October 14, 2011

1.   Rayens introduced new members Dr. Jonathan Allison (English, new Area Expert in Humanities) and

Dr. Anna Secor (Geography, new Area Expert in Global Dynamics).

2.   The minutes from 9/30/2011 were approved without change.

3.   The bulk of the meeting time was spent discussing a request from Arts and Sciences Dean Mark Kornbluh to allow the temporary approval of some upper level courses, approval for one or more Areas in need, notably for Humanities and Social Science.    A summary of that discussion and an opinion and a commitment from IGEOC are recorded below.

Context

Part  of  IGEOC  met  with  Dean  Mark  Kornbluh  on  Thursday,  10/6/2011.      Dean  Kornbluh  was concerned about the absence of upper level (300 and above) courses in Social Sciences and the scarcity of the same in the Humanities.    His concerned centered on those students in heavily prescribed programs who could not complete their UK Core requirements until later, junior year or beyond.   He felt that asking such students to take a 100 level social science course at that juncture was not appropriate.    He has asked for temporary approval of an unidentified set of upper level courses.    IGEOC proposed the following reply for Rayens to distribute to Dean Kornbluh and all other Deans as well.

Opinions and Commitment

IGEOC recognizes the need to have more courses in the Humanities and Social Sciences that are at the 300 level and beyond and wants to help rectify this need.  The Committee proposes:

1.   Expediting all upper level courses through the review process if they are submitted to IGEOC by the end of the fall term 2011.  IGEOC will commit to having such courses to Undergraduate Council within one month from the date a correct and complete package is posted on the Sharepoint site.     This would increase the chances that such courses would be approved by Senate in time for the fall 2012 session.

2.   Requiring all packages mentioned in 2. to contain all the documents required for the submission of any course, including, importantly, a completed course review form.   It is the opinion of the Committee  that many  of these  upper  level  courses are  likely very  close to being qualified already, but the Committee recognizes the profound worth of being able to map those connections by way of the course review form.  In particular, for some humanities courses, the exercise of deciding which area of Inquiry the course really belongs is a very useful exercise for faculty to go through.

3.   Requiring, as always, that syllabi contain the correspondingly appropriate template outcomes.

4.   Thinking through issues of prerequisites.   While some disciplines don’t have prerequisites on 300 level courses many do.  IGEOC’s commitment to expediting these upper level courses is in no way a comment on ignoring prerequisites.

5.   Making it clear in each package that the faculty who will be teaching the course have signed off on its bid to become a UK Core course.

IGEOC recognizes that this won’t help with getting more of these courses in the Core for spring 2012. But it will help for Fall 2012 and Rayens was asked to check with Associate Registrar Mike Shanks about the feasibility of back-counting spring courses that are being taught under syllabi that ultimately are approved by the Senate Council as UK Core courses.