September 30, 2011
| Members Present | Ex-Officio Present | Guests Present |
| Ruth Beattie | Richard Greissman | Chris Thuringer |
| Derek Lane | Bill Rayens | |
| Jane Jensen | Mike Shanks | |
| David Royster | Debra Sharp | |
| Ben Withers |
1. Rayens gave a quick update on the new member search, noting that Associate Provost Mike Mullen was intending to send the letters of invitation out very soon.
2. Minutes were approved from 9/16/2011
3. After a brief statement by Ruth Beattie, GLY 150 was approved.
4. Since IGEOC is currently without a Humanities Area Expert, Ben Withers graciously agreed to Chair the Humanities rubric committee. He already chairs the Arts and Creativity rubric committee. This will allow the Inquiry areas to meet and get this important process started.
5. IGEOC offered their endorsement of Revised Assessment Plan for the UK Core. The following important points were made and should be considered as context for the endorsement:
a) The issue with Lecturer DOEs should be clarified going forward so that it is clear both to the Lectures and their home departments that 25% of their time is supposed to be set aside for evaluation activities.
b) IGEOC would like to humbly encourage the Provost to engage the Deans in a conversation that makes it clear that, in the future, fair compensation should not stand in the way of procuring evaluators for the important task of UK Core assessment duties. This would be particularly helpful in engaging faculty who may not have the DOE flexibility that Lecturers might have.
c) Training of evaluators needs to be built into this process over time. While the Office of Assessment would be expected to handle the nuts and bolts of the evaluation training, IGEOC feels they should take charge of the higher educational role of helping evaluators, and all faculty at the University, understand the larger context of the UK Core.
6. During the discussion of the Assessment Plan, Jane Jensen suggested that the University make more of an effort to reach outside of Arts and Sciences for evaluators, provided compensation was available. Dr. Jensen specifically suggested that we make use of the expertise of Dr. Susan Carvalho for identifying individuals who would be able and willing to be evaluators for Global.
7. An excellent discussion was had regarding the proposal Rayens submitted for the creation of a UK Core Exceptions Committee. The group tussled with the balance between detail and flexibility and ended up endorsing the proposal that Rayens had presented, with the following two changes:
a) Mike Shanks had three corrections to the text that Rayens made in the meeting
b) A sentence was added that made the point that any non-GETA transfer who had already completed all the general education requirements at her home university would be considered to have completed the general education requirements at U.K. The logic behind this addition was twofold: first, the goal was to make it as easy on the student to transfer as possible; second, this is the same deal a GETA student would receive, so fairness would suggest non-GETA transfers should be treated the same way.
8. IGEOC had been asked to discuss the issue of a non-UK Core course being offered in a “same as” format with a UK Core course. Associate Registrar Jacquie Hager clarified (after the meeting) the difference between this format and cross-listing as follows:
A cross-listed course is a permanent relationship between course A and course B. A student who takes course A cannot take and receive credit for course B and vice-versa. When the schedule of classes is built, if course A is going to be offered, then course B must also be offered and seats must be available in both courses – in other words, the instructor of course A cannot say “I don’t want any course B students in my class.” Cross-listings occur when the content of one course is applicable for a student in a different but similar program, such as in engineering. It provides for courses to be offered where students can sign up under their own discipline prefix in order to receive credit toward their program and in cases where the course might not have sufficient enrollment under only one prefix, it opens the course to students in
other programs who can also benefit and make the class size.
A “same as” course is a one-time association. It occurs where for example, English wants to offer a particular subject – perhaps under their subtopic course – and the content would be beneficial to students in another discipline. Such an example might be a special course on African Literature that students in African American Studies might want to use. In this case, the course is offered as ENG xxxx and also same as AAS xxxx. The classes meet at the same time, same room, and perhaps even the instruction is team taught. But next semester, there won’t be this association – in fact it could well be a different subtopic. It is also used sometimes when a department is short faculty due to sabbatical (or
other reason) in a particular area but they still want to offer the course and they may combine a 500 level course with a 600 level course where the 500 level students do different studio work than the 600 level students but one instructor can cover both studios..
IGEOC suggested that perhaps the following policy language should be developed, and they encouraged Rayens to put such a policy forward for consideration by the Senate Council:
Proposed policy on “same as” course pairings
If 2 or more courses are proposed to meet with the “same as” status and any one of those courses is UK Core, then all courses in the proposed arrangement should be UK Core. This is the only way to treat the students fairly that will be in the course. Departments who want to participate in such arrangements are encouraged to submit their courses for UK Core approval.
