UNDERGRADUATE COUNCIL MEETING

April 22, 2003

Members present:  Kathy Roberts, John Nicols, Sherrie Barr, Herb Chereck, Lowell Bowditch, Nora Ahmed, Jim Imamura, Tyler Neely, Steve Ponder, Mark Thoma, Hilary Gerdes, Karen Sprague, Dave Hubin, Malcolm Wilson, Deborah Baumgold, Colleen Bell

Members absent:  Paul Engelking, Wendy Mitchell, John Postlethwait

Final Exam Conflicts

Herb Chereck distributed a revised document to the council outlining the final exam conflict problem, history and proposed resolution (see Undergraduate Council website:  Resources link).  The proposal was discussed and unanimously accepted by the council. 

Lower-division Group-satisfying Course Discussion

The council continued to review the 27 lower-division courses that had been selected for discussion on the basis of the preliminary review summarized on score sheets.  The following observations and questions emerged from the council’s review of the next 7 courses:

1. Should a general-education course have a significant component of pre-requisite work?
2. What is the relationship between pre-professional/pre-major courses and general-education courses?
3. Should courses that are less than a term in length be group-satisfying?
4. Should a group-satisfying course offered in alternative formats (e.g. classroom vs. on-line, regular academic term vs. a week or less) be reviewed separately in each format?  Group satisfying courses are now reviewed in the regular format (classroom; regular academic term), but not in other formats. 
5. Should general-education course syllabi state how the course meets the criteria for group-satisfying status?

Two proposals were advanced and voted on by the council:

1. General-education courses may not be offered in less than a four-week format. 

The council voted on and passed this proposal unanimously.

2. All syllabi for group-satisfying courses must state in the syllabus how the course meets group-satisfying guidelines.

The council voted on and passed this proposal with 11 yes votes and 2 abstentions.

Two additional proposals were suggested but not voted on by council members:

1.  The council would like to underscore the importance of the social science guideline indicating that pre-professional courses are not appropriate for group status.

2.  Perhaps a question could be added to the student evaluation forms asking students to tell us, if a course is group-satisfying, whether or not they found it effective.  The difficulty is finding a way to ask this question so that the meaning of “effective” is clear.

Future Work

The council will review the remaining 9 courses in the present set plus four more courses that have been added as the missing syllabi were collected.  All of the syllabi (106) for lower-division group-satisfying courses offered in Fall 2002 have now been provided to the council by departments.  The council appreciates the ready availability of course syllabi and applauds this demonstration of educational commitment and candor. 

Malcolm Wilson and Sherrie Barr will distribute a draft proposal regarding the Incomplete mark policy.

Meeting adjourned at 4:55