Core Education Committee

Voting members present: Aidas Banaitis, Geoffrey Barstow, Abigail Crowell, Kelsey Emard, Daniel Faltesek, Colin Johnson, Matthew Kennedy, Brian Mills, Rene Reitsma, Kari-Lyn Sakuma, Paula Weiss
Voting members absent: Lori McGraw, Randy Rosenberger
Ex-officio members present: Assessment & Accreditation – Heath Henry; DPO – Natchee Barnd; Ecampus – Karen Watte; WIC – Sarah Perrault
Guests: Stephanie Baugh, Michael Jefferies, Kristin Nagy Katz

Course Reviews

• GEO 100 – R     Natural Disasters: Hollywood Versus Reality – Scientific Inquiry
  • Needed to clarify the essential assignment for Learning Outcome (LO) 1. It’s still listed as an exam in CIM. The course description still talks a lot about lab work.
    • They added a sentence in CIM that mentions ‘lab 1’.
    • But it still doesn’t clarify what type of assignment the essential assignment is.

Action: Motion to roll back and direct them to speak with the co-chairs or Heath Henry to clarify what the committee is looking for; seconded. The motion passed with 9 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

• ENSC 210 – Re-review (R)        Environmental Earth Sciences – Scientific Inquiry
  • Will be discussed next week.
• BOT 101 – R     Botany: A Human Concern – Scientific Inquiry
  • The Core Education Committee (CEC) initially sent it back looking for more information on how it meets LO 3 and more information on the essential assignments for each LO.
  • Response to LO 3 is not particularly strong.
  • Paper in the form of lab report – but did not specify which lab reports.
  • Added course level LOs to syllabus but not in CIM.

Action: Motion to roll back and direct them to speak with the co-chairs or Heath Henry to clarify what the committee is looking for; seconded. The motion passed with 9 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

• ANTH 240        Introduction to Biological Anthropology – Scientific Inquiry
  • Doesn’t seem to quite meet LO 3 with their essential assignment.
    • The overall content of the course is great, it’s the specific prompt that is a problem.
    • There are ways the prompt could be expanded on that would make it great.
  • Does include Open Educational Resources (OER)

Action: Motion to roll back and request more thought be put into the prompt; second. The motion passed with 10 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

• COMM 211        Communicating Online – Comm, Media, Society
  • LO 1 and 2 is marked as using a paper as the essential assignment, but it is a 250-word blog post. It otherwise seems like a solid course.
    • The Assessment team determined it fit the outcome and would work as an essential outcome.

Action: Motion to approve; seconded. The motion passed with 10 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

• HORT 217        Science for Self and Society – Social Sciences
  • LO 2 – Causation & Correlation – specific words not emphasized in the proposal, but it does seem to be covered.
  • Seems to have been made for the category and feels like a good fit.
  • Essential assignment for each LO is the same reflection assignment

Action: Motion to approve; seconded. The motion passed with 10 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

• PPOL 201 – R    Intro to Public Policy – Social Science
  • Sent back for several issues
  • Issues to LO 1 and 3 were addressed but issues with LO 2 have not been adequately addressed.
    • There’s no discussion on how data is collected or how they determine how reliable that data is.
    • How much methodology do we expect out of these classes?

Action: Rollback to get clarification on how social science methods are taught and critical analysis of methods used, and how they use those methods to explain human behavior; seconded. The motion passed with 11 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

• PS 207      Political Communication – Comm, Media, Society
  • Essential Assignment midterm questions do not meet learning outcomes.
  • How can the committee determine where the line is between a political science class and a communication, media, and society class
  • Oral presentations must be down live.
  • No speaking component
  • It’s not clear what kind of and when feedback will be provided.

Action: Motion to rollback to request 1) clarification on live, synchronous oral presentations in both CIM and syllabus, 2) clear outline for instructor and peer to peer feedback in CIM and syllabus, 3) broaden essential assignment for LO 2 to allow comparison of multiple types of political communication, and 4) clarify how exam questions for essential assignment for LO1 assess the LO. Ensure that criteria 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8 are all being fully met; seconded. The motion passed with 11 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

Policies

• Combining Beyond II with other Core Education categories
  • Proposed policy: Beyond OSU II can be combined with either Beyond OSU I, or WIC, or Difference, Power, and Oppression Advanced (DPO-A). Substantial evidence must be provided that LOs and Criteria for both categories are fully addressed.
    • Does combining it with another category add to contact hours?
    • Does combining it with another category it add to faculty workload?
      • Workload concerns
    • How did factor in when courses were dual-listed in the past?
    • College leadership noted that 0-credit courses didn’t generate income or revenue for the faculty teaching these courses and they have courses that meet the criteria that exist in other categories.
    • 7-10 contact hours
    • From the Learning Outcomes, Criteria & Rationale (LOCR) document: Require students to gain insights through participating in experiences that can include but are not limited to: site visits, career fairs, job shadowing, informational interviews, internships, undergraduate research, alternative spring break, or other experiential learning opportunities, capstone experiences.
    • What “career readiness” can look like is quite broad, and an experience is outlined as meeting that requirement.
  • WIC would like to emphasis that nothing under the WIC component should count under the Beyond II category.
    • Stipulate non-displacement
  • DPO Director does not feel it would combine well, especially with DPO-A, and make sure everything is covered adequately.
  • Another difference between WIC and DPO-A is that we have created a policy saying that WIC can be spread across 2-3 classes, which means there is more major-focused content in those classes. Whereas DPO-A is only occurring ever in one class.
  • Options: 1. Policy as written, 2. Firmer policy, 3. special cases, 4. conditionality policy, 5. Policy without DPO-A