LSOC Committee meeting 1/29/08 Present Windy Gordon, Alex Macaulay, Brent Kinser, Carol Burton, James DeConinck, Peter Nieckarz, Tracy Zontek Recorder Joel Knisley Peter Carol Announcements Move that previous meeting’s minutes are approved. Motion carried. LSOC & Faculty Senate Attended Faculty Senate. Reminded members of the request from the engineering program to reduce the number of hours liberal studies by 3 in the perspectives area. Informed group that a program can appeal to the senate if they aren’t satisfied with rulings at all/any of the university level committees: APRC, UCC, Graduate Council, and Liberal studies Oversight Committee. Jim The college of Business will be submitting requests to the LSOC in the near future and action will be requested ASAP. Peter It’s important to have a vote that’s reviewed by Faculty Senate. I don’t think that the Senate will take a different view to that of this committee. Carol The Provost was asked about this and he said he would support the decision of the committee; curriculum is the purview of the faculty and the committee structure is designed to facilitate that. Peter Meeting Times Suggested meeting time of 2:30 on alternating Monday and Thursday to accommodate members who have teaching responsibilities during those times. Windy Carol How will the LSOC for next year be selected? Is experience on the committee an issue? Several members expressed an interest in continuing on the LSOC beyond their terms. Carol will contact Deans requesting new membership and indicating faculty who desire to remain on the LSOC if choice is provided. LSOC documents are on the H drive. Last semester the Provost suggested not adding any more classes to the liberal studies program since assessment of same will be completed this semester and a major program review will occur next year. Should we send out a message saying “Anything not submitted April 1 will have to wait”…? We need to give some notice to departments. LSOC will add this as a discussion item to a future meeting. How many upper level perspectives (ULP) are being offered this semester? I will run a banner report on ULP’s and disseminate to committee members. Jim Should we drop some courses before adding more? Peter We need to have something in place in the next week or so.
Peter C5 (Core 5 – physical and biological sciences) We have a C5 meltdown. The instructor of ENVH 130 resigned the same week that classes began. The department requests that we exclude this course from the assessment plan this semester because of the current teaching situation. There are 3 sections, 40 students. Peter What portion of them are C5? Peter Motion to exclude environmental health 130 from formal assessment this semester. Motion carried. Tracy Peter Jim Peter LS Teaching Award Peter nominated Alex Macaulay to chair this committee. He will work with Carol and Anna McFadden to select this year’s recipient. CoursEval – Last Semester There’s controversy about last year’s evaluations. Several issues were raised. The provost’s Office has disseminated a matrix of all the problems associated with the administration of the CoursEvals and identified areas of responsibility so that the problems will be alleviated this semester. AA5’s Peter Carol The LSOC need to review all AA­5s on the H­drive before we meet next Monday. I’ll get the C5 proposals onto the shared drive. Assessment Assessment reports are pending. There were 19 recommendations developed from faculty who met with Carol to discuss the first year seminar. Beth & I will meet to ensure that future (FTEs) allocations are equal. We’re putting descriptions of first year seminars in Catwalk online this year so that students can know the courses for which they are registering. UNC Tomorrow Brent Is there any info on UNC Tomorrow? Carol There will be about 10 general themes. Some will fit in with LS, like synthesis, global readiness, experiential learning, partnering with community colleges, etc. The UNC Faculty Assembly has informed Erskine Bowles that greater response time is needed for the campuses to do a thorough job in responding to the initiative. Reminder, Chancellor will hold a UNC Tomorrow Forum this Thursday, Jan. 31 from 2­5 in the UC Grandroom. Meeting adjourned at 8:45 a.m. Next meeting: Monday, February 4, 2:30 p.m. Location: to be confirmed by Joel.