To: Executive Committee, Arts and Sciences Senate
From:
Robert Cerrato, Chair, Undergraduate
Curriculum Committee
Re:
2003-2004 Annual Report
Date:
May 31, 2004
Members of the Committee
for the 2003-2004 academic year were: Michael Barnhart (History, spring only),
Robert Cerrato (Marine Sciences, chair), Arlene
Feldman (Transfer Office), Claire Green-Ford (Undergraduate, spring only),
Elaine Kaplan (College of Arts and Sciences, Committee Secretary), Ada Hasloecher (Undergraduate),
Ellen Lindquist (CAS Graduate Assistant,
observer), Judith Lochhead (Music), Catherine Marrone (Sociology), Anthony Phillips (College of Arts and
Sciences), Malcolm Read (Hispanic Languages and Literature, spring only), Sarah
Sternglanz (Women’s Studies), and Thomas Weinacht (Physics).
The
curriculum committee met 25 times during the 2003-2004 academic year. Two new majors were approved (European
Studies and Asian and Asian American Studies).
There were changes to a number of major and minors (Africana Studies,
Economics), and dozens of new courses were approved. Significant time and effort was spent
resolving pending issues with SUNY System Administration regarding compliance
with the SUNY General Education Requirement, especially the American History
component of the requirement. Routine
matters were handled by the secretary and announced to the committee at each
meeting. Routine matters chiefly
involved deletion of courses and changes of course titles, descriptions, and/or
prerequisites.
Visitors
to the Committee included James Staros, Dean of the
College of Arts and Sciences; Joan Kuchner, President
of the Arts and Sciences’ Senate; Mark Aronof, Deputy
Provost; Norman Goodman, Chair of the Sociology Department, an elected
representative to the SUNY-wide University Faculty Senate, and member of the
Advisory Council on General Education; and David Hanson, Director of
Undergraduate Studies in Chemistry.
A
summary of the Committee’s major activities during the academic year
follows.
Policy
Matters:
SUNY General Education
Requirement: The Committee adopted guidelines for the
submission of general education courses to SUNY System Administration. Upon adoption of the procedures in early
November by the University Senate, approximately 150 courses were forwarded to
SUNY American History
Requirement: In mid-fall, the Committee learned that 22 DEC
K courses that were pending approval for the SUNY American History requirement
had been rejected by the SUNY Advisory Council on General Education. This rejection was final acknowledgement that
we had been unsuccessful in our long-standing attempts to convince SUNY that
our modified DEC K (“The American Experience in Historical Perspective”)
fulfilled the SUNY general education requirement (SUNY-GER) in American
History. Upon receiving the news,
Provost Robert McGrath directed the campus to immediately develop a plan to
comply with the SUNY-GER American History requirement.
The plan, creating a “Skills 4 Competence in American History”, was developed by a group of faculty and administrators and was approved by the University Senate on December 1, 2003. This plan decoupled the SUNY American History requirement from our DEC K. The list of courses that satisfy Skill 4 include some DEC F courses in American History and Government and DEC K courses that SUNY had already approved to meet the SUNY-GER American History requirement.
Skill 4 went into effect for all new students entering the University in Spring 2004 or later. At the time of this memo, the University has not received notification from System Administration that the plan has been approved.
Once
the Skills 4 plan was implemented, the Curriculum Committee felt that it was
appropriate to return DEC K to its original theme (“American Pluralism”) and
course list, since the pluralism component of the curriculum had been lost as a
specific requirement. The Arts and
Sciences’ Senate and the University Senate approved this restoration. Departments that had previously agreed to
move courses from the original DEC K (American Pluralism) to the modified DEC K
(The American Experience in Historical Perspective) were contacted to ask
whether they wished these courses to be returned to DEC K, effective Fall 2004. Most replied affirmatively.
Specializations: PeopleSoft allows specializations
to be noted on students’ transcripts.
This is advantageous to students, since it allows an additional
credential to be added to their official record. The Curriculum Committee was asked by the
Arts and Sciences’ Senate Executive Committee to develop guidelines for listing
specializations on transcripts. The
Committee’s guidelines (appended to this memo) will be taken to the Arts and
Sciences Senate Executive Committee in Fall 2004 for
approval.
