Minutes – WAC Meeting, Nov. 10, 2011

The minutes from October were approved.

Rick Matthews opened discussion on assessment, reiterating that the WAC committee’s focus is oversight of the program, and that assessment of writing outcomes is the responsibility of Departments and Programs. Rick noted that about half of Departments currently have assessment plans that include writing assessment, most of them through senior thesis assessment. The college Assessment Committee is working on a Gen Ed assessment plan that will include the Heritage Program at the freshman level, and a CLS assessment at the senior level. As part of the WAC committee’s oversight of WI courses, W.I. course proposal forms will include student writing outcomes in the future.

Rick Matthews is developing a student survey instrument for W.I. courses that should be ready to implement at the end of spring semester this year. The committee discussed at length the survey as it is and recommended several changes, most of them involving more quantitative questions than qualitative. There was also some discussion about how to deliver the surveys – in paper form or electronically, but no consensus was reached.

Rick will consult with Bill Miller and implement the suggested survey changes for the committee’s consideration at its next meeting. Rick will also send the committee members the results of the previous survey to refresh their memories on that data.

Rick will send the committee a doodle survey in order to choose a spring semester meeting time.

The Adult Education/Part-Time Faculty WAC workshops are tentatively scheduled for January 4, 11, 18, and 25 from 5-8 p.m.

WAC Minutes
Thursday, September 15th, 2011

Present: Rick Matthews, Ron Cronovich, Abby Hanna, Jean Preston, Ed Montinaro, Chris Renaud, David Steege

Minutes from April 26, 2011 meeting were approved.

Election of chair: Mark Snavely.
Election of secretary: postponed until next meeting.

We need three new committee members: one each from FA, EDUC and IDS (one year). Chris Renaud agreed to serve as IDS. She will contact Chris Lynch and let him know, Matthews will contact Trautwein and let him know Snavely is the WAC chair, and Renaud will serve from IDS. FA and EDUC have been asked to elect members, and we should know who they are soon.

Meeting times, October. Once we have our two new members, we can establish a regular meeting time. We will need to meet during the 2nd or 3rd week of October to approve any courses for J-term and spring.

Abby will generate a report of the WI courses offered this coming J-term and spring and send it to Mark and Rick. Mark and Rick will send a note to chairs with unapproved courses telling them that the deadline for courses is the beginning of the 2nd week in October. We also need to pay close attention to Topics courses.

Announcement: WAC report, fall 2011 workshops, report from Rick Matthews (see attached). Each year Rick gives Julio a report of what we do in the fall and follows up with a budget request in the spring for the following academic year. Each year, he has put goals in the report. To date, 193 people have gone through WAC workshops. Full-time faculty who have gone through it? Answer 87% We have exceeded our goals of 50 WI courses per year, we now offer 50-70 per semester.

We discussed the goals in the report, and talked about the following issues:

What do we look for in the writing of our seniors? Should there be a common assessment rubric across departments? Departments should be looking at writing assessment. Here is where our students are now. Where do we want them to be? How do we get them there?

Departments should develop a rubric (or some other mechanism) for assessing senior seminar and/or writing in the major. What is universal about this? Can you formulate a thesis and support it? Some departments have different projects and goals, so each department should do its own assessment. At the same time, many departments do similar things, and could share rubrics, outcomes, etc. (e.g., across the social sciences). CLA has been used, and will be used in the future as a global measure of student writing. Still, more work needs to be done in the departments and programs.

Departments should have writing goals in general, not just for the senior seminar. They should also think about how to best help students meet these goals (e.g., adding or changing WI courses for their major to develop skills that are important in the discipline).

Adjourned: 4:03 p.m.

WAC Minutes
Thursday, October 13th, 2011

Present: Rick Matthews, Abby Hanna, Kimberly Greene, Kathy Ryan, Chris Renaud, David Steege

I. Courses
MGT 3120 Principles of Management by William Matelski: passed

CHN/JPN 3070 Chinese/Japanese Culture and Language by Yan Wang: passed

MATH 2040 Linear Algebra by Michael Nicholas: passed

GRNL xxxx The Worlds of Risk: Bell Curves and Black Swans by Jim Peterson: passed

GRM 4010 Senior Seminar in German by Greg Baer: passed

PHYS 2300 Modern Physics by Brian Schwartz: passed

SPAN 3090 The Spanish Speaking World by Yin Yang: passed

II. Meeting in November
a. Nov. 10, 3-4 p.m. (Troha Board Room?)

III. Student Writing Outcomes on Course Proposal
Discussion ensued. New CPC form. What about writing outcomes? We do not determine specific writing outcomes. Could we modify form with 3 writing outcomes? If assessment is other than writing, then state it. Writing to learn content of course, then they have to do writing. The purpose of having writing outcomes on the course proposal is to encourage writing assessment, and to encourage departments to think about student learning outcomes for writing. Rick will prepare a description that includes some outcomes.
Within three years all proposals will have new writing outcomes.
IV. Petition issues
Person had taken workshop and walked into a class that in previous incarnation as WI but it was not approved in her name. Everyone thought they were doing a WI. [Was Rick’s adjunct.]
Abby and David reported there have been few student petitions for WI with SAR.
V. New Business
None