John Allard (DCE), Doris Carroll (AA), Al Cochran (PO), David Delker (TC), Kevin Donnelly (AG), Ike Ehie (BA), Maureen Herspring (CAPD), Ray Hightower (EN), Mike Lynch (EPD), Larry Moeder (SFA), Monty Nielsen (RO), Karen Pence (HE), Mike Perl (ED), Larry Satzler (EN), Carol Shanklin (GS), Alison Wheatley (AS).
Melinda Wilkerson (VM).
Vicky Clegg, Karen Myers-Bowman
The meeting was called to order by Karen Pence at 10:34 a.m. She introduced Vicky Clegg and Karen Myers-Bowman who attended the meeting to present information about general education.
Myers-Bowman reported to the committee that in August the current General Education Taskforce was charged by the provost to submit a new proposal for general education at Kansas State University. In writing its proposal the taskforce is to take into consider the work done by various groups and individuals since 2003, especially that of the most recent group which submitted its report to the provost in June. He asked that a plan for implementing a new general education program at K-State be submitted to him by the end of the academic year.
Myers-Bowman said the taskforce wants to make sure that the general education program builds a strong foundation. It has identified eight areas that represent a broad knowledge that are important for all college-educated individuals. It also believes that these areas represent a strong foundation to build upon, and they are seamless with current SRO assessments. The eight areas are: (1) esthetic experience and interpretive understanding, (2) empirical and quantitative reasoning, (3) ethical reasoning and social engagement, (4) global community, (5) human diversity in the United States, (6) individuals within the social system, (7) the natural and physical world, (8) the past and the future. The taskforce also believes that communication and critical thinking are important and that these will be stressed in all general education classes.
It is the desire of the taskforce to make the new general education program more flexible than the current one. The idea is that these eight areas can be easily integrated throughout many curricular models. The vision is that each student will have a three credit-hour class or its equivalent in each of the eight areas and that two of the classes could be in a student’s major. This would leave 18 credit hours to be taken outside of an individual’s major. Each general education class would be tagged as meeting the requirement for at least one of these eight areas; however, each student enrolling in the class would have to choose which of the areas would apply to his/her general education program requirement.
The taskforce feels that leadership for general education is important and they will encourage the provost to establish a leader or leader committee to oversee the program.
The taskforce hopes to have a working document available for review by the middle of December and plans to meet with colleges in the spring before it presents the document university wide. It hopes to present its plan to faculty senate by February of 2008, have a pilot by the spring of 2009, and fully implement the program by the fall of 2009. The taskforce is considering transfer and online courses and assumes they will apply to the general education requirement.
Currently first year seminars are not being considered as part of the general education proposal; however, a separate group is continuing to work on first year seminars. If first year seminars are instituted, those courses could possibly meet general education requirements.
During the presentation Donnelly arrived and assumed responsibility as chair.
Donnelly called for correction to the October minutes. Pence corrected the spelling of Myers-Bowing to Myers-Bowman. Nielsen changed the years of the academic calendar to 2010-2013. Minutes were approved as corrected.
Pence made a clarification to the motion that was passed in October regarding the change of test schedule for classes meeting one period per week. She said the effective date would be fall 2009.
Perl reported on the changes CAPP proposed to the university plagiarism statement and voted tentatively to forward them to the Academic Affairs Committee. As directed, Perl had Professor David Allen, Director of the Honor and Integrity System, and Cheryl Strecker, University Attorney, review the document. He reported that neither individual supported the statement CAPP had written because it did not address several problems that are currently encountered with plagiarism. Allen recommended that CAPP pattern any changes after the information presented on the University of California-Davis Web site because it is more student friendly and encourages students to take responsibility for avoiding plagiarism. It presents ways students can avoid problems and meet expectations. Strecker prefers the current statement in the Kansas State University Handbook because it is clear and defines terms.
The consensus of CAPP was not to send the plagiarism policy voted on by the committee last month back to Academic Affairs. Carroll agreed to ask the Academic Affairs Committee to charge a faculty committee to writing new guidelines for plagiarism.
Cochran reported that the Department of State is formulating a new program called the Franklin Fellows. This program offers grants to faculty with at least five years of experience in specified areas (e.g. infectious diseases). At this time the information from the Department of State is incomplete. Cochran will share the complete information with CAPP members and the Deans Council when it becomes available.
Allard reported that although the Division of Continuing Education is not required to follow the Board of Regents requirement to waive tuition for people over 60 who want to audit courses, the division has decided to do so. This will be done when space is available and students will be required to pay related academic fees. This puts Continuing Education in line with the practice of the University.
Carroll reported that the Faculty Senate had the first reading of the academic calendar at their last meeting and hopes to have a vote on it at their December meeting.
It also had the first reading of a proposal to change the language for Appendix G of the university handbook to clarify the amount of time an individual has to file a grievance.
The Senate will have a second reading at the December meeting and perhaps vote on the proposed academic fresh start and forgiveness policy, which CAPP forwarded to faculty senate.
Some faculty members have complained about the instrument used to evaluate Dean White. They believe some items were not clear and the provost agreed to make changes to the form. There was concern that this would affect the evaluation of Assistant Provost Holland, thus the evaluation for Holland will be delayed for a brief period.
Moeder announced that the university is up in applications and students admitted as compared to last year at the same time. The iSIS system for admissions is working well. Admissions of transfer students at K-State, as well as the rest of the Big 12, are flat and all institutions are making a greater effort to attract them. The financial aid side also seems to be going well. In January financial aid is going live with a new module. Hightower asked if we track readmits and how we are doing with them. Hightower believes that more are returning. Moeder said he believed his office tracks them, but he would have to check to see.
Nielsen announced that we are currently live with the iSIS system for class schedule. His office is preparing to go live with enrollment in March, with records in July, and with transcripts in August 2008. Right now the Registrar’s Office is transcript testing. He will be sending some samples of transcripts to us for our review and input.
The academic calendar presented to the Academic Affairs Committee this month seemed to be acceptable. Some were concerned about having only 14 class periods on Mondays each fall. Also some students and faculty would like to have all of Thanksgiving week off. If that were done, adjustments would have to be made to other parts of the calendar.
The undergraduate and graduate catalogs are being prepared with the new Acalog system. This catalog copy will be edited electronically by individuals from the colleges, and training will be provided for those editing the information.
The Registrar’s Office and Linda Morse’s office, Registrar for the Division of Continuing Education, merged as of October 21, 2007.
Cochran announced that he had recently returned from the NASULGC convention which approved the VSA (Voluntary System of Accountability) proposal.
The meeting adjourned at 12:04 p.m.
Submitted by Michael Perl