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Kansas State University

Minutes of November 12, 2008
113 Seaton Hall

 

Members Present:

Doris Carroll (AA), Al Cochran (PO), David Delker (TC), Lynn Ewanow (CAPD), Jeff Katz (BA), Kevin Lease (GS), Mike Lynch (EPD), Monty Nielsen (RO), Karen Pence (HE), Mike Perl (ED), Shanna Pumphrey (AS), Larry Satzler (EN), Betty Stevens (DCE), Melinda Wilkerson (VM), Christine Wilson (AG).

Members Absent:

Anand Desai (BA), Larry Moeder (SFA), Alison Wheatley (AS).

Guest:

Loleta Sump 

Call to Order

Lynn Ewanow called the meeting to order at 10:37 a.m.

The October minutes were approved.

Non-standard Time Requests

The following requests for non-standard class meeting times were approved:

BAE 020.  Engineering Assembly.  The course will now meet Tuesday from 6:00-7:00 pm starting Spring 2009 and ongoing.

EDLST 350.  Cult/Context of Leadership. The course will now meet MW from 3:30-4:45 for Spring 2009 only.

Pending Unfinished Business.

Each College is to review the letter prepared by admissions concerning the acceptance of AP, CLEP, etc. credit.  Let Lynn know by November 19th if you would like different wording.

David Delker questioned whether the rule that 5/6 of a degree program must be graded applied to certificate programs.  Betty Steven said that there was a policy concerning certificate programs—main requirement was that they be of value to the student in their profession in some way.  She will look for the policy.  David will check with Kelly Cox.  No action taken.

Melinda Wilkerson had a question about contact hours.  Would a class that had a 50 minute lecture 5 days a week plus a separate 1 hour exam time per week actually be a 6 hour class?  There was some discussion.  It was decided that there was no hard policy on this and no action was taken.

New Business.

Loleta Sump was a guest invited to discuss the issue of setting final exam times for non-standard classes.  The following is her synopsis of the problem and possible solutions.

SEMESTER FINAL EXAMINATIONS

GOAL: 
  • To inform students and faculty of the date, time and location of their semester final exam via iSIS approximately six weeks prior to final exam week.
  • To load course final exam scheduling information into R25 programmatically through the iSIS – R25 interface for maintenance.
PROBLEM: 
  • Non-standard course meetings times are not addressed in the final exam schedule and guidelines; therefore, cannot be dealt with programmatically.  
  • Division of Continuing Education courses are not addressed in final exam schedule and guidelines. 
  • A clear, definitive final exam policy addressing all course scenarios does not exist; therefore, clean programming is not possible.
MAGNITUDE:

In 2004, the Schedule 25/Resource 26 Committee looked at all the course meetings times occurring on campus.  At that time, we could locate a course that had a start time about every five minutes between 7:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.  The Non-Standard Course Meeting Time Policy helped this situation; however, neither this policy nor the final exam scheduling guidelines address non-standard course meeting times.  For instance, these are a few of the approved non-standard course meeting times that are not addressed in the final exam scheduling guidelines:

Non-Standard Course
Final Exam Times
TU 12:15 MW 1:15
MW 8:15 TU 10:55
T 9:00 MTWU 12:00
T 1:00 TU 11:00
MW 11:45 W 8:00
W 8:00 W 8:00
MW 9:45 MW 1:15
TU 8:45 TU 7:50 a.m.

The final exam schedule applies to courses that meet in both department space and general use classrooms.

ASSUMPTIONS: 
  • Courses with a start time of :05 or :30 that meet before 5:00 p.m. have a definite exam time established by the final exam scheduling grid, whether or not the course has a standard or non-standard meeting time. 
  • When considering courses with multiple meeting types, if LEC is one of the types, that section will have the final.  Second priority would be REC, third LAB, etc.
RECOMMENDATIONS:  (IMMEDIATE CONSIDERATION)
  • A program to schedule Fall 2008 final exams is being developed right now.  The Fall semester courses with a non-standard course meeting time should be assigned a time w/in the grid to take their exam, i.e. a course with a TU 11:00 start time would take their exam during the time designated for courses starting at T 11:05 or 11:30. 
  • A determination on whether Division of Continuing Education courses and all other non-DCE classes should be guided by the final exam scheduling guidelines.  (BEFORE FALL 2009 SEMESTER)
SUMMARY:
  • Develop a final exam scheduling policy that addresses all course scenarios in a clear, definitive logic.  (In 2004, a draft semester final exam policy was submitted to CAPP for consideration.  The policy was drafted with iSIS and the programming that would be necessary in mind.) 
  • When considering non-standard course meeting time requests for approval, determine when the final exam will occur.
Action Taken: A subcommittee consisting of Alison Wheatley, Anand Desai and Lynn Ewanow was formed to recommend a policy.

Standing Reports.

Academic Affairs

Doris Carroll reported that Academic Affairs is still discussing the new General Education policy.  Arts and Science has approved the University Honors Program.

Admissions/Financial Aid

No Report

Registrar

Monty Nielsen reported that at the beginning of the semester we began running transcripts out of iSIS.  We are preparing for electronic submission of grades in iSIS for Fall 08.   Graduation is moving to iSIS, and we are working on Web enhancements.  The Electronic Catalog will be updated next week with most of the changes behind the scenes.  There is a catalog update page (left menu on the catalog home page “Catalog Updates”) that shows significant changes made to the catalog by month. 

Provost’s Office

No Report

Continuing Education

No Report

Education and Personal Development

No Report

Adjournment:

The meeting adjourned at 12:00 p.m.

The next meeting will be December 10, 2008 – Seaton 113 at 10:30 a.m.

Following the meeting will be our annual Holiday luncheon in the Bluemont room at the Union!

Submitted by Larry Satzler