Subcommitteee on Core Curriculum Minutes 2014-09-26

Call to Order

The meeting was called to order by Julia Metzker at 1:00 p.m. in Arts & Sciences 2-51.

Attendance

Voting Members Present: Ruth Carter, Roberta Gorham, Mary Magoulick, Cara Meade, Julia Metzker, Joe Mocnik, Brandon Samples, Patrick Simmons, Amy Sumpter, Dana Wood
Regrets: Nancy Beasley
Absent: Sheryl Winn
Non-Voting Member Present: Kay Anderson

Agenda

The agenda was approved as distributed.

Minutes

The minutes from September 19 were approved as distributed. The minutes from September 12 will be distributed this week.

Discussion Items

Area B Review Rubrics. The committee discussed the rubrics for reviewing Area B courses. These rubrics will be used to evaluate courses that come before the committee in the future and will be made available to submitters to assist them as they complete their proposals. After discussion and revision, the committee approved the rubrics on a voice vote with no dissent. Cara will circulate a pdf version of the final form to the committee and Julia will post it on the website.

Bylaws. Dr. Dorman expressed some concerns about the bylaw change that was sent through Senate last year. To date, it has not been signed and is not currently in effect. The Executive Committee of University Senate set up this year’s committee under these guidelines, but we are in compliance under both guidelines. The two concerns were that teaching representative is not an officially recognized term on our campus, and that this change would allow a non-elected Senator to serve as chair of SoCC. Susan Steele and Craig Turner are going to attend the SoCC meeting next week to discuss this issue. One option to the teaching representative definition would be to change the language to “corps of instruction” with any qualifiers. The committee discussed some of the history of the bylaw change and why it recommended that the chair not be required to be a senator. Julia will also reach out to Dr. Dorman and ask for some clarification on his concerns. Julia also encouraged everyone to reach out to their constituents to ask for their comments.

Meeting with Provost. Julia met with Dr. Brown this week as a follow up to her earlier visit with the committee in which she discussed the distinctiveness of the core curriculum. She is very interested in refocusing everything we do as an institution on the liberal arts, including the core. She is going to be putting together some task forces in the coming months to address the liberal arts mission and ways to increase distinctiveness. Julia suggested that we might be able to serve as a group to begin gathering some of this data to inform this discussion. Cara circulated a draft of a survey that we could possibly use to gather feedback from the faculty about the curriculum. Additional suggestions included a question about adequate support for teaching in the core and what course we could use to make our core truly distinctive.

Next Meeting

The committee’s next meeting will be Friday, October 3, 2014, at 1:00 p.m. in Arts & Sciences 2-51.

Adjournment

The committee adjourned at 2:00 p.m.