Undergraduate Academic Council Minutes
Meeting: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 from 2:30 pm to 4:00 pm
Room: LC 31 J.
Present: Sue Faerman, Rick Fogarty, Sue Freed, Kathy Gersowitz, Karen Chico
Hurst, Linda Krzykowski, Kathie Winchester, Sandra Vergari.
Review of Minutes from 12/12/2012 and 1/30/2013: approved with changes.
Chair’s Report:
The Provost’s Office has announced that effective August 2013, Vice Provost
for Undergraduate Education Sue Faerman will step down. A Provost’s Advisory
Group has been convened to assist with an internal search for a candidate from
among the faculty to assume the position. Ultimately they will report some
recommendations to the Provost Phillips and President Jones. The Chair
encouraged anyone with ideas about individuals or about considerations for this
charge to relay them to him.
The Writing Director Search Committee met this week to review applications.
Names of finalists will soon be forwarded to the Office of Diversity and
Inclusion for permission to invite candidates to interview.
The Chair of UAC and Associate Dean for General Education Leslie Halpern met
with the CAS Council of Chairs last week to discuss how to implement changes
for General Education competencies within the majors. During Spring 2013, the
General Education Advisory Board will decide of final wording for learning
objectives for the categories and competencies. It will likely be Fall 2014
before UAC will be asked to review implementation plans from individual
departments. Vice Provost Faerman gave an example of how one major on
campus consulted with its Advisory Board to identify, for example, the writing
competencies graduates of such a program should have in the field.
Curriculum and Honors Committee Report:
The final proposal for the Public Policy major is still outstanding. Once out of
UAC, the proposal is likely to go to the Senate floor for a vote. Time is getting
short for such a process to conclude this academic year.
The Department of Informatics has submitted a Program Proposal in order to
have its default course classification as Liberal Arts and Sciences. To inform
such a discussion, some university and State Education documents were
compiled on the definition of Liberal Arts and Sciences as it relates to
graduation requirements and departmental defaults. Some of these definitions
are at odds. It does not appear that UAC has considered a proposal that
challenges the current default designations in quite some time. Curriculum
and Honors will continue to discuss the broader questions the proposal has
raised. In the mean time, the chair of Curriculum and Honors asked
Informatics to submit individually the courses they would like counted for
liberal arts and sciences credit, and the committee will make decisions on a
case-by-case basis.
New Business:
A discussion began on UAC procedures particularly with regard to curricular
proposals. The Senate Charter lays out a framework for such procedures but
UAC is taking up the task of improving and making more precise the description
of procedures. For example, the charter lacks specificity as to what is
considered “substantial change” such that a proposal must ultimately be
brought to the floor of the Senate as a bill as opposed to merely being reported
out. Last year’s chair of UAC, JoAnne Malatesta, initiated a discussion of such
issues with the Senate Executive Committee. Malatesta is absent today, as are
many members, so a fuller discussion will resume next meeting. The purpose of
such discussion is to go on record with clear procedures, so that the work of
UAC can proceed smoothly and there is clear guidance in the future for
members of UAC about what matters must receive what level of scrutiny and
clearance in governance.
The meeting adjourned at 4:00 p.m.