NOTES OF AD HOC IDS/IDM TASK FORCE Meetings: 2015-2016
[While these are not formal meeting minutes and not approved by vote, they were printed and circulated at the next meeting.]
Meeting #1IDS/IDM Senate Task Force Meeting of 12.9.12
Attending Cristina Kline, Glenn Carlson Cathy Fank, Priscilla Starratt
November 3, 2015
Faculty Senate voted to disband the former standing IDS/IDM Committee and create this task force in its place with a more refined set of objectives and a clear deadline. The new IDS/IDM Task Force is to review current practices and make recommendations to the Faculty Senate by May 2016 that resolve the questions listed below.
1. Where is the IDS/IDM program to be housed and administered?
2. How is the IDS/IDM program to be assessed?
3. Does the approval process for IDS/IDM Majors and Minors insure quality faculty oversight and academic rigor or do changesneed to be made to this process?
4. How are IDS/IDM students to be advised?
5. How are the High Impact Practices and other Strategic Plan initiatives going to be integrated into IDS/IDM Majors and Minors?
6. What is the marketing strategy for IDS/IDM Majors and Minors? Should changes be made to this strategy that can improve recruitment and retention?
Further instructions are:
Wednesday, November 11, 2015 at 4:51 PM
To : Christina Kline, Cathy Fank, Glenn Garlson, Scott Smith, Priscilla Starratt
White-Farnham,Jamie G, Pinnow,Eleni N ,Alexander,Cortney Ann
Hello Colleagues,
Thank you for your willingness to serve on the IDS/IDM Task Force. I have asked Christina Kline to convene this group, as she was on the now disbanded IDS/IDM Committee and can provide invaluable context to your charge. Please let me know who you elect as chair.
Attached is the task force formation document, which includes your charge, along with a document submitted to Faculty Senate by the old committee. The housing part of this document (page 4) was voted down by Faculty Senate, but the catalog copy has been approved. Again, Christina can help explain these documents.
The intent of Faculty Senate by naming ex-officio members Jamie White-Farnham, Eleni Pinnow, and Cortney Alexander is that they can be pulled into your group as consultants on an as needed basis to provide insight on assessment, HIPs, and academic advising, respectively. They need not attend your regular meetings. It is up to your task force to determine if they have voting rights.
I am strongly committed to resolving the issues stated in the charge by the end of my term as Faculty Senate Chair this May, as doing so I believe will greatly benefit our students. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Thanks again for your invaluable service!
-Brent
Brent L. Notbohm, M.F.A.
Professor of Film and Video
Chair of the Department of Communicating Arts
Chair of the Faculty Senate
We agreed to operate without a chair. Kline to assemble the group, Starratt to keep a record of our conversations. [ I see above Brent wanted a chair…]
We briefly chatted about some of the issues surrounding the charge items. We agreed to try meeting next Thursday, December 17th 1-2.
And
- That we would tackle items 1-3 in February and 4-6 in March.
- That we would propose a list of alternatives for Senate to consider. That we were not responsible to resolve the issues, but to suggest solutions.
- That our job is to help IDS majors and IDM majors and minors to be credible, accountable, advisable, assessable, and to assure that the faculty who work with them receive adequate credit for their efforts while the students have the same access to advising, HIPS, and capstone as all other students, to the maximum extent of our ability.
- That we need to act promptly to meet the May, 2016 deadline, given that this is a Catalog Year and the UAAC will be busy.
UAAC Meetings for 2016 Spring Semester are:
- January 26
- February 9
- February 23
- March 8
- March 22
- April 12
- April 26
- May 10
We noted the differences between the two programs:
IDS made up of 3-4 disciplinary areas, a Comprehensive major with 51 cr.
( we heard 54 cr. In the meeting but the documents say 51 which does include the requirement to take IDS 300… let’s confirm the Cr. )
IDM non-comprehensive major 33 credits IDM 21 credit minor
(which does not require IDS 300)
Students mostly also take IDS 300 1cr on constructing
Some programs Kline noted have criteria that IDS majors must meet which are very helpful
Suggestion: a department should list in the catalog if it does IDS and or IDM majors and minors.
Suggestion: the department who accepts those students, advises them and takes credit for them and does the capstone with them, and assesses them. Reflection:
The current problem is many of those classes are taught by part time hires who teach only in Distance Ed and they have no advising responsibilities. Then Distance Ed hires its own advisors, now being shifted to the Advising Office. This leaves the students without on campus faculty who take responsibility for their capstones and their HIPS and their assessment.
Background information: HHP uses IDMs to help students with Pre-Professional Studies to prepare for Grad school programs like the Masters in Physical Therapy. They use the name “Pre-Professional Studies”. If you mention “general studies” in the rationale, Credits Committee will expect you to have 3 disciplines in IDM minors. [Did I get the IDM right here Glenn?]
