Faculty meeting Minutes
December 7, 2000
In President Susan Pierce’s absence, Dean Terry Cooney called the meeting to order at 4:04 p.m.
in McIntyre 103. Sixty-four voting members of the faculty were present.
Minutes of the November 20 faculty meeting were approved as distributed.
John Dickson announced that Tom Dixon, President of the Urban League, will serve the business
department as Executive in Residence next spring.
We turned to discussion of the core curriculum. Bill Barry discussed briefly the Draft of Rationale
for Proposed Core Curriculum that he distributed to faculty by email on December 6, 2000.
Copies were also distributed at today’s meeting and a copy is attached to these minutes. Barry
said that the draft is intended to serve as a working statement during discussion of the rubrics,
and that the rationale itself can be revised later during discussion of the full Curriculum Statement,
of which it will be a part. Suzanne Barnett asked if the full Curriculum Statement would address
such questions as how many core courses must be taken in residence, and Barry responded yes.
Dean Cooney asked if there were any other amendments to be offered to the Seminar in Writing
and Rhetoric rubric discussed at the November 20, 2000 meeting. Barnett expressed concern
about the phrase (indicated here in italics) following the semicolon in the third guideline: “III.
These seminars may be organized around topics, themes, or texts; in each seminar the material
must be appropriate and accessible for meaningful work by first-year students.” She asked that
someone from the Curriculum Committee explain the reason for that phrase. Barry responded
that the phrase is a reminder that the fact that the seminar is a first-year course needs to be taken
into account as the courses are developed. Barnett said she thought the reminder was
unnecessary and that we ought to have high expectations of freshmen. “Who decides,” she
asked, “whether something is too hard?”
Haltom asked rhetorically how the Curriculum Committee would evaluate whether someone is
proposing a course that is too difficult for freshmen if the phrase is eliminated. Barry responded
that the phrase presupposes that it is possible to draft a course that is too difficult for freshmen.
He said that the presence of the phrase allows the Curriculum Committee to address this issue
when reviewing seminar proposals. Bill Beardsley suggested that the phrasing in the third
guideline of the seminar in Scholarly and Creative Inquiry rubric was more to the point. Barnett
still worried that someone might charge that a seminar contained “too much reading” or “too much
writing.” But she said she would not propose an amendment on the assumption of “good faith”
use of the phrase by colleagues. Matt Warning assured her and others that the Curriculum
Committee also understands that it must act in good faith in interpreting the phrase.
George Tomlin, noting that the third guideline of the first rubric specifies that course material must
be accessible by first year students, asked if this meant accessible to all first year students. Bill
Breitenbach said that by virtue of its following a semicolon, the phrase under discussion
addresses and amplifies the first part of the third guideline.
Ted Taranovski M/S/P “to proceed to discussion of the Scholarly and Creative Inquiry
rubric.” The motion passed on a unanimous voice vote.
Breitenbach introduced the rubric on behalf of the task force. He noted that the rubric is quite
open-ended and is less detailed than the proposed rubric for the other freshman seminar. He
read the wording of the proposed rubric:
SCHOLARLY AND CREATIVE INQUIRY RUBRIC
University of Puget Sound Faculty Meeting Minutes
December 7, 2000, Page 2
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this core area is to introduce students to the processes of scholarly and
creative inquiry through direct participation in that inquiry. Students in a Scholarly and
Creative Inquiry Seminar gain a degree of mastery that comes with deep exposure to a
focused seminar topic. They increase their ability to frame and explore questions, to
support claims, and to respond to others’ questions and differing opinions. Finally,
students develop and demonstrate their intellectual independence by engaging in
substantive work on the topic in papers or projects.
GUIDELINES
I.
Scholarly and Creative Inquiry seminars examine a focused scholarly topic, set
of questions, or theme.
II.
Since seminars in this category are taken in the student’s freshman year, they
are designed to be accessible and appropriate for the accomplishment of
meaningful work by students without previous preparation in the course’s field.
This requirement informs the choice of topic or theme of the course, the choice
of texts or materials to be treated in the course, and the design of assignments
for the course.
III.
