Core Education Committee

Voting members present: Andrea Allan, Vipin Arora, Aidas Banaitis, Abigail Crowell, Liz Delf, Kelsey Emard, Daniel Faltesek, Matthew Kennedy, Lori McGraw, Brian Mills, Holly Mitchell, Kari-Lyn Sakuma, Paula Weiss
Voting members absent: None absent
Ex-officio members present: Core Education – McKenzie Huber; Curriculum Management – Stephanie Baugh; Ecampus – Karen Watte; General Education Assessment – Heath Henry; WIC - Ashley Holmes
Guests: Troy Hall, Michael Jefferis, Kristin Nagy Katz, Andrew Valls

Course Reviews

• MUS 109   Native American Flute                                               Arts & Hum – General
  • Send back and ask about critical thinking?
    • Arguably, listening to and commenting on the musical aspect by students who are not focused on music as a study can be employing critical thinking.
  • Traditionally incredibly high enrollment with one instructor and no additional support.
    • The Learning Outcome & Criteria Report states it needs to be capped at 40, but it’s had up to 170 students before.
      • If they want to go over 40, they will need a plan for support.
  • Suggest holding the course and contact the fiduciary about the concerns around support for the course.
    • The chairs will contact the administrator to go over concerns.
• ART 204   Into to Western Art: Prehistory to High Middle Ages        Arts & Hum – General
  • They indicate a plan to adopt Open Educational Resources (OERs) but there is not yet one implemented.
  • Multiple typos in the syllabus.
  • Uncertain how the final project will be structure to meet all three Learning Outcomes (LOs). Not a lot of information is provided about the final project.
  • There does not seem like a lot of opportunity for feedback and assessment.
  • It is still a fit for its current Baccalaureate Core category of Western Culture.
  • It needs a lot of reworking.

Action: Motion to rollback with requests for 1) more specificity in how the final project assesses each of the LOs; 2) use the required verbatim Core Ed statement for the Corvallis section syllabus; 3) add detail about when formative feedback to students occurs early in the term; and 4) fix the grammatical errors in the syllabus and ensure that the Ecampus syllabus assignments add up to 100%. The chairs will follow up for administrative support; seconded. The motion passed with 14 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

• HST 238   Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini                                               Arts & Hum – General
  • LO 2 – projects are very low stakes for this LO.
    • Also assessed through in class participation which has a higher weight.
    • Can we assess an essential assignment through participation?
  • Part of LO 3 essential assignment seems to also cover LO 2.

Action: Motion to approve; seconded. The motion passed with 13 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 1 abstention.

• H 419       Professionalism & Leadership in Public Health                Beyond I & II
  • The curriculum management office will automatically add pre-requisites.

Action: Motion to approve; seconded. The motion passed with 14 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

• H 244       Science of Human & Planetary Health                           Scientific Inquiry
  • What kind of science class is it? Is it a basic science class? Is it a human or natural science class?
  • Course focuses primarily on application rather than on basic science; unclear how scientific concepts are taught; it is unclear how the week 3 lab (air pollution measurement and sources) address LO 1 (scientific language and concepts) and LO2 (cyclical process of science)
    • Requirement for basic science from the LOCR:
      Be centered on fundamental scientific concepts, laws, and theories that broadly characterize basic (rather than applied) natural science. Basic science is defined as science seeking to expand knowledge of empirical phenomena, regardless of the short-term application of that knowledge. The immediate goal of basic science is knowledge for knowledge’s sake.

Action: Motion to send back and request that they explain how the course is a basic, natural science course; seconded. The motion passed with 13 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 1 abstention.

• PSY 366    Empowering Climate Action for a Sustainable Future       Seeking Solutions
  • Some redundancy with College of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences (CEOAS) as they were proposing a similar course, but PSY claims it was worked out.
    • CEOAS claims otherwise – says that PSY has not reached out with them to fix this.
  • Doesn’t focus much on the ‘empowerment’ side.
  • Essential assignment for LO 4 does not assess teamwork.
  • LO 3 – audience not specified.
    • It looks like there’s a comment from the proposer about the target audience at the bottom of the proposal: “Stakeholder groups will be identified by the student groups, depending on the specific climate-related problem they chose to address. These groups may include public health organizations, educational institutions, or groups actively engaged in climate activism.” Maybe that could be added to the proposal itself

Action: Rollback with requests for 1) clarify domains of problems examined in LO1; 2) identify the stakeholder audiences for LO3 in the CIM proposal and syllabus; and 3) clarify the conversations that have happened with CEOAS and get another liaison comment from them; seconded. The motion passed with 13 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

• ANTH 374 Biosocial Approaches to Global Health Inequity               Seeking Solutions
  • Seems well put together for the category.
    • Can supervision extend into office hours?
  • College of Health (COH) put in a liaison comment and ANTH states that they met with the dean to make sure there were not conflicts. No indication from COH that there are any further problems, but chairs will follow-up for confirmation.
  • LO 4 – it would be nice to see more of how the instructor provides feedback on the Ecampus syllabus.
    • They haven’t quite gotten into redevelopment so that might change.
  • Discuss further at the October 24 meeting, after following-up with the COH liaison.
• PHL 477    Psychedelics, Spirituality, and Healing                          Seeking Solutions
  • Discuss at the next meeting.
• HST 444   The Nuclear Age                                                       Seeking Solutions
  • Discuss at the next meeting.
• AEC 250   Intro to Environmental Econ & Policy                            Social Science
  • Previously sent back citing multiple issues.
  • They addressed most of the issues but could have been more specific on LO 1. They just mention ‘governmental and non-governmental institutions’.
    • They did broaden institutional response, even if it’s lacking some specificity.
    • “A variety of economic institutions are studied where the degree of organization/collusion between consumers and producers may result in competitive to monopolistic institutions, including oligopolies, duopolies, and monopolistic competition. The influence of government and non-governmental institutions on the formation of types of economies is also considered.”

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

• HDFS 240 Human Sexuality                                                      Social Science
  • Discuss at the next meeting.
• GEOG 203 There is No Plan(et) B                                               Social Science
  • Discuss at the next meeting.