BTF Meeting, DECEMBER, 2003
Meeting began at 9: A.M.
Attending: Bernice Speer, Steve Bostic, David Froehlich, Les Albin,
Sarah Strong, Terry Shaw, Trish Phelps, Alice Sessions, Jackie
Jarzem, Anne Keddy-Hector, Ed Meyertholen, Steve Muzos, Yvonne
Estes, D’Maris Allen-Mierl, A.L.Mackey, John Norris Liz RamirezGarza, Mark McCaffery
1. New BIOL 1408 Text.
Trish Phelps reported that she had polled the 1408 faculty and
those who responded were in favor of dropping the Minkoff book from
the approved textbook list and replacing it with the Belk & Borden
Biology: Science of Life. The department unanimously voted to adopt
this book for Fall 04.
2. SACS Update.
The department has had to defend the eligibility of several faculty
members who teach A&P. The SACS committee, which visited ACC,
challenged the credentials of Biology faculty members, including
Bernice’s, because her degree is in Zoology and SACS did not
recognize Zoology (or Botany) as a division of Biology. The college
has written a letter of exception for her documenting her graduate
courses in animal anatomy and physiology. Bernice will go through
all the faculty files and will have to also write letters of exception for
other faculty in the same situation. In addition, ACC can no longer
hire new faculty to teach A&P who do not have graduate hours in
A&P no matter how long they have been teaching A&P. There is also
at least one current faculty member who can no longer teach
anatomy because of this rule.
SACS also challenged David Froehlich’s credentials until it was
pointed out that as a Paleontologist, he has many graduate hours in
anatomy. Indeed, currently, there are only four schools in the US that
teach graduate anatomy; therefore, the majority of anatomy teachers
in Medical Schools are vertebrate paleontologists.
The department can also offer some formal process of training
faculty to certify them to teach anatomy. The training must be
documented before the faculty may teach anatomy.
This review is taking place throughout the state and not just at A&P.
3. Dissection Questions
Last summer, a student protested being made to dissect a cat in an
A&P class. She took her protest all the way to the Board before it
was resolved. Now, the Board wants the department to articulate a
formal statement about our dissection policy and any alternatives (if
we will offer any alternatives) like simulations. This policy will go up
on the webpage and in the course notes of the appropriate classes so
students will be aware of the policy before they go into the class.
Public schools are required to offer alternatives, but colleges are
not if they have a policy in place or the dissection requirement is
stated in the class’ syllabus.
Steve Bostic offered to write a draft policy for the department and
distribute over the listserv. The department voted to allow an email
vote on this issue once this policy was circulated.
4. Spring 04 Schedule
Because of the incredible demand, the administration has asked the
department to add more A&P II classes. To cover the new LEH,
three temporary full-time faculty will probably be appointed – John
Norris, Eric VanGorkom and Dean Keddy-Hector – who will teach 21
LEH each. Steve Bostic will teach 23.25 LEH to free others up to
teach A&P II. In addition, the department has been told it may give
as many overloads as it needs to staff classes.
To accommodate the new courses, lectures will be on MW and labs
on Fri. This will add a lot of work for the lab assistants so please help
them out as much as possible.
5. Intro to Micro Prerequisite
The Micro faculty requested that either the new BIOL 2404 course
or Human Anatomy be made prerequisite for Intro to Micro. This will
not be a problem since there is no program that requires Intro to
Micro which does not require some anatomy. At this time, the Micro
classes are covering some anatomy anyway, since some students
don’t have anatomical information necessary for the class.
The prerequisite would be “BIOL 2402 or BIOL xxx with a minimum
grade of C”
Approved.
6. A&P Remediation
Many of our students (and students at other schools) are failing the
A&P section of the HESI exam, an exam required for admission to a
nursing school. Eileen Klein from ACC’s nursing school has been
given a grant to develop a remediation program to help these
students. She and Sarah Strong are developing a series of modules,
tentatively called ADN A&P Modules. Students who fail the A&P
section of the HESI will be able to work through these modules and
retake the HESI rather than retaking A&P before they retake the
HESI. There would be five modules: Endocrine, Cardiovascular,
Respiratory, Neuro and Hemo. The modules will strongly emphasize
critical thinking and problem solving skills besides the actual
knowledge. Bernice suggested that we search to see if there are any
critical thinking online modules we could incorporate into our classes.
The suggestion was made that instructors list in their syllabi exactly
the type of question that they will be asking on the exams, especially
emphasizing that the questions may be beyond the basic knowledge
i.e. critical thinking and problem skills. The department might place a
page on the department website containing both the dissection policy
and the department policy on types of questions faculty are expected
to use and types of skills they will test for.
7. A&P Courses.
The department must submit the course descriptions for the new
A&P course to the Curriculum Committee before their January
meeting in order to place them in the FY 2005 catalogue.
The main target of the Human Anatomy/Human Physiology
sequence will be students going to UT and other schools’ nursing
programs, premed and predental students, ACC’s RN program, the
Dental Hygiene program, Occupational Therapy and (probably)
Sonography.
The target audience of the survey course will be the EMT,
Paramedic program, Radiology, PTA, LVN and possibly the
Pharmacy program. The department the exact mix of the subjects to
be covered: More bones, less bones? Less muscles, more cardiac?
We are going to work with the various health programs to see what
they need covered. The department will then try and incorporate their
requests into the objectives for the new course.
The course description for the survey class will be:
“This one semester course surveys human anatomy and
physiology. Major topics include chemistry fundamentals, cell
structure and function and all organ systems in the body. This course
is designed for ACC Allied Health students who need a single
semester of human anatomy and physiology. This course will not
substitute for BIOL XXXX Human Anatomy as a prerequisite for BIOL
XXXX Human Physiology” Skills level: G
The department is still unsure about the exact mix of the new
classes, but after talking to the Health Science faculty, we believe
70% of the classes next fall will be the Human Anatomy/Human
Physiology sequence and 30% will be the new Anatomy and
Physiology survey course.
7. Miscellaneous
Sarah is planning on offering 3 combination VTEL/ lab courses in
A&P II next fall. This would optimize use of lab space and allow the
department to offer more A&P II classes to finish out more students
who have started the A&P sequence.
John Young, a long time Chemistry professor at RGC, is in the
hospital suffering from cancer. His family and ACC colleagues
request that anyone who can donate blood in his name to replenish
the blood he has used.
Meeting ended at 10:45