values –E. Courses that were approved after 2009 were exempted
from this review. Courses that were not approved or were not submitted are subject to a
one-year grace period. These courses may be submitted in the fall for re-evaluation. If
still not approved the general education designation will be removed effective 20132014.
One anomaly occurred. The review was intended for existing general education
courses. One course was submitted for consideration for a new designation (ANTY
220, Culture and Society – Ethics). Although this was an administrative error, it was
approved. However, the general education status will not take effect until fall 2013 in
accordance with ASCRC procedure. Students are registering now for fall 2012, so it is
too late to implement the change.
This spring ASCRC established a procedure for Common Course Numbering Workflow
(201.05). It was presented to the Senate as information. It is important for faculty to
understand that there are now additional steps in the development and revision of
courses. Faculty should verify that a similar course is not currently being offered at UM
or within the Montana University System. If the course has 75% or more of the same
learning goals then it is considered to be equivalent (common) and will be assigned the
same rubric, number, and title. If it is determined to be unique, then you must review
the list of common course numbers, to find an available number that fits within the
numbering scheme. The completed form is circulated for approval signatures and
submitted for review by ASCRC. Once approved by the Faculty Senate, the courses are
then fit into the matrix by OCHE.
The Curriculum Deadline memo was available to remind faculty to submit proposals by
September 21st. New this year is the option of all electronic-only submission as long as
signatures are inserted into the documents. The course form has been recently revised
for ease of review. Please use the latest version and name the files with the
department, form, rubric and number as an identifier.
ASCRC Chair Tangedahl touched on some of the items in the annual report. Concerns
about academic oversight of stand-alone minors, certificates, and interdisciplinary
programs as well as appropriate faculty input regarding information technology decisions
were forwarded to ECOS. The motion forwarded to the General Education Committee
that would have restricted the use of the symbolic systems option to extended majors
was not approved by ASCRC. The committee would prefer to see an incentive
approach for encouraging language study and referred the issue back to the General
Education Committee.
General Education Committee Chair John DeBoer
The annual report was highlighted. In addition to the review of new and continuing
general education courses, the Committee approved 16 Global Leadership Initiative
(GLI) one-time-only experimental courses for general education designation. Essential
Learning Outcomes and Value Rubrics were mapped to the general education groups
for use in assessment. Professor DeBoer also serves on the Regents’ General
Education Council, which oversees the maintenance of the MUS transferable core as
mandated by the General Education Transfer Policy (301.10). One item currently being
discussed by the Council is whether upper-division general education courses should
count towards the core. The Council is also considering the appropriate place to count
language courses within the MUS core. The Committee also discussed the need for
students transferring from outside the system to have a comparable path to completing
general education requirements as students within the system. The Committee was
notified that the Commissioner’s Office is also considering this issue.
Senator Eglin commended the General Education Committee for upholding academic
standards and advocating for the foreign language requirement. It is ironic that the
Committee charged with upholding academic standards (ASCRC) resists them in this
case.
Senator Gillison concurred.
Writing Committee Chair Beverly Chin
The charge of the Writing Committee is the ongoing evaluation and assessment of the
appropriateness and effectiveness of writing requirements and criteria. The Committee
advocates for effective writing, proposes revisions to the requirements and criteria, and
reviews writing course proposals. It monitors the programs of the Writing Center and
writing assessment procedures, results, and appeals.
The Committee has been engaged in a Writing Assessment Pilot Program this year.
The first part of the program gathers data about writing courses. The second part
assesses students’ writing in 200 level writing courses. And the third part looks at
students’ writing in discipline specific upper-division writing courses.
The Committee created a rubric to assess writing courses directly from the writing
course criteria. This maps the expectations of writing courses to the information
provided on the writing course form and syllabi. The rubric was tested on new courses
submitted, as well as a sample of courses submitted in 2009. It will be used next fall
when the Writing Committee begins its first-year of the rolling review cycle. The rubric
will be used to assess, give feedback and approve writing courses.
The next step is to see how well students demonstrate writing proficiency in these
courses. An analytic rubric was created from the writing course learning outcomes. The
assessment criteria include: development of ideas, organization of ideas, language
choices (including purpose, audience, word choice, and sentence structure),
conventions (command of grammar, usage, spelling, and punctuation), and integration of
resources. A sample of 200-level writing course instructors were asked to provide
student papers. Then at a retreat, 19 participates (writing instructors from different
disciplines) used the rubric to look at a sample of anonymous student papers. The task
was to determine whether participants saw the same things in the papers. The
conversation was vibrant, productive, positive, and divergent. The papers were scored
differently by participants due to diverse perspectives. There is work to be done to talk
about what effective writing looks like in terms of the criteria. The feedback from the
participants was very positive.
Eventually the rubric will be available for faculty to use in their courses and there will be
sample papers of each of the score points. Campus-wide use of the rubric will clarify
expectations for students as well. The work will continue next year. There may also be
a writing symposium in the fall for sharing of writing best practices and for asking difficult
questions about the teaching of writing. This will allow for more discussion campus-wide
about how the rubric can help writing instruction. The Committee would like to increase
the ownership of writing instruction so that all disciplines are committed to students
writing proficiency. Curriculum standards, assessment, and pedagogy should be aligned
to be synergistic.
The last item from the annual report is the Committees’ advocacy for the administration
to provide the resources necessary for students to get into the writing courses they
need. It is very difficult for many students to get the 200 level writing courses at the time
they need to. Specifically students need access to WRIT 121, 201, and 222. The
offering departments need to be supported in order to provide students with effective
writing instruction.
Members of the committee, Camie, and Associate Provost Walker-Andrews were
thanked for their work.
Graduate Council Chair Chris Palmer
The curriculum consent agenda (co-convening courses) was approved. These are
existing courses that were identified as appropriate to have the co-convening attribute.
The Council revised the Program Review Guidelines Procedure to include assessment
of UG and con-convening courses. The Provost’s Office will likely revamp the program
review process to align review metrics with the strategic plan.
Chair Palmer summarized the work of the Council included in the annual report.
Faculty Library Committee Chair Sherrill Brown
The report is available for senators to review. The Committee was provided with
an overview of collection development and allocations. Members were also
given tours of various areas of the library. Although the committee is charged
with participating in the selection of the Dean of Libraries, it was not involved in
the recent search or interviews for dean candidates.
Unfinished Business- Center Reviews
After debate the revised O’Conner Center for the Rocky Mountain West Review
document (recommendation section) was amended to:
ECOS recommends continuation and another review in 2 years. Prior to the next
review, the Faculty Senate requests an action plan explaining how the center will
become self-supporting (i.e. without state or Research Office funding).
The Montana World Trade Center Review was approved.
New Business
Outgoing senators were thanked and new senators were seated.
Professor Putnam was nominated for Chair-elect. The Senate unanimously voted to
confirm.
The Senate caucused into two groups, the Professional Schools and College of Arts and
Science. The Professional School caucus nominated Joe Crepeau to serve on ECOS
and the College caucus nominated Michael Mayer and Chris Palmer. The nominations
were approved by the full Senate.
Good and Welfare
The library has endorsed the Association of Research Libraries Code of Best Practices
in Fair Use in Research and Academic Libraries.
http://www.arl.org/pp/ppcopyright/codefairuse/index.shtml
The meeting was adjourned at 4:45 pm.