Undergraduate Education, Council on - Minutes - 2007-2008
CUE Minutes 5/2/08:
Members Present: J. Rust; M. Atkinson; C McLean; A. Nowel; J. Spurlin; J. Tector; G. Weinberg; M. Chu; H. Devine; H. Kellner; C. Levine; D. Auerbach; R. Foy; C. Jordan; B. Matthews; J. Wheatley; A. Dupont; C. Ashwell; J. Ambrose; C. Freeman.
Guests:
Selby Lo, Student (Senior) (salo@ncsu.edu)
Andrew Hicks, Student (Junior) (ashicks@ncsu.edu)
Meeting opened at 1:30 pm
Comments from the Chair: Welcome to the committee members to the last meeting of the academic year. Thanks to DUAP and Dr. Ambrose for the lunch. Welcome to our student guests, Selby and Andrew. They are here to give their perspective on Diversity in undergraduation education and general education as well as the GEP in the future.
We have a long agenda today.
Comments from Associate Dean:
Thank everyone for all their hard work this semester and for working on a task that could have been controversial. Dr. Ambrose believes CUE has made great progress and has more to do in the future. Thanked Jon Rust for all his hard work and leadership this year. Special thanks to Brian Matthews for agreeing to lead CUE next year. Special thanks to John Tector for all his hard work and commitment for the nine terms he has served on CUE. Another thank you for Tector’s commitment to assessment and presented him with the Friend of Assessment Award.
Student Presentation:
Spent 5 weeks discussing diversity in the Office of Equal Opportunity workshop series studying diversity. We were interested in how we could incorporate diversity into the education of students across the university. We thought the GEP would be a good place to start. We really wanted to address current issues in diversity, race and global cultures as we felt that’s one of the most important topics to be focused on. There were incidents on campus this year that really spurred the topic of diversity and race relations. The students need tools and information to apply understanding of it to the university and living on campus. It has been a topic of great discussion across the campus. We’d like to encourage discussion of diversity as it relates to NC State and engage in faculty and students.
- when to offer such a course ? students felt sophomore and junior years would be really good so that they could get acclimated to the university first. Have more groups (students) interact with each other on a broader scale and then try to incorporate into classroom settings.
- Cross-engagement – the want is there from the students, but getting it done has been harder.
- Working with faculty on campus to encourage more diversity with students in the curricular change.
Jon Rust thanked the students for sharing their interest and for coming to today’s meeting. Encouraged the members and students to share notes on a continuing diversity discussion.
Dr. Dupont has worked on a revision of the Additional Breadth Rationale for us to begin working with.
Presented the revised wording for the Additional Breadth Rationale as proposed by Dr. Dupont.
Motion was made to approve. Moved and seconded.
Approved unanimously.
Secondly, draft of Interdisciplinary Perspectives rationale and Objectives. Brian Matthews presented the draft and summary of the subcommittee’s work to develop it.
Thanks to Allen, Cynthia and David for their help drafting the document.
Discussion:
- Subcommittee was Interested in the definition of two or more disciplines sections. Members discussed the “excluded are courses in which single discipline is studying another discipline, as in History of Science or Economics of Agriculture.” Concerned there will be negative responses to the wording. Subcommittee members described that it would be difficult to determine if a course was interdisciplinary and that some measures would be needed to assess courses as viable for the category.
- Suggest a description in a positive way or a general description of an example of courses that would be appropriate under this.
- Some discussion of the “multiple disciplines may come from any college.” Some members raised concern of this because at one point the GEP had specified one of the interdisciplinary perspectives courses had to be across colleges – mixture.
- However, CUE was asked to develop this category and has more latitude to discuss.
- Discussion of a form that courses could fill out explaining their intent to develop the course for the interdisciplinary perspectives category that could be included in the proposed course/revision to go through the curricular committees.
- Suggestion of putting “complex problems” in the objectives since it’s mentioned twice in the rationale if there needs to be emphasis on it.
