ASCRC Annual Report 2014 -2015

Membership

Faculty Members
John DeBoer, Theatre & Dance (2015) - Chair
Nikolaus Vonessen, Math (2015)
Linda Eagleheart, MC-Applied Arts and Sciences (2016) - Fall
Linda Gillison, MCLL (2015)
Tully Thibeau, Linguistics (2015)
Tim Manuel, Accounting (2016) – Fall, Chair-Elect
Michelle Bowler, MC-Business Technology (2017)
William Hillman, MC- Industrial Technology (2017)
Ebo Uchimoto, Physics & Astronomy (2016)
Doug Coffin, Biomedical & Pharmaceutical Science (2017)
Andrea Lawrence, C & I (2017)
G.G. Weix, Anthropology (2015)
Student Members
Caleb Chestnut
Cody Miexner
Ex-Officio Members
Nathan Lindsay, Associate Provost
Joe Hickman, Interim Registrar
Bonnie Holzworth, Assistant Registrar
Matt Filer, Assistant to the Registrar
Beth Howard, Office of Student Success
Jasmine Zink, Academic Policy Manager (fall)
Garrett Bryan, Interim Academic Policy Manager (spring)

Annual Curriculum Review

ASCRC acted on 333 curriculum forms. Among the total were 56 new courses, 16 course deletions, 63 program modifications, 17 level I proposals II. Of the 51 crosslisting requests, 32 were approved to be retained. Three new service learning designations were approved and 15 courses were renewed.

The Writing Committee reviewed existing writing courses in Professional Schools and Science in accordance with the Writing Course Review Procedure (202.50.1), renewing approval for 3 intermediate (formerly approved) writing courses, 16 advanced (formerly upper-division) writing courses, and three distributed models. Four new courses were approved for the intermediate designation including two one-time-only experimental courses. Three new advanced writing courses were approved.

The General Education Committee reviewed 125 proposed courses for general education groups including 4 one-time only experimental courses. This included follow-up course reviews for Literary and Artistic Studies (10), Indigenous and Global (12), and American and European (4) from last spring’s rolling review, as well as rolling review for language exemptions (51) and symbolic systems courses (24). See chart below. In addition, 1 Mathematics, 6 Language Courses, 3 Social and Behavioral Science, 3 Expressive Arts Courses, 4 Historical and Cultural Studies, and 1 Ethics course were approved. The accelerated review schedule was to accommodate the revised procedure for the language exemption. Twenty-three language courses were also renewed in the spring.

Level I proposals:

African American Studies Certificate
Minor in Biochemistry

New Option in BA English – Literature and the Environment
Big Data Analytics Certificate
Remove options in Psychology

Retitle Women’s and Gender Studies to Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies Program

Retitle Women’s and Gender Studies Certificate to Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies Certificate

Retitle HHP BA Community Health to Community Health and Prevention option

Certificate of Technical Skills - Electronics Helper

Certificate of Technical Skills – Energy Auditor / Commissioning Agent

Certificate of Technical Skills – Recycling Technology

Certificate of Technical Skills – Electronics Technology

Minor in Business Management
Distance Delivery Elementary Ed in Counselor Education

On line offering of existing Associate of Arts degree

New Certificate in Entrepreneurship

New Certificate in Hospitality

Level II proposals
BS in Neuroscience

Women’s and Gender Studies Degree

Early Childhood Minor in Counselor Education
Proposals that required considerable follow-up

Proposals were submitted as part of the SWAMMIE multi-campus state-wide workforce development grant that involve online course sharing. For the most part the courses are taught at the Flathead Community College, but students enroll through UM shadow courses. The Flathead Instructors will apply for UM/Bitterroot College faculty associate status through the Provost’s Office. Flathead Community College will receive the credit hours. ASCRC was uncertain how to review the program comprised primarily of courses not in the UM catalog. Chair DeBoer met with the Provost regarding the issue and determined that these programs would not be reviewed for inclusion in the UM Catalog but instead articulation agreements were established with the offering campuses.

