Subcommitee on Core Curriculum Minutes 2014-08-29

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: Nancy Beasley, Ruth Carter Roberta Gorham, Mary Magoulick, Cara Meade, Julia Metzker, Brandon Samples, Patrick Simmons, Amy Sumpter, Sheryl Winn, Dana Wood
Non-Voting Member Present: Kay Anderson
Regrets: Joe Mocnik
Guests: Yi Kathy Liu, Chavonda Mills, Shaundra Walker

Agenda

The agenda was approved as distributed.

Minutes

Minutes from May 12 and August 22 were approved with one correction. Approved copies will be posted on the minutes.gcsu.edu website.

Announcements

The University System General Education Committee approved ARTS 1110 for the global overlay at its August meeting. This goes into effect for the Fall 2014 semester. The ENVS 1500 course that was submitted for Area D and the global overlay was not approved. The system provided some feedback and invited us to resubmit the course. Cara Meade is working with the faculty to prepare the resubmission.

Discussion Items

The committee’s primary discussion item for this meeting was the global overlay requirement.

Kay Anderson shared information on students who have not been able to complete the global overlay requirement. Of the 709 students using the new core who currently have graduation applications pending, 101 of them (77 native students and 24 transfer) will not complete their global overlay requirement because courses are not available or offered in their majors. There are also 238 students (199 native students and 39 transfers) who have 60 or more hours but have not yet applied for graduation who have not completed the overlays; 144 of these students will not have options in their majors. We can assume that these 144 will probably still be lacking sufficient global coursework when they apply to graduate. Kay discussed scheduling and transfer issues that lead to these issues. While the academic advisors work diligently with students to fulfill these areas in core whenever possible, transfer work, scheduling conflicts, and available options in the term the students need to complete core areas sometimes make this difficult. Even though transfer students currently only need one global overlay course due to an exemption provided a year and a half ago by Interim Provost Liao-Troth, several arrive core complete without global coursework and do not have the opportunity to complete courses in their major.

Chavonda Mills shared information on the work of the Diversity Task Force’s Curriculum Creative Learning, and Scholarship Committee. She explained that the task force was recommending the inclusion of a domestic diversity requirement in the core curriculum. Veronica Womack shared information on this initiative with SoCC last year. At the time, the task force was strongly committed to an entirely new requirement in the core and was concerned about implementing the requirement too quickly and experiencing some of the same issues that the university has faced with the global overlay requirement. Since that time, they have discussed shortening their timeline so the university could use this option to help alleviate some of the global overlay issues. This would also give the university time to develop and approve appropriate coursework in domestic diversity so that a requirement for all students might be considered and implemented at a later time. Chavonda stated that each college has been asked to develop a diversity leadership team, and that those teams would be charged with conducting an initial inventory of their courses this fall to see which ones might be able to satisfy this requirement. Definitions of domestic diversity and outcomes would also need to be developed this fall. Pending the appropriate approvals, we might be able to begin offering domestic diversity courses in the core as early as Fall 2015.

The committee discussed what would need to happen to make such a change. Adding an option in the current core curriculum to complete either a domestic diversity or a global overlay course for one of GC’s overlay requirements would need to be approved through University Senate and approved by the Provost and President. Such a requirement, because it makes the core more flexible for students, could be applied to all currently enrolled students. If there were later a proposal to make a domestic diversity course a requirement for all students, that would also need to be approved by University Senate, the Provost, and the President, and that rule would go into effect for the next entering class.

Action Item

GC1Y 1000 History of Rock and Roll for Area B1
The committee heard comments from the reviewers on this submission. After discussion, the committee recommended that the course be returned to the submitter for revision. The committee asked the submitter to specifically address concerns related to the depth of critical thinking required, to ensure that the writing assignments were sufficiently analytical, and to address the rigor of the learning beyond the classroom assignments.

During this discussion, the committee also questioned whether we should be start reviewing courses that were previously approved and assessing whether the outcomes were being addressed in each course.

The committee also recommended developing rubrics to help in the course review process as quickly as possible.

Next Meeting

The committee’s next meeting will be Friday, September 5, 2014, at 1:00 p.m. in Arts & Sciences 2-51. At this meeting, the committee will continue discussion on options for addressing options for the global overlay.

Adjournment

The committee adjourned at 2:00 p.m.