Core Education Committee

Voting members present: Aidas Banaitis, Geoffrey Barstow, Abigail Crowell, Kelsey Emard, Daniel Faltesek, Colin Johnson, Lori McGraw, Brian Mills, Rene Reitsma, Kari-Lyn Sakuma, Paula Weiss
Voting members absent: Randy Rosenberger, Matthew Kennedy
Ex-officio members present: Core Education – McKenzie Huber; Ecampus – Karen Watte; Difference, Power & Oppression – Natchee Barnd; WIC – Sarah Perrault
Guests: Pat Ball, Stephanie Baugh, Michael Jefferies, Kristin Nagy Catz, Caryn Stoess

Course reviews

• PAC 175 – Roller Skate & Derby Skills (Baccalaureate Core – Fitness)
  • Culture of Roller Derby
  • Taught at the correct ratio.
  • Proper safety precautions taught and enforced as it is a contact sport.

Action: Motion to approve; seconded. The motion passed with 11 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition, and 0 abstentions.

• PAC 424 – Scuba: Open Water (Baccalaureate Core – Fitness)
  • Recommended pre-requisites of being able to swim a certain yardage and basic survival skills with additional medical checks.
  • These are reasonable barriers.
  • Reasonable fees and supplemental medical insurance.
  • One issue: statement in syllabus that says, ‘reading the syllabus constitutes a contract of adhesion to pay for damages to university equipment in case of damage.’
    • Refers to maintenance and replacement fees of regulators if students damage them.
    • Why is it in the syllabus and not in the contract when students check out the equipment?
    • Should it be in the syllabus?
    • Is it enforceable?
    • Can the committee request that the originator update the language to state “students will be asked to sign a contract” agreeing to pay for maintenance and replacement fees for life saving equipment?

Action: Motion to send back requesting that they revise the language that the syllabus constitutes a financial contract; seconded. The motion passed with 11 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition, and 0 abstentions.

• PAC 320 – ALI: Mountaineering I (Baccalaureate Core – Fitness)
  • Add a pre-requisite as students are getting hurt.
  • The pre-requisite is a PAC course and has a higher sequence number, but the Registrars Office has approved it.

Action: Motion to approve; seconded. The motion passed with 11 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition, and 0 abstentions.

• WR 460 – Writing of the Sea (New Course – WIC)
  • No content issues.
  • Grading seems inconsistent – points, letter grades and percentages are all used.
  • Multiple essays and the word-count is conflicting or incomplete.

Action: Motion to approve but recommend clarity on word-count on assignments and the grading scale be brought into alignment; seconded. The motion passed with 11 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition, and 0 abstentions.

• COMM 218Z – Interpersonal Communication (Core Ed – Comm, Media, Society – second review)
  • More description on the reflection was requested and they did provide some examples, but the questions don’t quite match the definition from Assessment.
    • The questions do address the learning outcome (LO), but they seem more like a discussion or a paper than a reflection.
  • They did not feel that the suggested Open Educational Resource (OER) was a good resource for the course, so it was not considered.
    • Originators noted that the OER support was not good, and it did not encourage them to develop new resources.

Action: Motion to approve with suggestion to refer to the essential assignment as a discussion rather than a reflection and a comment that the co-chairs would pass their comments about OER support; seconded. The motion passed with 10 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition, and 1 abstention.

• GEO 101– Planet Earth (Core Ed – Scientific Inquiry – second review)
  • They provided more detail on how the reflection assignment met the criteria and addressed the reviewers’ previous questions.

Action: Motion to approve; seconded. The motion passed with 11 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition, and 0 abstentions.

• MTH 105Z – Math in Society (Core Ed – Quantitative Analysis – second review)
  • Revisions to the Ecampus syllabus were made.
  • They did look at some OERs but felt paid for tools had better support for students.

Action: Motion to pass with comments for the Curriculum Council that the assessment office is fine with the course using different questions on different exams for assessment; seconded. The motion passed with 12 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition, and 0 abstentions.

• MTH 112Z – Precalculus II: Trigonometry (Core Ed – Quantitative Analysis – second review)
  • The reviewer felt that sufficiently addressed the committee’s concerns related to the LOs and OER
  • They did note that Cascades uses a different book but did not explain in much detail why. Cascades is considering some OER for next year and just made a different selection.

Action: Motion to approve; seconded. The motion passed with 12 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition, and 0 abstentions.

• SUS 103 – Intro to Climate Change (Core Ed – Scientific Inquiry)
  • Will be discussed next week.
• BI 221 – Principles of Biology: Cells (Core Ed – Scientific Inquiry)
  • Will be discussed next week.
• BI 222 – Principles of Biology: Organisms (Core Ed – Scientific Inquiry)
  • Will be discussed next week.
• BI 223 – Principles of Biology: Populations (Core Ed – Scientific Inquiry)
  • Will be discussed next week.