Seminars in Scholarly and Creative Inquiry must include significant intellectual
exchange both between the instructor and the students and among the
students. Careful, sustained, and recurrent examination of ideas and sources
(broadly defined to include data, texts, media, and/or other visual, aural, or
graphic material) play a central role in the course. Pedagogical methods take
advantage of the opportunities provided by a seminar setting.
Bill Haltom asked if the word “play” in the third guideline shouldn’t be “plays.” The agreement by
consensus was that it should and this change was made.
Florence Sandler asked if the wording “papers or projects” in the last line of the Learning
Objectives meant there could be seminars without written projects. She said she had assumed
the seminar would be a writing course, part of the writing-across-the-curriculum program at the
university. Molly Pasco-Pranger responded that the intent is for the wording to mean papers or
projects, the purpose being “to leave the seminars open in terms of discipline” so that math,
science, and all faculty would feel welcome to propose seminars. Sandler suggested, then, that
for many students there would be less writing required than at present if this seminar need not be
a writing course, because the seminar in writing and rhetoric is itself only partly about writing. She
noted that currently students must take English 101, a writing course, but that under the new core
they might have the equivalent of less than one course in writing.
John Hanson said that “we don’t want to turn away from faculty who might leave a writing course
to the experts.” He said that writing is involved, for example, in web-based presentations and
poster sessions used frequently in the sciences, and that to imply that these components were not
serious writing would restrict who would teach these seminars. Sandler said she assumed that a
lot of writing was already required in the sciences so that requiring writing in the seminars
“wouldn’t be a big deal.” Hanson agreed, but said the primary focus in these courses should be
intellectual engagement, rather than writing.
Beverly Pierson said she agreed with Sandler that the seminar should be a writing course. She
said this is what we as a faculty agreed to in creating the seminar originally. Ili Nagy agreed.
Dean Cooney pointed out that the “papers or projects” wording was in the learning objectives, not
University of Puget Sound Faculty Meeting Minutes
December 7, 2000, Page 3
in the guidelines. Doug Cannon said that he thought a “project-product” was to be an expectation
of these seminars, and that one could expect writing in the course without demanding that it be
the “project-product.”
Michael Curley said that Sandler was correct in thinking there would be less compositional writing
in the first (writing and rhetoric) seminar, and that if students wind up in a second (scholarly and
creative inquiry) seminar with little writing, they will receive less compositional training than at
present. He said there was a tradeoff here that we would need to evaluate.
Walter Lowrie said that it seemed to him that the guidelines should flow from the learning
objectives, but that we seemed to be minimizing that linkage. Barry responded that, while the
learning objectives are not prescriptive, the guidelines are. He said the link between the two is
that students working hard following the guidelines will achieve the learning objectives. He agreed
that discussing the learning objectives is legitimate, but that courses would be evaluated by the
Curriculum Committee in terms of the guidelines.
John Dickson suggested that a student writing problem could go undetected in the absence of a
writing expectation. He said this kind of problem should be addressed early in a student’s career
rather than late.
Curley asked if posters in math and the sciences include a lot of writing, and Neshyba responded
yes. Curley offered the conclusion that math and science faculty can therefore be involved in the
seminars while involving students with writing, and that we could “get everyone in.” Pierson
agreed, saying that all science faculty write papers, and that the seminars should have substantial
writing. “We can do it,” she declared.
Dean Kris Bartanen said that argumentation does involves writing, and she M/S/vote reported
later “to amend the learning objectives by adding ‘written’ between ‘substantive’ and
‘work.’”
Neshyba opposed the motion, and Taranovski, Goldstein, and Pierson supported it. Hanson also
supported the motion, saying that writing would not scare away scientists.
Warning suggested that a re-drafting of the rubric by the task force might be more productive than
re-writing it in a meeting of the full faculty. Jim Jasinski suggested adding “oral and written”
between “significant” and “exchange” in the last line of the third guideline.
Peter Wimberger argued that adding language about writing to the learning objectives without also
adding it to the guidelines would create “a disconnect” between the two. Nick Kontogeorgopoulos
also argued that we should not restrict writing language to the learning objectives only.
Dickson M/S/P to close debate. The motion to close debate passed on a voice vote. The
Bartanen motion then passed on a voice vote.
Barry M/S/P “to replace the words “must include” with “require substantive written work
on the topic in papers or projects and include” between “Inquiry” and “significant” in the
first line of the third guideline. The motion passed on a voice vote.