Kline noted that departments send her even the smallest problems like a mere course substitution when a class is not available when the student needed it, a faculty goes on sabbatical or retires or transfers and the course is not continued.
Meeting #2of the IDS/IDM Task Force of 12.17.15 1PM OM 132
Present were Glenn Carlson, , Cathy Frank, Cristina Kline, Scott Smith, and Priscilla Starratt
We noted that as a task force and not a formal senate committee we had dispensed with formalities like having a chair and keeping posted minutes.
Scott Smith joined the group and introduced himself as someone who had already designed 5 or 6 courses, was on a renewable adjunct salary as of this year, and was hired as a Sr. Lecturer to do advising for DL and to teach Communicating Arts solely on line. His salary is paid for by Distance Learning, but he is in the Department of Communicating Arts. Scott has a lot of experience with DL students who are putting together interdisciplinary majors and the frustrations encountered by these students in getting them approved, advised and assessed. [“DL could be more student friendly”]. His tremendous contribution, therefore, to our deliberations is anticipated!
I. We discussed some implications of the Assessment Challenges :
We entertained some thoughts and discussed briefly the need to turn out quality graduates who are assessed by departments in the capstone experience SYE cohort at the same time being disadvantaged in the assessment process by perhaps taking far fewer than the 33 classes in that discipline of most majors. Supposing a student did the majority of the classes of the interdisciplinary major at another campus but the largest number of classes in a discipline at UWS is not very high? IF the students in interdisciplinary or individually designed majors are assessed in the SYE of that discipline, will they be able to cope up? Is this the source of some of the grumbling about inferior products that circulate?
For example, if a student had a significant number of history classes in his IDS/IDM. The history capstone is a 2 semester sequence taught only on-line. This might eliminate the chance for a IDS student to do the SYE in history. In my institutional memory the student who did a Lake Superior Studies IDM minor did the SYE history capstone because he was a history major and the IDM was only a minor. The student who did a self designed IDM in Security Studies was advised to do the POLS SYE because it is only one semester. This one is still ongoing and it remains to be seen if it will work out. One suggestion is for a department with a significant number of IDS majors to design an interdisciplinary capstone . Will this result in a 2 tier level of quality or do the interdisciplinary courses make a student a broader thinker in the tradition of a wide liberal arts education?
Forgive my digression but think of comparing the British and American system of education. The Brits think they take care of breadth with the 3A levels in the end of the secondary system. They then do 3 years of specialized learning for the Bachelor’s degree in what we would call “upper-level“ classes. In the British system you are admitted to “read” law, medicine, Latin American Sociology, or British History, for the Bachelor’s degree. We think the 2 years of general education during which time a student can change her major if inspired along the way, makes for a stronger education. They think university is for professional training in the discipline of one’s professional choice.
So yes, the student may not be as well prepared in any given discipline, but they may be better educated in a broad palette of subject areas?? Surely they can do competent research in one of the 3 areas of expertise in the IDS?
How many campus programs have a senior capstone course for the SYE and how many have the student enlarge and present on the research topic of a regular course offering? Small programs may not have the luxury of offering a senior capstone experience class?
A 3rd possibility is a zero credit capstone to develop a research project in any of several so designated upper level classes that have research components. Maybe put a SYE next to those courses in the catalog? (At least 18 credits of any major must be at 300+ level- so there should be several classes with this option?)
How do we take care of the “public presentation” aspect of this? They present to one another on the D2L site and have to make posts on what they learned by “attending” this research conference. They come to campus for an interdisciplinary oral presentation conference, they do a poster session which is published and on display during the on-campus capstone…Keep those ideas coming group!!
Question: If we obviate the requirement to present one’s findings orally before a group, are we underselling the campus requirement to communicate effectively orally? Don’t we have many students who choose DL delivery because they have social anxiety in a group setting? They would prefer death to public presentations. Should they be getting university degrees? Do you have to communicate orally to be an effective accountant? To be a graduate of UWS?
Let’s see, Student Learning Goal #1 says:
Communication: Students will understand and be understood by others to share meaning through diverse modes including listening, reading, visualizing, speaking, performing/presenting, creating, and writing.Are we serious about this? Supposing the student is only doing the last 30 credits of the degree with us. The largest number of credits is in a subject area we don’t teach. Do we have the right to say the student must do an oral presentation in the capstone to an audience? Which audience?
The SYE Capstone just approved by governance reads:
Communication
- Emphasizes the importance of clear, disciplinary appropriate language written and oral communications.
- Emphasizes the importance of the students’ work to our community of scholars.
Emphasizes that the SYE is a public event that will be open to the campus community, the broader community, and/or the students’ family and friends.
We may need to think about this oral competency requirement and the nature of the public event again in relation to DL. If I have a student in San Francisco or Chicago, how will I accomplish the above in the sr. capstone experience?
