To: Executive Committee, Arts and Sciences
Senate
From:
Robert Cerrato, Chair, Undergraduate Curriculum Committee
Re:
2001-2002 Annual Report
Date:
5 September, 2002
The
curriculum committee met 18 times during the 2001-2002 academic year. Committee
members were: Robert Cerrato (marine sciences and chair of the committee),
Michael Barnhart (history, fall) Ruth
Cowan (history, spring), Catherine
Marrone (sociology), Andreas Mayr (chemistry), Judith Lochhead (music), Sarah Sternglanz
(women’s studies), Arlene Feldman (Transfer Office), Elaine Kaplan (College of
Arts and Sciences, ex officio member), and Kathleen Breidenbach (College of
Arts and Sciences, ex officio secretary). The committee was also joined for all
discussions of the SUNY American History requirement by Michael Barnhart
(history) during the spring semester.
Routine
matters are handled by the secretary and announced to the committee at each
meeting. There were a number of routine
matters chiefly involving changes of course titles, descriptions, or
prerequisites to bring them in line with current teaching and requirements.
The
committee approved several new courses
and a new major in Athletic Training, sponsored by the department of Physical
Education. The new major has subsequently been approved by SUNY and the New
York State Department of Education. Committee members met with the developers
of the program for clarification of a number of issues. The new major
curriculum, designed to help provide support to developing athletic programs at
the university, is built on a rigorous scientific foundation and will provide
students with an alternative to the program in physical therapy.
The
committee approved several changes to the basic currriculum, four new courses,
and a new, less quantitative minor, designed to be attractive to students with
a strong interest in astronomy.
The
committee approved new field methods courses in each of the areas in which
Stony Brook offers teacher certification, in accordance with mandates from
NCATE.
The
committee reviewed a number of requests from the mathematics department,
including a request to restrict admission to the major to qualified students,
and met with representatives from the department. The proposal was taken to the
Senate Executive Committee and the full
A&S Senate as well, where there was general agreement that the department
should avail itself of other methods for ensuring student success, such as
early advising and intervention, rather than creating only the second
restricted major in the College. The committee did approve a type of gateway
course, which will be required as a prerequisite to most other mathematics
major courses. The committee also approved creation of a new course that would
meet with an existing course for half of the semester, at which point the
students would be split into two groups. This method is designed to maximize use
of resources and to cover material appropriate to either graduate and advanced
work in mathematics or mathematics instruction at the high school level.
The
committee rejected a request to create new FLC seminar course numbers
satisfying different D.E.C. categories. The belief was that, since the seminars
are intended to be integrative, they could not appropriately be fit into any
one category.
The
committee approved a major restructuring of the first-year chemistry program,
including the addition of a required zero credit chemistry course, designed to
ensure that at-risk students, students with a lower mathematics placement
scores, receive the help they need.
The
committee approved the listing of a pre-professional program in Child Life,
offered in conjunction with the existing Child and Family Studies minor, and two
new courses. The program will provide a service to students interested in
working with children in a health-care setting, to the hospital, and to the
children who use it.
The
Career Center proposed two new courses, a freshman-level Career Development and
Decision Making course and a 200-level Career Planning course. Both were
welcomed by committee members, especially the first, as its curriculum includes
helping students think about their skills and abilities and hopes to provide
students with other ways of thinking about the relation of education to career
paths.
The
committee approved several temporary, experimental courses for the spring and
fall semester. The experimental course proposal process thus far seems to be an
effective means of offering alternative courses and allowing instructors the
freedom to experiment. Perhaps the most interesting example was of an online
recitation section of BIO 203, which allowed the instructor to experiment with
online methods of instruction.
The
committee approved a number of new one-credit courses, including AST 100
Astronomy Today, AST 200 Current Astronomical Research at Stony Brook, PHY 104
Opportunities in Physics, intended as introductions to the field and
opportunities at Stony Brook, and USB 300 and 301 Global Issues, designed to
allow examination of topics arising in response to the events of September 11,
2001, and beyond.
The
committee spent a great deal of the fall semester reviewing courses offered
toward the D.E.C. category K/ SUNY American history requirement that had been
challenged by the SUNY provost, Peter Salins. Stony Brook Deputy Provost Mark
Aronoff and Arts and Sciences Associate Dean Nancy Tomes had arranged with SUNY
Assistant Provost Joseph DeFilippo that the curriculum committee would solicit
and review revised syllabi and any other supporting documentation for the
contested courses. The committee developed a review form listing the principal
requirements for American history as defined by Provost Salins’s advisory
committee on general education (PACGE). In addition, Michael Barnhart, an
American historian and social sciences representative on the committee, suggested
that a good measure would be if an American history textbook could
appropriately be assigned for the course. The textbook did not actually have to
be assigned, but if it reasonably could be, given the syllabus, then the course
was considered to have satisfied the requirements for the revised category K/
SUNY American history requirement.
Most
faculty were very responsive. In the case of some contested political science
and sociology courses, the departments elected to remove the courses from
D.E.C. category K, because the courses could not be modified to meet the new
standards without a significant change in curriculum. In addition, some
instructors chose not to submit materials, and therefore these courses had to
be removed from the category.
Of
the 38 courses challenged by SUNY, 22 were approved and 16 were removed, of
which 9 were not contested by the department or instructor. The 22 approved
courses include several special topics courses which were approved with a new
general description and the provision that departments must submit the topic to
the college before the scheduling deadline. If the assistant dean for
scheduling and curriculum, an ex officio member of the committee, has concerns
about the appropriateness of the topic for the category, she will bring it to
the curriculum committee for review.
In
February, the committee learned that Provost Salins wanted to receive syllabi
for the courses that the committee had approved for the American history
requirement. While Deputy Provost Aronoff had agreed to this before the
committee had undertaken its review, the committee chair had refused. In
soliciting syllabi and additional information from faculty, the committee had
made clear that syllabi would be used only for review by the committee and
would not be released by the committee to any other parties. Committee members
offered to make the committee minutes available to the SUNY provost, as these
clearly demonstrated the methods the committee had used and showed that they
had operated in good faith. This offer was rejected, but DeFilippo agreed to a
conference call with the committee; this agreement was subsequently retracted.
Next
DeFilippo suggested that the committee use the PACGE approval templates to
submit course information. Because these templates included the request to list
readings and topics, the curriculum committee objected, since these are in
effect the contents of a syllabus. There was also concern on the part of the
committee, raised by the templates themselves and by language in the
communication from SUNY, that Provost Salins would use the templates to make a
final judgment on the courses, contrary to the original agreement between
DeFilippo and Aronoff, in which the committee would make the final judgment. On
the issue of syllabi, the committee appealed to the Senate Executive Committee
and the full Senate for support in its refusal to provide syllabi and their
support was gratefully received. The Senate resolved that the committee should
not submit syllabi, nor should it submit reading lists or lists of topics.
The
committee chair suggested to Provost McGrath that the PACGE approval templates
could be used and submitted to Provost Salins, provided the questions about
reading lists and topics were deleted. The templates were prepared and
submitted to Provost McGrath in June. They included any additional descriptive
material provided by the instructor and included a record of the committee’s
deliberation about each course. On July 31, Provost McGrath received a letter
from DeFilippo, rejecting the submission and requesting submission of topical
outlines and readings. The committee chair has refused to comply with this
request. The dean of the College of Arts and Sciences has written to faculty of
the relevant courses and requested submission either of a topical outline and
sample readings or a syllabus for possible submission to SUNY.