UDWR Ad Hoc Committee
Meeting Notes
March 13, 2007
Present: COB: Vacant, COE: Elaine Ackerman—Present, COFAH: Michael
Connaughton—Present, COSE: Don Neu—Present, COSS: Emily Schultz--Present,
COMP: Philip Keith—Present, RHET: Paula Tompkins—Absent, FE Committee: Judy
Litterst (Chair)—Present, University Assessment Director: James Sherohman—Present
ADMIN: Mitchell Rubinstein—Present
Meeting notes of the last meeting on 2/27/07 were not available and will be reviewed at the next meeting.
Follow-up on Communication with Departments:
Judy indicated a need to receive criteria reviews of UDWR criteria for COSE,
COE, and COSS so that letters can be sent. We are receiving feedback from departments on course/program descriptions for bulletin copy. What we receive will be saved as received in both hard and electronic copy and forwarded to Academic Affairs. We will not be attempting to put materials into finalized (consistent) formatting.
Some departments have responded to the committee following feedback sent on criteria asking if they should redo and resubmit. We are encouraging them to report any improvements in UDW assessment in their assessment reports, but are happy that they are taking improvement seriously. The Aviation Department’s UDWR for internship coursework was submitted and it was noted that the strength of this can be industry assessment for industry writing standards. We understand that CHEM does something similar. Mitch indicated that this could feed into overall program assessment.
There was some discussion of program prerequisites, especially with capstone courses. This is one of several issues departments will need to consider re: their UDW offering(s). They will also need to: (1) update major application forms; (2) if using a portfolio for UDW, indicate who is in charge of the sign-off; and, (3) be very clear about their UDW process in the bulletin and in any advertising to students. Is the UDW for a department a culmination or a prerequisite for other courses? We believe it should be the former.
Announcements :

The Assessment Steering Committee accepted our suggestions for an open-ended
UDWR Assessment form.

Phil Keith prepared a proposal for Spring Forum Day on April 4 th
titled “All You
Wanted to Know about the Upper Division Writing Requirement.” This will be a status-update report on the Upper Division Writing program at SCSU and will showcase model approaches from different major programs for review and discussion. Participants will include Phil, Judy, Mitch, Brenda Lenz (NURS) and
Gareth John (GEOG).
Updating Task List:


Michael Connaughton offered an initial draft memo that will eventually be sent to UCC and the FA suggesting process for documenting current
UDW offerings in bulletin copy and for handling future changes in department offerings. It was suggested that this memo eventually be sent to UCC with copies to the FA and to Mitch with attachments to include the college matrices, the form we used to assess submitted criteria, a sample of the letter we sent to departments with friendly advice for strengthening their UDW assessment process, and the letter set to departments requesting bulletin copy. As indicated before, we will simply
“warehouse” this latter information and forward it to the Office of
Academic Affairs. We made several suggestions for changes in this memo, and Michael agreed to re-draft it and to bring it back for discussion. We are particularly concerned that the UDWR process is clear to students and that there is clarity of UDW assessment expectations for departments.

We had some discussion of whether or not temporary courses should be allowed as UDWR offerings. Some members said they should not, while others agreed that topics courses already listed in the bulletin could be designated for UDW providing that those courses adopted assessments for existing courses. Again, we are most concerned about clarity of the requirement.

We need to discuss further alternatives regarding the placement of the
UDWR in General Education versus designating it as a University
Requirement. The primary issue here is where assessment will occur. We recognize a heavy workload for both the Assessment Steering Committee and the new General Education Assessment Committee. One possibility discussed was that the UDWR assessment could be a secondary responsibility for the to-be-developed GEAC. The rationale for this is that all University Requirements (e.g., Racial Issues and the 1-cr. Wellness requirement) should be assessed somewhere, and this could be the logical place for that. A second possibility discussed was to have a separate stand-alone committee similar to ours now. We discussed where the
UDW course is housed (within programs). Thus, should this be aligned with program assessment? As a University requirement, we may need more direct oversight. And, if there is a possible issue connecting UDW with the lower-level General Education offerings, would connecting this with the new GEAC make more sense? Judy will disseminate the General
Education Assessment Plan flowcharts so that the committee can look at them before the next meeting.
Respectfully Submitted,
Judy Litterst