Core Education Committee

Oregon State University Faculty Senate

Meeting of the Core Education Committee
May 7, 2025
10:00-11:45 A.m.
Zoom

Minutes

 

Committee members present: Kelsey Emard (Co-chair), Daniel Faltesek (Co-chair), Andrea Allan, Aidas Banaitis, Abigail Crowell, Liz Delf, Matthew Kennedy, Brian Mills, Holly Mitchell, Kari-Lyn Sakuma, Paula Weiss

Committee members absent: Vipin Arora, Lori McGraw, Dave Stemper

Ex-officio members present: Stephanie Baugh (Curriculum Management), Heath Henry (General Education Assessment), McKenzie Huber (Core Education Director), Kali Furman (Difference, Power & Oppression Director), Karen Watte (Ecampus), Ashley Holmes (WIC)

Visitors and staff present: Caitlin Calascibetta (Faculty Senate Office), Andrew Valls (Faculty Senate President), Troy Hall, Michael Jefferis, Kristin Nagy Katz, Caryn Stoess

 

New Business & Information Items

The co-chairs called the meeting to order.

Difference, Power and Oppression – Foundations (DPO-F), Difference, Power and Oppression – Advanced (DPO-A) and Arts and Humanities General and Global will temporarily allow for higher course caps to give colleges more flexibility in managing FTE and budget for the next two years. This also allows for investigation and time to see how things settle during implementation. After two years, permanent changes to the Learning Outcome, Criteria and Rationale (LOCR) document could potentially be proposed to the Faculty Senate. It was also noted that it is up to the college whether they implement the caps or not; raising the caps is an option that gives them some flexibility if they need it. It was acknowledged that there may be some frustration from units who have already managed to work within the current course caps. This temporary change in the course caps was discussed extensively by Academic Affairs and the Faculty Senate Executive Committee.

Open Educational Resources Council awarded Dan Faltesek for the Core Education Committee’s efforts in the implementation of the new Core Education curriculum.

Course Reviews

The committee reviewed and discussed the following Core Education proposals.

• BI 371 Ecological Methods (3rd review)
  • Cascades is only teaching this course one more time. Otherwise meets minimum category requirements.

Action: Motion to conditionally approve pending Corvallis syllabi with correct WIC Learning Outcomes (LOs), and a note about the Cascades only being planned for one more offering; seconded. The motion passed with 11 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

• DS 201 Introduction to Data Science
  • One reviewer did not feel like it was a good fit for the category. The application of math does not reach the level of what is wanted for this category. The scope of mathematic tools is very narrow. The other reviewer felt like the Learning Outcomes (LOs) did meet the LOCR requirements for the category but was unsure if this counted as applied. The assessment office compared this course to a previously approved statistics course, and it had some similarities, but this course did not get to math until a couple of weeks into the course. Some more detail from the originator to determine if this is an applied course might be beneficial.

Action: Motion to rollback with notes: the committee sees the potential for a data science course to fill quantitative data literacy knowledge gaps relevant to the Quantitative Literacy and Analysis category. To illustrate how the course meets all the category LOs and criteria, please provide more detail about the mathematical concepts, problem-solving, and calculations that students will be learning in this course. Further, we need to see how this meets the category criteria of not being discipline-specific or focusing on applications but being fundamentally about mathematical concepts and reasoning; seconded. The motion passed with 11 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

• REL 214 Introduction to Islamic Traditions
  • Met the category and has no major issues but could use more details on how the LOs are assessed. Maybe suggest that Corvallis uses the same language the Ecampus uses for its assignment descriptions.

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

• HST 225 The Crusades
  • The proposal looks great and has no issues

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

• REL 217 Introduction to Christian Traditions
  • The course is a good fit for the category.

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

• ANTH 231 Pseudoscience in Archeology: Fact, Fiction, and Fantasy
  • The course covers a very interesting topic, but it does not get deep enough into doing science to meet the category. The course is more of an information literacy course.

Action: Motion to rollback ANTH 231 with notes: revisions are needed to make this course a basic science course with scientific lab work; the current course structure is more focused on scientific literacy and how to tell fact from fiction through analysis of secondary sources, which does not meet the LOCR; they must include scientific research on primary data; seconded. The motion passed with 11 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

• ANTH 253 Anthropology of Childhood
  • It is a well done proposal and meets the category but it is unclear if it is an introduction to subfield of social sciences. It may be an introduction to cultural anthropology but it largely focuses on childhood and there is already a cultural anthropology course.

Action: Motion to rollback with note: It is unclear how the course meets the category criterion of being an intro to a social science field rather than a topical course within a social science field (you already have intro courses for all of anthropology's subfields, so how does this relate to those?); seconded. The motion passed with 11 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

• DSGN 496 Biomimicry: Solving Human Challenges with Inspiration from Nature
  • The course needs to define a problem scope as per the LOCR document, as the committee cannot evaluate if it meets many different requirements. The class has a singular solution which may not be appropriate either on its own (as it solves all problems) or because the solution is intended for use in the delivery of physical products, thus the committee must at least re-evaluate the solution in the context of actual problems or perhaps call for a more democratic vision of the problem. A third issue raised was that the definition of :"nature" used in the course poses simple answers to the wicked problems of the course.

Action: Motion to rollback with note: Please clarify how you will 1) ensure the problems examined each term meet the requirements of the category LOs and criteria and create some guardrails around the types of problems that would be acceptable; 2) what you mean by biomimicry as a solution - is this really always the solution? is the solution pre-determined?; 3) expansion of the social science or humanities content utilized in this course; and 4) add clarity on the student group size and plan for evaluating teamwork skills; seconded. The motion passed with 11 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

• SOC 465 Sustainability in Ecological Systems, Culture, and Society
  • The course is only taught in Spring with a week in Aruba. It was unclear if the journal for LO2 met the outcome, but some deeper evaluation determined that it did. The course is a good topical fit for the category. It needs to be switched to Corvallis remote, rather than Ecampus. However, there is some debate over the exact modality label – Corvallis campus hybrid or Corvallis remote hybrid.

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

• KIN 415 Challenges in Exercise, Sport and Health
  • This proposal was held until the next meeting.
• SOIL 375 Seeking Climate Solutions: Carbon Dioxide Removal
  • This proposal was held until the next meeting.
• ECON 101 Economics for a Better World
  • Good class for the category. EAs for each LO have some minor issues.

Action: Motion to rollback with note: excellent proposal, just needs to clarify how the essential assignments will require students to address all parts of the LOs (racism for LO2 and LO3; how ascribed differences impact self and others for LO3); seconded. The motion passed with 11 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

• PHL 225 Love, Sex, and Desire
  • This proposal was held until the next meeting.
• HSTS 213 Landscapes & Waterscapes in Indigenous North America (3rd review)
  • This proposal was held until the next meeting.
• SW 204 Antiracism and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Practice (2nd review)
  • This proposal was held until the next meeting.
• SW 205 Affirming Neurodiversity (2nd review)
  • This proposal was held until the next meeting.
• SW 414 Advocacy for Human Rights and Social Justice
  • This proposal was held until the next meeting.
• SW 214 Culturally Affirming and Nonviolent Communication
  • This proposal was held until the next meeting.
• SW 211 Dignifying Death (2nd review)
  • This proposal was held until the next meeting.

Adjournment

With no further discussion or business before the committee, the co-chairs adjourned the meeting.