- Two edits: In rationale, remove “essential to the understanding of complex problems,” and at the end remove “facing our world.”
- Members don’t want to discourage people who may be interested in doing this.
- Moved “The multiple disciplines may come from any college or from across colleges” up into the previous paragraph on Topic Coverage. Removed the last sentences.
Lengthy discussion continued on the bullets under Methods of Delivery.
Under Methods of Delivery – add a bullet of “Interdisciplinary scholars providing individual instruction.”
- Motion to remove the first bullet “Individual instructors using guest lecturers.”
- Second bullet “Teams of faculty or experts from different disciplines.” Added
- Second bullet “ In team-based courses all faculty are jointly responsible for the course and contribute to specific components of the class.” (also note the second bullet becomes the first bullet)
- Remove “jointly”
- Remove “specific”
- Revise third bullet: Individual scholars providing an interdisciplinary instruction.
- Define interdisciplinary instructor - way to do this is for the instructor to have a consultation with the other department to get approval before it comes to committee.
Moved to approve and seconded for the rationale for the Interdisciplinary Perspectives along with the additional changes to the topic coverage and rigor - Approved unanimously.
Moved and seconded to extend the meeting 15 minutes. Approved unanimously.
Discussion of GEP Rubric under basic criteria:
#7 – Is the course offered on a regular basis? – should this remain and if it does, what defines it as a regular basis?
- Moved to leave it as it is. Seconded. Approved unanimously.
#8 – Does the course have no more than one pre-requisite? If there is more than one pre-requisite, justification is required. (revised)
#9 – Is the course a standard offering (not a special topics or experimental course)?
Moved to approve # 8 & 9 from the rubric (basic criteria), seconded. Approved majority.
Moved to approve minutes from 4-18-08. Seconded. Approved unanimously.
Moved and seconded to endorse the GEP Guidelines and Issues document. Approved unanimously.
Closed at 3:17 p.m.
(CUE Approved Version for GEP 5-2-08)
IP Rationale and Objectives
Interdisciplinary Perspectives (5 – 6 credit hours)
Rationale:
Interdisciplinary study provides students with the opportunity to synthesize knowledge and skills, to make connections between fields of study, to consider more than one disciplinary approach or methodology, and to bring to bear the insights from two or more disciplines in examining and/or responding to complex problems.
Objectives:
Each course in Interdisciplinary Perspectives will provide instruction and guidance that help students to:
- Distinguish between the distinct approaches of two or more disciplines; and
- Identify and apply authentic connections between two or more disciplines; and
- Explore and synthesize the approaches or views of the two or more disciplines.
Design of Interdisciplinary Courses Criteria:
Topic Coverage
An interdisciplinary course may be based around a broad topic, such as an idea, theme, problem, region, institution, era or issue. The complexity of such topics may mean that they can be more adequately addressed using an interdisciplinary approach rather than through a single disciplinary point of view. Instructors should help students to integrate the multiple points of view into a cohesive understanding. The multiple disciplines may come from any college or from across colleges.
Rigor
The courses must include sustained, rigorous and substantive instruction that focuses on the content and approaches of two or more disciplines.
Methods of Delivery are flexible and may include:
- Teams of faculty or experts from different disciplines. In team-based courses all faculty are responsible for the course and contribute to components of the class.
- Two linked courses which must address one or more specific themes, topics, issues, cultures or problems. To satisfy the requirement by this means, the two instructors must sustain collaboration and demonstrate that the two courses are interrelated (for instance, by demonstrating that the content coverage is coordinated over the semester, or by demonstrating that the syllabi and reading lists clearly reflect the interdisciplinary nature of the courses). Students would have to complete both courses in a single semester to satisfy this requirement.
- Individual scholars providing interdisciplinary instruction.
Participation
All colleges and departments are encouraged to participate in the development of appropriate courses for the Interdisciplinary Perspectives list and submit new or revised courses to CUE for approval.