Educational Policies and Curriculum Committee

Meeting #4 – 3:30 MHB 315

November 1, 2011

Members in Attendance: Liz Philipose, IST; Heather Rae-Espinoza, HD; Andrew Jenks, HIST; Yutian ‘Kate’ Chen, ECON; Gary Griswold, ENG; Deborah Thien, GEOG; Jason Whitehead, POSC; Markus Muller, RGRLL; Mark Wiley, CLA; Cherie Dougan, CLA

Guests: Ken Green, PSY; Chrys Rodrique, ES&P; Kerry Woodward, SOC; Jennifer Reed, WGSS; Kristen Monaco, ECON

1.Minutes of EPCC #3 minutes of Oct 18, 2011 – Approved

2. Announcements/Additions to the Agenda

There are a large number of courses to approve for the next meeting. To make the work more manageable, we will divide 8 proposed new POSC courses into two groups of four to be read by the following EPCC members:

Group One, POSC 439, 525, 642 and 640 will be read by Andy, Jason, Markus and Kate

Group Two, POSC 605, 615, 644, and 646 will be read by Deb, Liz, Gary, Jason and Alosi

Note: For the next round of submissions, faculty members should send memos or emails to contextualize their change requests.

The EPCC will meet weekly for the next few weeks. Next meetings: November 8, 15, and possibly November 22, if necessary.

3. New Business

  1. Psychology Department
  1. New course, 2nd read, from EPCC#2: PSY 434: Human Memory: Exploring the Brain, Mind and the Past
  • Any suggestions for further revisions are based on the final version received 10-26-11
  • Substitute ‘innovative’ for ‘cutting edge’ in Methods of Assessment
  • Prerequisites on SCO should match prerequisites on sample syllabus
  • In the Justification section – substitute ‘conducting’ for ‘conduction’
  • Catalogue description ‘conduction’ should be replaced with ‘conducting’
  • Numbering corrections: X. Instructional Materials, XI. Bibliography, XII. Additional Supplemental Materials
  • Catalogue version of the course description needs to match the description on the curriculum change form

Approved, pending suggested revisions.

  1. Communication Studies (COMM representative is not present)
  1. Series of course drops: items a-e, COMM 600-648. Graduate courses.
  2. Question: why has the program chosen to drop the courses? Is it a curriculum cleansing of courses that are not being offered?
  3. COMM 637 Study Abroad has been offered recently.

Approved, pending COMM reasoning for the course drops to be communicated to the EPCC Chair and Associate Dean.

  • COMM 171: drop course. Undergraduate course.

Approved

  1. COMM 171 dropped from Program Changes, items a-c

Approved

  1. Asian and Asian American Studies
  1. Discontinue Certificate in Japanese Studies: rationale is because there is low enrolment, students are more likely to take the major than the certificate option

Approved

  1. Discontinue Certificate in Asian American Studies: because of low enrolment

Approved

  1. Sociology Department
  1. Program Change: SOCMA01, to offer a choice of prerequisites between SOC 356 and 355
  • Revise the prerequisite on the program change form to indicate that the requirement is either an upper division sociological theory course or a research methods course

Approved, pending suggested revision

  1. New Course: SOC 560: Poverty and Public Policy – new course for the new MA in Applied Sociology to serve, in particular, students in the community development track.
  • Suggestion to add other programs that the course might serve, as per SCO for SOC 436
  • Sample syllabus: under course requirements, original research project, correct typo in the sentence beginning ‘a question or are of inquiry’
  • Methods of assessment on syllabus: items under ‘methods of assessment’ should be connected to the objectives; make more specific the ways that the assignments will measure the objectives because every assignment will not measure every objective
  • Remove the asterisk on the first page of the course change form

Approved, pending suggested revisions.

  1. New Course: SOC 561: Applied Topics in Medical Sociology – contributes to the new MA program in Applied Sociology to specifically address the medical sociology track. This course includes hands-on experience in community organizations to prepare students for the job market. The course complements the other SOC course in medical sociology by offering opportunities for application and organizational experience.
  2. Match the course change form with the syllabus course description
  3. Pg 1 SCO, last line, Justification section – replace semi-colon with comma
  4. Remove WGSS from the list of relevant departments because it does not have MA students; add GEOG and Public Policy
  5. SCO bibliography: Journal article citations, page 6: no period at the end of the last citation; mix up with dates; Font choices for titles should be consistent, eg italics for books and journals.
  6. Textbook titles need full references, with publishers
  7. Item 9, Methods of Assessment: add “no item should count for more than 30% of the overall grade”
  8. Sample syllabus: grades and evaluations – the research paper is worth 40%. Should be broken down so that no part is worth more than 30% of the overall grade
  9. Top of pg 2, bullet point 2: “Comparative Medicine-socio-cultural” – replace hyphens with ‘and’
  10. Pg 2: Access and analyze,’ developed by’ – list needs to be divided by semi-colons

Approved pending suggested revisions.

  1. New Course: SOC 436: Racism, Power and Inequality. SOC offers a GE course on race, class, gender. There is a high student demand for a course on race for SOC majors. The submission is the undergraduate version of a graduate SOC course that already exists.
  • Prerequisites: Both SOC 100 and SOC 142, or a choice of either? – please clarify
  • SCO, section 5, has 21 different topics listed. Add a week by week breakdown to format the selections so instructors have more direction for syllabi development. Indicate that the three sections are to be maintained, and offer a breakdown of weeks within them.
  • Table on page 4 does not match the learning outcomes of SOC 436
  • Course objectives could be developed further in Section 4 and Section 9, to be more clearly connected
  • Bibliography: include more contemporary material, especially from the last ten years
  • Page break between SCO and sample syllabus
  • Methods of Instruction, item 6: edit third sentence

Request that the SCO and sample syllabus be resubmitted for a 2nd read by EPCC Chair and Associate Dean

Approved, pending suggested revisions and a 2nd read.

  1. Environmental Science and Policy
  1. Program Change: ESPBS01: request to revise the Social Science track to bring the catalogue description up to date with current content.

Approved.

  1. Program Change: ESPBA01: request to revise the UD requirements.
  • In the line: Take one course selected from the following – Remove the ‘or’ between each course title
  • ‘I’ courses should be written with an uppercase ‘I’
  • Remove asterisks from changing information, ‘take one course…’
  • In the list of course changes, indicate which courses have been omitted
  • Remove ANTH 301 from the list of additional approved courses
  1. ECON
  1. New course: ECON 485: Introduction to Econometrics. Submission is to remove a double number and revise the course description of an existing course.
  2. Submit another course change form to indicate changes to ECON 485: New title for 485; a change to the prerequisites; a new course description; remove the double number

Approved, pending Chair and Associate Dean review of new documents

  1. Minor in Queer Studies: Proposal was developed in consultation with WGSS, the LGBT Task Force and participating CLA faculty. Ten courses are presently available to choose for the minor and more are anticipated after the minor is instituted. A great deal of support from individual students and student groups has been expressed, including a recent article in the 49er. Several CSUs have queer studies as minors; and SDSU has a major. The proposed program is modeled on the CSU Northridge program. Seeking implementation by Fall 2012 if possible. Early Spring approval and finalization would be necessary for that to happen.
  • Amend the wording: minor is ‘state support’, not ‘self-support’.
  • Add details about course and program efficiency,eg. Show which majors could add the minor without delaying graduation; show which courses have space to add students.
  • In the assessment plan, talk about developing a rubric to assess the repeated essay assignment in WGSS 205 and WGSS 416.

Approved, with suggested revisions.

Meeting is adjourned.

EPCC meetings are normally held the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of each month in MHB 315.