The effect of the two approved motions was to change the rubric to become:
SCHOLARLY AND CREATIVE INQUIRY RUBRIC
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
University of Puget Sound Faculty Meeting Minutes
December 7, 2000, Page 4
The purpose of this core area is to introduce students to the processes of scholarly and
creative inquiry through direct participation in that inquiry. Students in a Scholarly and
Creative Inquiry Seminar gain a degree of mastery that comes with deep exposure to a
focused seminar topic. They increase their ability to frame and explore questions, to
support claims, and to respond to others’ questions and differing opinions. Finally,
students develop and demonstrate their intellectual independence by engaging in
substantive written work on the topic in papers or projects.
GUIDELINES
I.
Scholarly and Creative Inquiry seminars examine a focused scholarly topic, set
of questions, or theme.
II.
Since seminars in this category are taken in the student’s freshman year, they
are designed to be accessible and appropriate for the accomplishment of
meaningful work by students without previous preparation in the course’s field.
This requirement informs the choice of topic or theme of the course, the choice
of texts or materials to be treated in the course, and the design of assignments
for the course.
III.
Seminars in Scholarly and Creative Inquiry require substantive written work on
the topic in papers or projects and include significant intellectual exchange
both between the instructor and the students and among the students. Careful,
sustained, and recurrent examination of ideas and sources (broadly defined to
include data, texts, media, and/or other visual, aural, or graphic material) plays
a central role in the course. Pedagogical methods take advantage of the
opportunities provided by a seminar setting.
Taranovski asked if essay exams were intended not to be included as substantive writing, and
Haltom and Pasco-Pranger responded no.
Dean Cooney asked if the consensus of the faculty was that we were finished discussing the
Scholarly and Creative Inquiry Seminar rubric and were ready to move to discussion of the next
rubric at the next faculty meeting, and the consensus of the faculty was yes.
We adjourned at 5:04 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
John M. Finney
Secretary of the Faculty
University of Puget Sound Faculty Meeting Minutes
December 7, 2000, Page 5
Draft of Rationale for Proposed Core Curriculum
December 7, 2000
IV. Core Requirements for the Bachelor's Degree:
The faculty of the University of Puget Sound have designed the core curriculum to give
undergraduates an integrated and demanding introduction to the life of the mind and to
established methods of intellectual inquiry. The Puget Sound undergraduate's core experience
begins with two freshman seminars that guide the student through an in-depth exploration of a
focused area of interest and that sharpen the student’s skills in constructing persuasive
arguments. In the first three years of their Puget Sound college career, students also study five
“Approaches to Knowing” Fine Arts, Humanities, Mathematics, Natural Science, and Social
Science. These core areas develop the student’s understanding of different disciplinary
perspectives on society, culture, and the physical world, and explore both the strengths of those
disciplinary approaches and their limitations. Connections, an upper-level integrative course,
challenges the traditional boundaries of disciplines and examines the benefits and limits of
interdisciplinary approaches to knowledge.
Further, in accordance with the stated educational goals of the University of Puget Sound, core
curriculum requirements have been established: (a) to improve each student's grasp of the
intellectual tools necessary for the understanding and communication of ideas; (b) to enable each
student to understand herself or himself as a thinking person capable of making ethical and
aesthetic choices; (c) to help each student comprehend the diversity of intellectual approaches to
understanding human society and the physical world; and (d) to increase each student's
awareness of his or her place in those broader contexts. Specific objectives of the core areas are
described below.
A. Core Curriculum: Rubrics and Guidelines. Each core rubric consists of two sections,
"Guidelines" and “Learning Objectives.” Faculty have developed the Guidelines section to achieve
the particular Learning Objectives of the core rubric and, more broadly, the educational goals of
the University. The Guidelines are intended to be used by faculty to develop core courses and by
the Curriculum Committee to review core courses. The Learning Objectives are intended to
provide a clear statement to students of what they can expect to learn from any given core area.
Although the Learning Objectives will assist the faculty in developing Core courses and in meeting
the spirit of the Core area, the Curriculum Committee will evaluate and approve Core courses
based on their adherence to the Guidelines, not the Learning Objectives.
CORE RUBRICS GO HERE.