WAC Committee Minutes
Monday March 27th 11:45 a.m.

Present: Igleheart, Steege, Bonn, Shaw, Matthews, Schulze, Snavely

Anne announced that she will not be able to attend the WAC conference at Clemson in May. Snavely asked if there were any volunteers to take her place.

The committee discussed the new course proposal form. It was decided that it should be an on-line form that can be submitted electronically. The electronic form will have links to the guidelines and other important supporting documents.

The committee recommended a number of small changes to the form. Snavely will make these changes and bring the revised form to the next meeting.

The question of whether a syllabus should be submitted with the form was raised. Some had concerns that requiring a syllabus may be viewed as yet another obstacle in the approval process and/or that faculty would have to do too much advance work to get their course approved. On the other hand, some felt that a syllabus was necessary to demonstrate that the writing components of the course would be integrated in a meaningful way and that they’d be linked to broader course objectives. It was decided that a syllabus that did not contain a detailed schedule of course events or texts should be included with the form (sent as an email attachment).

Tom Groleau joined the committee to discuss concerns from the Business department about WI courses. The Business department is concerned about staffing their courses, and want to identify a course in their curriculum that is appropriate for WI designation. At the same time they are concerned about creating a staffing problem for the department. The committee shared with Tom the guidelines we are working on, what WI courses should include, and offered assistance to Tom and the Business department as part of an on-going discussion.

Snavely announced that at our next meeting, we’d have to discuss the formation of subcommittees. One will work with Heritage, the other will work as an outreach.

Matthews volunteered to take Shaw’s place at the WAC conference in May.

Meeting was adjourned at 1:00