WAC Meeting Minutes

February 20, 2015

12:00p.m., LH 331

Present: Matthews, Snavely, Steege, Heinrichs, Cronovich, Greene

We approved the minutes from the October meeting.

We passed the following course proposals:

FRN 4010 Senior Seminar in French, Isabel Rivero-Vila

CRJ 2260 Criminology, Rick Mathews

Discussion of course approval process:

Eric sent an email to the committee about the course approval process, and the criteria we use to pass courses. We discussed our role in the course approval process (and WAC more broadly). Matthews noted that historically, we have not been “pass or fail.” Rather, we have worked with our colleagues to facilitate course approvals. He noted that in order for WAC to succeed, we need wide participation by the faculty throughout the College. The need to promote WAC, however, needs to be balanced with course proposals that have integrity.

We also discussed committee composition and noted that it might change given the proposal by the Academic Senate.

As it stands, it is difficult for the entire committee to meet.

We discussed e-votes, and the problem of committee members that do not respond. We decided to end the practice of e-voting on course proposals.

We had a long discussion about the course schedule. Every semester, departments add courses to the schedule that have not been approved. Currently, Mark and Rick work together to check the course schedule each semester and send emails to solicit proposals for unapproved course-instructor pairs. While time-consuming, we have not found a better method to ensure the course schedule is accurate. We will continue to think about ways to make sure departments and instructors are not listing unapproved WI courses on the schedule.

Meeting adjourned at 1:00. Submitted by Matthews

 

WAC Meeting Minutes

Monday, October 27

2:00 p.m., LH 331

Present: Matthews, Snavely, Steege, Heinrichs, Pullin, Ryan

We passed the following courses:

Denise Rattigan EDU 3110 Passed conditionally: she needs to resubmit her proposal with all necessary information (the committee requested it for our   records).

Ed Montanaro SPN 4010

Daniel Geary SWK 3000

Abby will send Mark and Rick a list of the WI J-term and spring courses so we can check it for accuracy.

Discussion of preliminary research findings: Mark Snavely

Mark has created an electronic form to store the information from the interviews with faculty. He’s planning to talk to a small handful of faculty (Ron Cronovich, Pam Smiley, and Aaron Trautwein to see if they need to make any changes to the questionnaire.

Matthews gave an update on the work with departments. He met with Christine Blaine to see whether the WAC Committee can do anything to help the Chemistry Department to offer more WI courses. Christine is going to talk to the rest of the department and get back to Matthews.

Meeting adjourned at 3:00 p.m.

Submitted by Matthews