GPHY 313 & 324, field-work courses offered by Northwest Connections were recommended by the Social and Behavioral Sciences subcommittee but not approved. Two members were in favor, four against, and one abstained. ASCRC recommended the courses be offered under the 395 fieldwork number instead.

Crosslisting
Due to procedural uncertainty with respect to the review of crosslisting forms by the discipline curriculum review subcommittees, a subcommittee consisting of Professors DeBoer, Thibeau, and Weix reviewed the forms in January with Registrar Hickman; likewise approval of the crosslisting courses on the November consent agenda was rescinded. The subcommittee found that 32 courses met the procedural qualifications to retain their cross-listing status. Alternatives were suggested to programs denied their cross-listing status. See Communication (appendix 3). Two programs appealed the decision. African American Studies courses were allowed to retain crosslistings.

Several follow-up and late curriculum items were approved in the spring including the following:

Campus- only GBLD rubric for the Global Leadership Initiative

Hospitality Management Certificate

Entrepreneurship Certificate

Online offering of the existing Associate of Arts degree

Procedure and Policy Review items

·  Dual Credit Guidelines – several drafts were discussed by ASCRC starting on January 27th, 2015. Chair DeBoer met with ECOS on 3/3/15

·  Revision to policy 203.10 AP / Senate approved 10/9/14

·  Revision to policy 201.3.3 Editorial Catalog Changes 2/3/15 (as an alternative to cross-listing)

·  Request for exemption to policy 201.60
There are students that will have met the requirements of the big data certificate by the end of spring semester, but according to the policy the certificate will not become effective until the next fall’s catalog. The exemption was granted.

·  Revision to policy 201.60 Effective Date of Approved Curriculum Forms 3/17/15

·  Revision to policy 201.00 Curriculum Overview

·  Revision to policy 201.30 Criteria for Evaluating Curriculum Changes, 3/24/15

·  Input on MUS New Proposal Guidelines was provided to the Faculty Senate Chair.

·  Revision of Class Attendance / Absence policy 2/17/14
In addition to the attendance expectation described above, instructors may establish absence policies to conform to the educational goals and requirements of their courses. Such policies shall will ordinarily be set out in the course syllabus. Customarily, Course syllabi shall describe the procedures for giving timely notice of absences, explain how work missed because of an excused absence may be made up, and stipulate any penalty to be assessed for absences.

·  The Graduation Appeals Committee will consider maintaining a precedent list of new general education designations that are approved for courses already in the schedule. Students wishing to appeal will still need to complete an appeal form, but not the justification narrative. Chair DeBoer presented a year-end report from the Graduation Appeals Committee (Appendix 4).

·  Incomplete grade policy was revised with the following language:
The instructor sets the conditions for the completion of the course work, and communicates them to the departmental office. 3/3/15

·  ASCRC approved the following policy to address transfer issues from quarters to semesters. 3/3/15

In order to determine if transfer course work satisfies General Education requirements, the credits for each course are rounded. For example, if a student transfers in two N-courses each worth 2.66 credits, each course counts as 3 N-credits towards the Group XI requirement. On the other hand, an L-course worth 2.49 credits does not satisfy the Group V requirement of 3 L-credits.

·  The following paragraph in the General Education for Transfer Students section of the catalog will be removed because it is outdated.
Students governed by the 2006-2007 catalogor later catalogsmust earn a traditional letter grade of C- or better in courses used to satisfy General Education (except English composition and the Mathematical Literacy course must be a C or better). Students enrolled in a post-secondary institution prior to autumn 2006 may be eligible to choose an earlier governing catalog. Refer to the Governing Catalog information in the previous section. See index.

