Steering Committee notes April 21 2016.

Patricia Galvis-Assmus, Jerry Schoen, Ramesh Sitamaran, Ryan MacDonald, Jon Olsen, Traci Hess, Graham Gal, RickAdrion, Nikki Stoia, Beth Henneman.

Program update.

Jerry retiring in May. Ryan moving to Maine. We will need new Admin Assistant and new Program Advisor. Other than this devastating news, all is well with the program. Current enrollment of active students is , an all-time high. This number will drop with spring graduations , but enrollments continue to come in at a good pace.

Courses for considered for inclusion in IT Program listing

HIST 397ST. Science, Technology and War in 20th Century US and Europe. This had been discussed, tabled in prior SC meeting. Question is whether the course contains sufficient information technology for the minor. Instructor emailed to Ryan that she would be comfortable requiring IT Minors in the class to address IT issues in the final paper. Committee approved the course (as Broadened Inquiry) with the stipulation that the instructor make this requirement, and that furthermore must notify the IT program whenever this happens. The reasoning is that we don’t want to get into a situation where a student takes the course, and only later decides to enroll in the IT Program – thus possibly receiving credit for the course without having completed the final paper according to these rules.

Jerry will contact the instructor about this.

SUST COMM 297L. Similar to Art 271, an elective.

Committee approved as Elective. Jerry will contact instructor.

PS391PN. Political & Social Networks

Committee approved as elective. Graham opposed, everyone else approved.

PS328. ResearchMethodsforPoliticalandSocialScience

Committee agreed NOT To approve it.

Jerry will contact instructor on both courses.

Informatics Undergraduate Major proposal. Ramesh Sitamaran.

This is a pre-proposal. Currently doing informatics as part of BDIC . Goes to provost, winds its way up. Goes to Faculty Senate at full proposal state.

Proposal is to create a major - BS/BA.

In the next year, CICS will be going thru the proposal process. The proposal itself will discuss an increase in # of students from 40 (currently in BDIC )to about 75. Will eventually want to get to 200 majors, 3-4 tracks. Would like to create a steering committee for each track. Might consider an informatics minor.

There was much discussion, including the question of how the informatics major co-exists with the IT Minor.

There are 6 core courses in the proposed informatics major, 4 of which are currently listed in the IT Minor catalogue. Beyond this, the question remains unresolved. .

Jon. Are the informatics classes also in the listing of IT minor courses?

Rick: CICS has start planning committee… might be opportunity for IT minor folks to meet and talk with them. It was generally agreed we should pursue such a meeting. Jerry will ask Ramesh for a copy of the slide presentation he gave, for distribution to the SC.

IT Program plans for 2016-7

Patricia asked if the SC might identify one or more goals or themes for next year, which would influence topics or participation in the ICT Summit, 5 College Maker Fair, RFP for new courses, etc. Also, what about a student-centric community gathering type of event? Any ideas on what these might be?

Jon suggested a speaker series. Poll students who would they want, what topic. Keep the speaker events fairly short. People liked these ideas.

Also suggested to have a sort of enrollment fair for the IT Program. Have a forum where IT teachers come to discuss their courses. At least once/year, or per semester Do it right before registration for a year. Have a list of all the courses. Info on all of the courses. 26 depts should be represented. Have advisors for depts. attend.

Rick: we did that early in the life of the program. An IT minor fair. Those were all-day… too long. They were set up in library, gave them food. They worked out well. PGA suggests trying it 5-7:30 PM with pizza, or something like that.

Have the students show up for a group photo. Consider havingsome sort of product from past courses to display at the fair.

Combine this with the speaker series…. E.g. have the speaker before or after the fair. Or do a panel instead of a single speaker.

Committee members were supportive of these ideas.

Discussion to be continued.

CCC update.

We are going with CESD to develop the site for us, putting content for training /courses onto the OWL web site. Goal is to have it set up running for fall 2016. Anyone in any of our IT classes who wants their students to try it out… that would be nice.

Meeting adjourned 2 PM.

Next meeting TBD.