Faculty Senate Curriculum Committee 11/19/99

Faculty Senate Curriculum Committee

Minutes from the November 19, 1999 meeting

Present: Linnda Caporael, acting chair Robert Messler

Ayala Cnaan Dave Spooner

Gary Gabriele Sam Wait

Mitch Gold Ken Warriner

Sharon Kunkel

  1. The minutes from the November 5, 1999 meeting were approved.
  1. School of Architecture- K. Warriner presented two new courses. ARCH 4XXX Digital Media Smr. and ARCH 4XXX Electronic Media Physical Design Processes. Both courses need an academic integrity statement, grading policy, terms offered and pre-requisite or co-requisite information. G. Gabriele asked if the courses would be using the SoE lab. K. Warriner will check but the SoA has renovated a room in the Greene Building for the courses and will most likely be using that room exclusively. L. Caporael asked if there was any overlap with any EMAC courses. The focus of these courses is different from the EMAC program.

A course title change ARCH 4460 Electronic Media:Critical Visualization and a course deletion ARCH 2460, Electronic Media I were presented as information. The whole package was approved unanimously.

  1. School of Engineering- R. Messler present several course changes and deletions as information:

BMED 4010- Biomedical Engineering Laboratory cr. hrs

BMED 4540- Biomechanics cr hrs, description

BMED 4470- Signals and Images term, description

ENVE 4170- Environmental Process Design I description

ENVE 4440- Critical Reactor Laboratory description

ENVE 4450- Nuclear Fuel Management description

ENVE 4460- Nuclear Power Plant Operations description

ENVE 4940- Studies in EPHY, ENVE or NUCL cr hrs

ENVE 4960- Topics in EPHY, ENVE or NUCL cr hrs

ENVE 4980- Senior Project cr hrs

Deletions:

BMED 4550- Biomaterials

ENVE 4130- Environmental Systems Engineering

ENVE 4190- Air Pollution

ENVE 4410- Elements of Reactor Engineering

ENVE 4420- Nuclear Reactor Analysis I

ENVE 4430- Nuclear Power plant Systems

ENVE 4620- Intro to Radiation Effects in Electronics

ENVE 4810- Energy Transport

ENVE 6640- Radiation Effects in MOS Device Structures

A new course ENVE 4400 Nuclear Power Systems Engineering was withdrawn. R. Messler will take this back to the SoE Curriculum Committee for further discussion on the overlap issues with the course MEAE 4010.

  1. L. Caporael distributed copies of the FSCC guidelines for Writing Intensive courses. She asked about approving as an exception a 100 level course being offered this term that has extensive writing requirements. A number of ITEC majors who transferred into ITEC have asked if the course could be counted as a writing intensive course in order to meet their degree requirements. G. Gabriele suggested these exceptions be handled on an individual basis during the degree clearance process.

The Committee agreed that teaching a writing intensive course places a lot of responsibility on individual faculty members. Last year the FSCC recommended to the Provost that a committee should be appointed to look at the feasibility of a communication requirement.

S. Kunkel will provide Committee members with a list of writing intensive courses. It was suggested that publishing this list in the catalog would be helpful to students and advisers.

  1. G. Gabriele distributed a proposal with a number of scheduling related changes. The key items in the proposal are 1) incorporate a 4-6 pm activities period M-F, with no undergraduate classes scheduled in that time block 2) Guidelines for course scheduling 3) oversight committee 4) a final exam schedule printed in the Class Hour Schedule and 5) No classes should run longer than 3 hours. G. Gabriele discussed the proposal saying his goal is to add discipline to the process. He acknowledged that there will be some exceptions and a procedure will be in place to review and approve the exceptions. G. Gabriele said no decision had been made yet as to whether there would be students on the oversight scheduling committee. He has already presented this proposal to the Student Senate. M. Gold indicated that although the response was mixed, many students liked the idea of an activities period. L. Caporael raised the issue of adjunct faculty or those who commute quite a distance from campus. The proposed course time patterns will be an issue for them. G. Gabriele reiterated that he is looking for feedback from the faculty. He asked Committee members to take the proposal back to their individual schools for discussion and feedback.
  1. The new meeting time for the Spring term will be every other Tuesday from 2-4pm.
  1. M. Gold proposed changing the student representation on the FSCC. L. Caporael suggested putting the proposal in writing so it could be reviewed by the Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate.

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