·  Writing Labeling Motion presented by Writing Committee Chair-elect 3/17/15 approved by the Faculty Senate on April 9th

·  ASCRC discussed the issue with Undergraduate /Graduate codes showing on graduate courses in the catalog / schedule. These are programing codes in Banner and are required to allow undergraduates to register for graduate courses when professors sign an override. Undergraduates may not receive graduate credit for these courses per Board of Regent Policy. ASCRC decided to resolve this issue by including the level in the course description and hide the Banner codes. 3/24/15

·  General Education options for Transfer Students were reviewed. The catalog language was revised to allow out-of state transfer students transferring with 20 credits or more of equivalent general education courses to use the MUS core to fulfill general education.

The motion went to the Faculty Senate at the May meeting.

·  The curriculum forms not in e-curr were revised to be accessible.

Other Communication / Discussion Items

·  Credit for Prior Learning
Chair DeBoer, Associate Provost Lindsey, Beth Howard and others from Missoula Campus attended the Prior Learning Assessment Summit in Helena. The Taskforce worked on system guidelines that individual institutions can adapt and tailor to specific needs. (10/7/14) Faculty Senate Chair Steve Lodmell met with ASCRC on 12/2/14 to provide an update on the efforts of the Credit for Prior learning taskforce.

·  MOU between Missoula College and Psychology Department-Provides Missoula College students with guidance to take courses to help them transition into the Psychology major. The item was introduced by Professor Alison Pepper from Missoula College. 9/9/14

·  Loey Knapp- Director of Special Projects provided a Degree Builder demonstration on 9/9/14. She returned on 10/21/14 to demonstrate degree builder reports available in Infogriz- Course Change Impact, how many times a course is listed, and types of degrees offered by program. There was some discussion related to the lack of consistent information in Degree Builder, specifically whether the upper-division writing course counts toward the major. ASCRC drafted the Counting Degree Credit Guideline language to help with this issue. See Appendix 3.

·  ASCRC discussed issues with dynamic catalog with Nick Shontz- Web Developer and Strategist and John Thunstrom-Assistant Chief Information Officer, Enterprise Information Systems from Information Technology. (9/9/14)

·  Follow-up discussion regarding departments listing courses they are authorized to teach. Common Course numbering has created confusion now that rubrics are not specific to departments.

·  A Taskforce identified items that needed to be fixed in the catalog. (10/7/14) See report. Appendix 1

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Appendix 1

ASCRC Catalog Workgroup Report

10/03/2014

The ASCRC Catalog Workgroup met on Tuesday, September 30, 2014. Participants:

Nikolaus Vonessen, ASCRC

Caleb Chestnut, ASUM

Matt Filer, Assistant to the Registrar

Brian French, Undergraduate Advising Center

Bonnie Holzworth, Associate Registrar

Sandi Nelson, SoBA Advising Coordinator

Nick Shontz, IT Web Developer & Strategist

The workgroup had been charged to discuss priorities and needs for the 2015-2016 Catalog ahead of curriculum review and the spring editorial session.

1. Academic Information Section

The Workgroup identified the following tasks:

  1. Break long chapters, especially “Policies and Procedures” and “General Education” into sections, each appearing on its own page. This should make use of the navigation panel on the left.
  2. Ensure consistent and appropriate use of headings.
  3. Anchors: Most, if not all headings should have an associated anchor, so that it is possible to link to that heading (in particular from the index, see below).

What happens next: Bonnie Holzworth and Matt Filer will work on implementing these items, and report to ASCRC as appropriate. This will already be done during the current semester, since it only involves editorial changes.
Expected Completion: December 2014

2. A – Z Catalog Index

The current A-Z Catalog Index is cluttered with links to the many degrees, and needs many additional entries which will have to be added manually (e.g., to Residency Requirements, Credit Requirements, Credit Limitations,…). The workgroup decided to not list the degrees in the A-Z Catalog Index, since a complete list of degrees can be found by clicking on “Colleges and Schools”. (It might make sense to also have a link “Degree Index” which would link to the same page as “Colleges and Schools”.)