One member asserted that “ a public presentation has no oral component” and a poster or magazine article would be a public presentation. We need to ask the faculty to consider and the senate to decide if oral proficiency is or is not a requirement that must be demonstrated during the capstone experience?
The documents are attached. Is this one of the areas where a DL degree might be less “quality” than an on-campus degree? Should DL students need to submit a DVD of their oral presentation? Or is this just one more area where DL students are less served than on campus students and we can simply live with it? There are trade offs after all. DL students study at their own convenience and are not required to attend classes; on campus students are required to attend.
II. We considered issues in Housing of the IDM/IDSs:
IF the recommended model is for the departments to be in charge of IDM/IDS students, some items to consider:
Catalog copy to indicate which programs are willing to do what types IDM? IDS or both?
Faculty to be hired to teach, advise and assess these students by departments , rather than have them hired by DL?
Monies earned by DL teaching to support these hires, rather than be put in lump amounts back in departmental S&E each semester?
III. We discussed problems of programs offering minors or majors on line:
The numbers of students signing up for any given course may be too few and then the Dean cancels them. The DL advisors and supervisors despair that courses to complete the minor or major are not available often enough to serve the students. It may be that a different way or remuneration needs to be worked out for on line faculty- a base salary for each course offered and then a per/student amount on top of that. Why wouldn’t we increase DL faculty pay instead of returning some amounts to the department that offers the course??? Someone please explain this?
IV. We discussed problems of oversight:
Faculty with controlling interests may be too controlling and not appreciate sufficiently the interdisciplinarity of the design of the major?
Students may see an interest area as a “discipline” which may not even be offered at UWS. For example, if you went to Southern Mississippi University and transferred in a lot of credits in African American Studies- it was a discipline there. It is not a discipline here. Can it be counted as one of 3 “disciplines” in an IDS? What constitutes a discipline and who should decide?
Advisors to the students may feel that too many signatures are required. Should it be between the faculty concerned and the Credits committee? Which faculty? Or the advisor and the credits committee?
With the new professional advising crew, to serve students in years 1 & 2, will some of them work especially with DL students who want to design IDS/IDM majors? Will they be specialists or generalists? Assigned to certain majors or need to try to know all of them?
V. Thoughts on meeting times: Weekly or Biweekly??
We decided to give Thursdays at 11 AM a try. Next meeting during the first week of classes January 21st, 11-12 in OM 132.
VI. Agenda:
Choose one of the 3 February tasks and write up alternatives:
OR, work on writing down ideas for all 3 and refine them as we work through February. Are they too interrelated to treat separately?
1Where is the IDS/IDM program to be housed and administered?
2How is the IDS/IDM program to be assessed?
3Does the approval process for IDS/IDM Majors and Minors insure quality faculty oversight and academic rigor or do changesneed to be made to this process?
Meeting #3 of Taskforce on IDM/IDS of 01 21 2016
Present were, Glenn Carlson, Christina Kline, Scott Smith and Priscilla Starratt
The Task force decided that the #1 priority was to find the IDS an academic department home by the end of February, and that this academic home should be a department with a lot of IDS majors. The department would be in charge of decision making and approve all recommendations made by the advisory committee. The Advisory committee could be made up of any faculty teaching, and advising IDS students.
Christine outlined the work she does for IDS and sometimes IDM now in the DL Office as:
To work with faculty
To do overloads ( I’m not quite sure I know what this entails?) Arrange for faculty to be paid overloads for extra teaching? Capstones? Etc?
To deliver the course work
To interface between students and faculty
IDS degrees are always 3-4 fields, never less than 3 or more than 4 [actually a maximum is not specified –do we think it should be? as it is it could be 5!)
[I’d like to see it specified that the discipline need not be a program offered at UWS to count…]
They must do 30 credits at UWS
Here’s the catalog copy:
Interdisciplinary Studies (comprehensive) Major Requirements
51 total major credits
This major may be declared by on-campus or Distance Learning students. Major Requirements:
1A minimum of 3 different discipline areas
2A minimum of 9 credits, maximum of 22 credits, in each discipline area
3A minimum of 22 credits must be in courses numbered 300 or higher
4Must complete IDS 300 Individualized Educational Planning
5Must include a Capstone course
6Student must have earned at least 43 credits prior to submitting the IDS petition form
7Must submit (and have approved by the Credits and Student Reinstatement Committee) an Interdisciplinary Studies petition form.
Additional Degree Requirements:
1A minimum of 36 credits numbered 300 or higher
2A minimum of 30 credits earned at UW-Superior
3A resident GPA of at least 2.0 (UW-Superior courses only)
The last 12 credits for thedegreemust be earned at UW-Superior
…
The advising of IDS majors and the capstone should be the responsibility of the department who advertises that they do the IDS or IDM majors in the catalog in return for the credit hour production being allocated to the department for those courses.
Once the student decides for the IDS, they need a faculty member advisor in the field with the most credits on campus unless there is some valid reason for an exception to this.