A
request from Multidisciplinary Studies for a specialization in Social Sciences
was received. The Committee has requested a more formal course proposal for
discussion in early fall.
Ex-Officio Committee
Members: The Committee proposed,
and the Arts and Sciences’ Senate approved, the addition of two new ex-officio
Committee positions for professional employees.
Beginning in Fall 2004, the committee will
include one professional employee knowledgeable about registration procedures
and graduation requirements and one professional employee knowledgeable about
both general student concerns and transfer student issues.
Web-based Curriculum
Committee forms: New course proposal
forms, crosslisting forms, and guidelines will soon
be available on the
Departmental
Matters:
Africana Studies: Changes
to the AFS major, resulting in a more rigorous set of requirements, were
approved.
Asian and Asian American
Studies: Requirements for a new B.A. program were approved. SUNY System Administration and the State
Education Department must now approve the major. In order to create a cohesive and sensible
numbering system for the several programs joining the AAS department, the
Committee approved revised course numbers for Chinese Studies, India Studies,
Japanese Studies, and Korean Studies.
The Committee also approved several new course proposals and numerous
proposals for temporarily or permanently combining AAS courses with courses in
other departments.
Chemistry: The
Committee approved two one-credit organic chemistry honors courses and, after
requesting that the department consult with affected departments in CAS, CEAS,
and HSC, approved a revision of the second semester of the organic chemistry
course sequence.
Economics: The
Committee approved revised major requirements, proposals to regularize several
topics courses, and changes to the economics honors program. The Committee also approved a proposal to
require a grade of C in prerequisite courses in order to continue in subsequent
economics courses.
English: The
Committee approved a change in prerequisites for upper-division courses to
include EGL 204 as either pre- or co-requisite in order to prevent 204
bottleneck.
European Studies: The
Committee approved a B.A. program, which must now be approved by SUNY System Administration
and the State Education Department.
Several new course proposals were approved as part of the proposed
major.
Mathematics: The Committee approved
an alternative registration procedure for MAT 319 Foundations of Analysis/MAT
320 Introduction to Analysis. Also
approved was the addition of more stringent prerequisites for MAT 205 Calculus
III and MAT 322.
Science
and
Social Sciences
Interdisciplinary Major: The Committee discussed the discontinuation of this major
with Joan Kuchner, the Undergraduate director of the
major, and with Dean James Staros.
Women’s Studies: Prerequisites were revised
for required major courses and special topics courses.
Future
Issues for the 2004-2005 Academic Year:
Gateway Courses and
Potential Grade Inflation: The Committee is
concerned with the request by some units (e.g., the Professional Education
Program and the Department of Mathematics) to require that a grade of B- be
earned in a course in order to proceed to a subsequent course. Members believe that this will lead to grade
inflation because a B- will become the average grade.
Freshman Orientation
Courses: The
Committee learned that both the Undergraduate Council and the CEAS Committee on
Teaching Policy and Curriculum had approved a proposal to require all freshmen
to register for a College-based version of SBU 101 starting this fall. To date, however, the Committee has not
received a proposal from either those proposing this new requirement or from
any governance entity.
SUNY-GER: The Committee is
concerned with the extensive delay in notification about SUNY-GER status for
courses that are submitted by the campus.
As noted above, only 78 of 172 courses, most submitted to SUNY in
November 2003, have been approved as of May 2004, leaving 94 in undetermined
status. We feel strongly that System
Administration, having insisted upon oversight, should either provide an
expedient and transparent procedure for reviewing courses for SUNY-GER
requirements or cede such authority to the campus. The current situation, in the Committee’s
view, is unacceptable and is in urgent need of review.
Arts and
Sciences Senate Undergraduate Curriculum Committee
Guidelines
for Specializations
Spring
2004
The
following guidelines will be used by the Curriculum Committee in reviewing
requests for listing an approved track within a major as a
specialization on the transcript:
1)
To propose listing a specialization, the major must have at least two distinct
tracks. One of these may be considered a
“general” track and need not be listed as a specialization.
2)
For departmental majors, the specialization should be an area of concentrated
study that involves at least 18 upper-division credits within the major.
3)
For interdisciplinary majors such as MTD, the track being proposed for listing
as a specialization must focus study on a single theme. The track must also incorporate all of the
two or three areas of study within the major, and it must involve most of the
upper division courses