Faculty Senate Curriculum Committee Meeting
Minutes from the meeting September 15, 2004
Present:
Tom Apple
Lindsey Bachman
June Deery
Mike Goldenberg
Amir Hirsa
Ted Krueger
Sharon Kunkel
Christ McDermott
Richard Smith
David Spooner
Christoph Steinbruchel, chair
Sam Wait
Mike Wozny
1) C. Steinbruchel opened the meeting by introducing Dick Smith as the newest member and
welcomed the returning Committee members.
2) The minutes from April 28, 2004 were approved with the following corrections noted
a. Item 5 Academic Integrity statement should include the following:
The Committee voted unanimously to approve a motion recommending that every academic
integrity statement should include the following:

examples of infractions

list of sanctions

a statement indicating that all infractions will be reported to DOSO
3) C. Steinbruchel provided the Committee with an update on the Faculty Senate retreat.
1) The faculty will go forward with a survey on satisfaction with the current decision making
process
2) Suggest the President sponsor dinners with the faculty to improve flow of
communication between the president and the faculty
3) New biology course requirement- The Faculty Senate (FS) wants to revisit an issue related
to the new requirement. Last year the FSCC approved template changes that included Biology as
a requirement and at the same time waived the depth requirement in science. The FS believes the
entire faculty needs to vote on this kind of change. The Provost disagrees with the FS on whether
or not an entire faculty vote needs to be taken. S. Wait pointed out that the FSCC approved the
changes for the School of Architecture (SoA) and School of Management &Technology (SoM&T).
Our vote removed the depth requirements to allow those majors to have more flexibility within
their curriculum. Based on that vote, the new 2004-2005 catalog does not state that there is a
depth requirement in science. Key to this issue is what constitutes the core curriculum. After
some further discussion, C. Steinbruchel outlined the FSCC approval process; Curriculum changes
are approved by the FSCC, they are sent to the FS and the final approval is by the Provost and
President. Core curriculum changes have to go to faculty for vote. Where are things with respect
to core outcomes? The FSCC asked for more input from the FS. The Committee also asked the
School of Science and the School of Humanities and Social Science to provide recommendations.
5) School of Science (SoS) - S. Wait presented two course changes and a course deletion. Last year
the Chemistry department split some of their 4 credit courses into 2, 2 credit courses or 2 courses
with 1 and 3 credits. The changes are in courses intended for non majors. Non-majors will take
Organic Chemistry I and II without being required to take the lab. D. Smith asked if the Chemical
Engineers or Environmental Engineers will be affected by these changes. S. Wait withdrew the CHEM
2270 deletion until he checks to make certain the Chemistry department discussed this with the
Faculty Senate Curriculum Committee
September 15, 2004
Engineering departments. T. Krueger asked what the impact of 3 credit courses will have based on
our discussion on core credits. S. Wait doesn’t see other departments in the SoS making these kinds
of changes. The two changes were presented as information:
CHEM 2250 Organic Chemistry I credit change from 4 to 3
CHEM 2260 Organic Chemistry II credit change from 4 to 3
6) C. Steinbruchel distributed a list of agenda items leftover from last year and asked the Committee
for additional topics and feedback on this list. He’d like to prioritize the list. Several new issues were
raised as part of the discussion.

Scheduling- changing the time patterns

Registration in abstentia- discussion-perhaps it’s just clarification of the policy

Classrooms- utilization-demands

Evaluating effectiveness of on-line assignments and submission of homeworkweb ct –automated grading –impact on learning process

From the Schools:
o SoE - looking at new curricula but nothing to come forward this year
o SoS - BCBP-PhD and maybe Bioinformatics
o H&SS- PhD in Arts

PDI- leadership for this program?

Testing-learning-feedback- this committee could make recommendations

Grade inflation-it is severe at graduate level

IDEA evaluation survey- what’s better? Teacher evaluation issue
From last year’s list:

Funding curriculum innovation

Writing and budget (#4) on old list make it number 1

Independent study credit guidelines for BS, MS and PhD

Issue of 4 x 4

Studio mode-smaller classes

Combine # 8 and # 11 (3 vs. 4 credit courses- course schedule slots)
C. Steinbruchel will write up an official list for next meeting for review and final prioritization
The deadlines were established for the coming year. All changes for the catalog including course
changes, template changes and new programs must be approved by first meeting of the FSCC in
February 2005.
There was some question about the start time of the meeting so C. Steinbruchel will poll the
members to identify the best starting time.
http://www.rpi.edu/dept/fscc
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