Social Sciences Disciplines Meeting
January 19, 2011
Present: Katherine Kocel, Mario Rivas, Nola Hadley Torres, Blake Respini, Matthew Freeman,
Nathan Strong, Trevor Nakagawa, Beverley West, Leslie Fleming, Bishop T. Scott
Facilitators: Karolyn Van Putten, Krista Johns
After meeting together to discuss the budget news and impending consolidation activities, the
disciplines broke into individual discussions. These notes will focus on the outcomes of those
discipline discussions:
ANTHROPOLOGY
Each college needs to offer anthropology, and data should drive decisions about how many
sections to offer and student demand. At this time, the emphasis is on meeting requirements for
transfer, rather than students seeking anthropology majors.
There are core transfer courses that need to be offered at all four colleges:
Anthro 1 Intro to Physical Anthropology
Anthro 3 Intro to Cultural Anthropology
These courses provide a global perspective of humanity and are unique among course offerings.
They meet institutional learning outcomes as well as GE transfer requirements.
Anthro 1L lab, one unit, should also be kept, because it meets the physical sciences lab
requirement and serves a student need in this area. If this cannot be supported at each college,
then the decision should be based upon other options for students, and on related program needs.
If possible, retain Anthro 5, American Indian Culture and History, as it fulfills the ethnic studies
requirement for AA degrees.
Evaluate further: gender courses. Perhaps keep only Male/Female Sex and Society and offer on a
reduced frequency.
Courses to deactivate for now: Film, Ethnographic Methods, Linguistics, Urban Anthro,
Aztec/Inca/Maya (Anthro 4,8,13,18).
SOCIOLOGY
In addition to serving transfer students, the colleges should also remember their mission to serve
CTE students and perhaps encourage them to enroll in a social science course to enrich their
learning and foster the atmosphere of unity among the CTE and Transfer Track students. We
must help ensure that all students not simply take isolated courses, but rather select schedules
with synergy between courses and disciplines for greater knowledge and planning.
Students take Sociology classes primarily for GE transfer requirements and bond more with the
aspects of sociological practice and applied sociology over scientific sociology, but their broader
knowledge of the scientific research process will be rounded out and go into more depth with the
scientific methods course requirement for social sciences transfer majors.
The more popular courses are Sociology 1 (Intro to Sociology), Sociology 2 (Social Problems),
and Sociology 5 (Minority Groups). These are useful for all majors. If other courses-- such as the
Sociology of Literature-- are deactivated, these three courses have demonstrated the greatest
interest among students, and are always over-enrolled. A desirable characteristic of Soc. 2 is that
it offers a variety of topics as themes for studying current and relevant social issues.
At BCC, if only one methods course is developed, it should cover all the methods used in the
various social sciences. For example, experiments are used more in Psychology than in
Sociology. Sociology uses mostly survey research and field study. Political Science and
Anthropology have their preferred methodologies.
POLITICAL SCIENCE
Political Science 1 is the course that is needed at each college to fulfill the GE transfer
requirements. The objectives have been in discussion for a few semesters:
1. Finish the approvals for BCC’s research methods courses so that students can transfer
with all of their undergrad requirements in political science.
2. Use data to look at transfer rates, articulation of courses, and Fall 2010 semester attrition
rates in classes (ending enrollments) to identify course success.
3. Identify classes to cut first by determining if they are transferable BOTH to UC and CSU
and if they are articulated into UC/CSU Political Science Majors—not just general GE
transfer. Apply criteria to courses and to programs.
PSYCHOLOGY
The social sciences should ensure there are pathways for basic skills students to enter the
disciplines. In psychology, especially, there are courses of personal interest that could encourage
students further into their college studies. Psychology is a good program for drawing diverse
student populations.
There is a psych major at COA, and the other campuses provide transfer courses. All campuses
provide GE transfer courses, and BCC’s program provides one of the large transfer pathways at
the college. BCC is finalizing its new course on research methods to meet current transfer
requirements; this is something all of the college should consider adopting.
Courses should be kept which transfer into the Psych Major, as community college terminal
psych programs are not helpful for student employment. With the exception of the methods
course, courses unique to a college should stay there.
All colleges should offer Intro to Psych and Human Sexuality. Lifespan psychology should be
offered at one additional college.
Abnormal psychology and social psychology don’t transfer in the major and should not be
offered.