What happens next: Bonnie Holzworth will work on this, with technical assistance by Nick Shontz as needed. This will already be done during the current semester, since it only involves editorial changes.
Expected Completion: December 2014

3. Course Listings under Departments (pulled from Banner)

  1. FYI, already implemented by IT: The Catalog course listings under each department and program now include for each course the number of credits and the level.
  2. Long Course Titles: The course descriptions in Banner still do not use the full titles of courses although that is feasible in Banner. Consequently, lists of course descriptions (obtained by CyberBear or on the Catalog pages of Departments and Programs) still have to use the short, abbreviated title (e.g., “M 445 - Stat/Math/Comp Modeling” instead of “M 445 - Statistical, Dynamical, and Computational Modeling”.) Fixing this is seemingly relatively easy, but the necessary testing, which was supposed to take place in Fall 2013 has seemingly not yet been completed.
    What happens next: Bonnie Holzworth and Matt Filer will work on enabling long course titles in Banner and CyberBear.
    Expected Completion: December 2014.
    Follow-up: Once this is done, ASCRC should request that IT also enable the long course titles for the course listings in the Catalog.
  3. G-only courses: We used to distinguish U, UG, and G-courses. Because of technical reasons (involving hard-to-avoid idiosyncrasies of Banner), nearly all G-courses are listed with “Level: Undergraduate, Graduate”. It seems that this should be changed to “Level: Graduate”. It seems that implementing this would not be easy.
    Follow-up: This should be brought to the attention of Graduate Council.
  4. Listing all the courses taught by a given department: Because of technical reasons (involving hard-to-avoid idiosyncrasies of Banner), each course can have in Banner only one associated department. With the advent of common course numbering, there are quite a few courses taught by more than one department (in many cases involving both a department at Missoula College and a department on the Mountain Campus). Currently, these courses are only listed in the Catalog under one of the departments involved, giving the wrong impression that the other department is not offering this course.
    What happens next: ASCRC is discussing this issue.

4. Degree Descriptions (pulled from DegreeBuilder)

  1. FYI: ASCRC is currently discussing detailed instructions for computing the “Degree Specific Credits” that are listed for each degree. This will likely include also a listing of how many of the Degree Specific Credits usually satisfy lower-division General Education requirements. (This will likely be easy to implement.)
  2. Including requirements by reference: This concerns bachelor degrees with options, were the requirements for the option are in addition to the requirements for the no-option degree. In these cases, DegreeBuilder currently requires repetition of the no-option degree requirements under the requirements for the degree with option. This duplication is difficult to maintain (when program changes occur), and will likely lead to unintentional discrepancies in the future. I suggest permitting degree requirements by reference instead of duplication. This is best explained by an example. (There is a similar problem for Business degrees.)
    Example: The requirements for a “B.A. in Mathematics” (no option) and the “B.A. in Mathematics with an option in Applied Mathematics” are identical, except for the very last requirement in the Applied Math degree (called “Requirements for the Applied Mathematics Option”). In DegreeBuilder, the entry for the Applied Math option should not duplicate the requirements from the no-option degree, but instead include them by reference. There seem to be two options how this can be done:
  3. DegreeBuilder could, behind the scenes, include the various requirements for the no-option degree in the Applied Math degree, so that the presentation of the Applied Math degree looks exactly like it does in the current Catalog.
  4. Or one could simply refer to the requirements of the no-option degree, maybe with language along the lines: “To obtain a B.A. in Mathematics with an Option in Applied Mathematics, students must satisfy all requirements for a B.A in Mathematics in addition to the option requirements listed below.”
    Note that this is currently already done for secondary education degrees (which have links to the “Licensure Degree Requirements”, which are listed on a separate page.

What happens next: ASCRC should discuss with Loey Knapp, Director of Special Projects for IT, to what extent this is feasible.