Minutes
Undergraduate Council
(April 11, 2008)

Present:  Michael Barnhart, Brian Colle (chair), Cynthia Dietz, Donna DiDonato, Arlene Feldman, Sarah Fuller, Rick Gatteau, Norm Goodman, Joe Mitchell, Beverly Rivera

The meeting began at 10:10 A.M.

Previous minutes:  The minutes of March 28, 2008 were approved with minor corrections of typos.

Honor Society

Donna D. presented a proposal for a new honor society (National Society of Collegiate Scholars). The Society requires a 3.5 min GPA over the student’s first two semesters. The Society has involved in social activities (tutoring, Spring break to New Orleans to help Katrina victims).

The Council approved the honor society.

Course Packs

Michael B. provided a short update of the Course Packs. He presented three potential models to follow based on other universities:

  • Harvard: Faculty must go to a XAnadu company (St. Louis, MO), which secures the copyright clearance and copies to sell.
  • Brown: Faculty must secure copyright themselves, and information is sent to university printing office.
  • Carleton College: Faculty member sends copyright request to a central office at Carleton, which is forwarded to the printing office on campus.

Next step is to get some cost estimates from FSA.

DEC Discussion

Brian passed out the latest draft on the UGC summary of the DEC and Skills discussions.

Donna mentioned that there may be concerns about the burden of credits and the number of DEC courses on the students.

Norm stated that the burden of credits is within a number of majors that require a relatively high number of credits (60-70).

Colle requested a vote on a few issues related to DEC summary document.

A large majority (10-1) of the UGC believes that the current DEC is working philosophically and pedagogically.

All members of the UGC feel as though the DEC is broken in many respects (Skill 4 vs DEC K anomaly, more D.E.C. D courses, …).

Several edits were made to the document on the UGC summary of the D.E.C. Colle will finish the document before the end of the semester.

Mark Aronoff and Provost Kaler will visit the UGC before the end of the semester to discuss the D.E.C.

The UGC is awaiting review by the Curriculum Committee of the survey questions of the upper-division writing requirement.
 

The meeting ended at 11:10 A.M.

Respectfully submitted,
Brian Colle