Curriculum & Instruction Committee
Meeting Minutes

August 28, 2007

1. Approval of Minutes: April 24, 2007. Russell Goodrich made a motion to approve the minutes, Jan Curtis seconded, and the motion passed unanimously.
   
2. Action Items:
   
3. Non-Action Items:
   
   
   1. New Program Application: Medical Coding Program

      The committee did not discuss this item; they are waiting on materials from San Juan campus. This will be discussed more in the next meeting.

   2. New Course Application: SLSC 1400 Learning Community Study Lab

      Teresa Frazier briefed the committee on what was discussed in the last meeting, explaining that originally this course evolved from a Title III grant to help students in developmental Math and English courses. This course would give them one extra credit in a study lab atmosphere. Teresa explained that the Blanding Campus is planning to have two separate sections of the Study Lab, one for Math and one for English, occurring two nights a week with an instructor present to help and tutor. She added that this helps students move onto the next level. This course will be open to all those enrolled in remedial Math and English, but the instructor will decide which students to recruit. Jim Huffaker inquired why it should be a credit course. Teresa responded that it gives students an extra credit hour to build up credit to finish Math 1050 and ENGL 2010. Currently, the course is being financed by the grant. Some issues brought up were (1) if the grant ends, it would come out of the academic budget; (2) a concrete structure or specific course curriculum was not evident and (3) whether the course could be incorporated into the math courses 970 and 990, similar to a continuation like a biology lab. Merry Palmer would teach the English class; Shane Brewer would check on the students, but cannot teach it because of his current schedule. It was discussed that this course would not fill a General Ed requirement, but is considered an elective. Jan Young mentioned that PSY 1500 “Techniques of Effective Study” is already on the books, and Mike King replied that they could look at that too. Russell Goodrich told the committee that UCAT has similar tutoring for Math and English based on contact hours, and suggested they talk with them. It was decided that it would be important to have Merry and Shane come to the next meeting, and will be invited to do so. The 1400 number may need to change to a lower number, but there may be financial aid issues with that. In the meantime, Mike said he will forward any questions that come up to Blanding.

4. Discussion Items:
   
   
   1. Prerequisites in the Catalog

      Jan Young discussed whether there should be a hard and fast rule regarding overriding prerequisites for student enrollment. She stated that her office does not know what to do, especially in summer, when they cannot locate the instructor for signatures. There are many inconsistencies with the catalog and prerequisites. She is requesting that departments review their prerequisites to see if they are current and necessary. She thinks that it affects retention, because they are sending the students around to get signatures for overrides and the faculty may not be around. The importance of enforcing prerequisites was discussed, and Russell suggested that a statement could be written on the form to talk to the instructor. He also thinks that there is a problem with putting prerequisites on General Ed courses, suggesting they be removed. Courses can be stated as ‘suggested’ and ‘required’ right in the catalog description, but they cannot program that into Banner. Greg Benson stated that faculty should be able to respond to inquiries from students in a timely, responsible manner, even in the summer and the Admissions Office should not be put in a position to make those judgments. Mike said that he will send out a memo asking the departments to immediately examine their offerings and clean up their prerequisites, indicating that they can have ‘suggested prerequisites’ written in their course descriptions. Results can be brought back to C&I through the divisions. A statement could be put in the catalog for next year about what a prerequisite means, there is already a page dedicated to college terms. It was also suggested to eventually put it online on the registration screen. This item will be a non-action item in the next meeting.

   2. Policy for Younger Students

      There have been some concerning issues about students under 16 years old registering for physically challenging recreation courses, criminal justice classes with adult subject matter and night classes. It was decided that a policy needs to be formulated. A subcommittee to address this issue was formed, which includes Jim Huffaker, Jan Young and Mike King. This ad-hoc committee will compose a draft policy and bring it back to C&I in one month. They will solicit input from Scott Henrie, Rich Walton and Dennis Bradford. Brian Stubbs proposed that instead of focusing on age, the policy should focus on grade levels. He said there sometimes birthdays fall differently on school calendars, for example, a 16 year old can be a senior in high school. This will be brought back on the C&I agenda in one month by the sub-committee.

   3. Syllabus Guidelines Policy

      A subcommittee was formed to finalize syllabus guidelines. It consists of Greg Benson, Russell Goodrich and Jim Huffaker. Greg would like to see a recommendation by mid-semester and have the policy in place by Spring 2008. Greg will send an email to Blanding faculty to participate. It was discussed that course objectives need to be the same for each course which is an articulation issue, not an issue of academic freedom. Jan Young would like to get every syllabus in electronic format. This will be brought back to C&I at a later date.

The meeting was adjourned at 1:00 pm.