AGENDA

University Committee for General Education Meeting #3

12 October 2006, 4:00 p.m., Sawtooth Room

A short meeting is intended.

The single issue for the committee’s consideration is a proposal from Wes Chun to create prerequisites for spring-semester Core Discovery courses:

Catalog Change Request

Submitted by Wesley Chun

Course: All Spring semester Core Discovery Classes.

Proposed change: Add the following prerequisite for COR 153-199 in the UI General Catalog: Prereq: Corresponding fall class and section, or permission.

Example:

CORE103-149 Core Discovery (4 cr). May be used as core credit in J-3-d. Open to freshmen only. First semester of a year-long interdisciplinary, thematically based course, intended to introduce students beginning their university experience to a variety of humanities and social science disciplines and perspectives on topics of broad interest; all themes/sections emphasize discussion and frequent student-faculty and student-student interactions; each includes attention to issues of critical thinking, diversity, and methods of inquiry. May involve evening classes. See for specific course titles and descriptions.

CORE153-199 Core Discovery (3 cr). May be used as core credit in J-3-d. Open to freshmen and sophomores. Second semester of a year-long interdisciplinary, thematically based course, intended to introduce students beginning their university experience to a variety of humanities and social science disciplines and perspectives on topics of broad interest; all themes/sections emphasize discussion and frequent student-faculty and student-student interactions; each includes attention to issues of critical thinking, diversity, and methods of inquiry. May involve evening classes. See for specific course titles and descriptions. Prereq: Corresponding fall class and section, or permission.

Rationale: The philosophy of Core Discovery was to provide a year-long experience with the same instructor and classmates that would introduce some stability into the first year experience and provide a forum which long-lasting ties to faculty and students could be developed. In the current class numbering system, a student may take an entirely different Core Discovery class if not section. This has caused some registration issues where students wishing to continue with the same instructor and class were not able to do so due to delays in registration. This was resolved by asking “new” students to withdraw from a few sections. While the number of students involved number less than 20, we propose the change to strengthen the original intent of the Core Discovery classes and in the process, reduce conflicts. Approximately 50% of the Core Discovery instructors do not want “new” students in their Spring sections.

Implementation: Core will make the necessary changes in the web and COWS for each class to list: “Prerequisite: Core XXX-YY or permission” where XXX and YYY lists the corresponding Fall Class and sectionnumbers, respectively.

Pros:

  1. Supports the Core Discovery philosophy and concept for a year long experience.
  2. Allows changing classes and sections (instructors’ choice) for student flexibility.
  3. Allow sophomore registration.

Cons:

  1. Student confidentiality/undue influence on fall grades?
  2. Continuing students wanting a different class/section will require instructor or departmental override.
  3. Out of sequence?

Impact: Annually, Core admits approximately 35 new students to Core Discovery classes and will accept “new students.” Most are sophomores. Approximately 12 had issues that resulted in 12 other students asked to withdraw and register for a different class and or section. We do not have data onnumber of students that switch class or sections but they do exist