October 28, 2011
| Members Present | Ex-Officio Present | Guests Present |
| Ruth Beattie | Bill Rayens | Chris Thuringer |
| Derek Lane | Mike Shanks | Leah Simpson |
| Jane Jensen | Debra Sharp | |
| Roxanne Mountford | ||
| David Royster |
1. The minutes from October 14th were approved by lack of objection.
2. After sufficiently many voting members arrived, COM 101 and GER 361 were approved.
3. Rayens gave a brief overview of his recent experiences with trying to generate discussion regarding a clarification of syllabus guidelines for the University. Rayens expressed his concern about how different groups may be using different guidelines for what is expected to be on a syllabus and he had been asking for some clarity on this issue. He reported that the Senate Council Chair Swanson, APUGE Mullen, Assistant Provost Greissman, and he would be meeting in November to discuss this.
This led to considerable discussion on the part of the group and a reaffirmation that IGEOC frequently experiences delays in curriculum approval over this misunderstanding. IGEOC asked Rayens to attempt to get a slot at the next available Senate Council meeting so that we can discuss two items:
a) Clarification of syllabus expectations and communication of those clarifications to the campus.
b) How to get the Senate Council and Senate more engaged in marketing the UK Core on campus, reminding the faculty that this is not a creation of IGEOC, but indeed that IGEOC is dutifully carrying out the will of the Senate.
The Committee expressed strong support of both agenda items and went on record as saying both were critically important.
4. The next item of business was a discussion about the feasibility of creating examinations by which students could bypass an approved class for the Core. Members present felt very strongly that:
a) It was not a good idea to allow a testing procedure to replace a Core course, citing
serious concerns about the ability of a single test to capture the essence of a Core class. At the most, a grade of P/F could be assigned for successful testing in a course area, but consistent with the current USP policy, no UK Core credit would be attached to a P.
b) It would be fine to have a testing procedure through which a student could offer evidence that he or she were ready to take a higher level UK Core course, but that
successful testing at that lower level not be equated to a letter grade in the lower level course, aside from potentially a P in a P/F format. See a).
c) Departments where students are wanting to test out because there are no higher level
options available should develop some higher level alternatives.
In a related discussion there was strong sentiment that a Department should have the right to change their policies on AP if current policies are – in practice - found to be incorrect. A particular example from the C&C curriculum was discussed at length.
5. The next item of business concerned course sections designated at “H” to denote “Honors.” It is anticipated that IGEOC will start to get more requests for ABC 123H courses to be approved. In a long and informative discussion, the Committee decided:
a) When ABC 123 has been approved already as UK Core: If learning outcomes for ABC
123H include all of those in ABC 123 (but presumably asking for more effort in a variety of areas), then there is no need for ABC 123H to be vetted separately.
b) When ABC 123 has not been approved as UK Core: In this situation ABC 123 should be submitted to IGEOC in the usual way and ABC 123H would be approved by implication (see a)).
c) In situations where there is an argument to be made for ABC 123H becoming a Core and
ABC 123 not, the advice of the Committee was to simply create an ABC 124 (and ABC
124H) to avoid confusion.
