Core Education Committee

Voting members present: Andrea Allan, Vipin Arora, Aidas Banaitis, Abigail Crowell, Liz Delf, Kelsey Emard, Daniel Faltesek, Matthew Kennedy, Lori McGraw, Holly Mitchell, Kari-Lyn Sakuma, Paula Weiss
Voting members absent: Brian Mills
Ex-officio members present: Core Education – McKenzie Huber; Curriculum Management – Stephanie Baugh; Difference, Power, and Oppression – Tenisha Tevis; Ecampus – Karen Watte; General Education Assessment – Heath Henry; WIC - Ashley Holmes
Guests: Kristin Nagy Katz, Caryn Stoess

Math Core

• Checking on side effects for transfer students – it should not cause any problems because we are reinstating the status quo.
  • One unit argued we should take this time to raise the math standards.

Course Reviews

• HST 280 – Expedited Review
  • Change of course title.
  • No other changes to the course.

Action: Motion to approve; seconded. The motion passed with 9 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

• PHL 477   Psychedelics, Spirituality, and Healing       Seeking Solutions
  • All essential assignments are associated with the group project.
    • They have not articulated how it assesses all the Learning Outcomes (LOs).
    • Work group can be divided, so how are all students meeting all LOs?
  • Discussion of LO 4 is weak.
  • Course seems to be encompassing many disciplines – how well can it cover all of them?
  • One reviewer believes it is a humanities class that does not fit the category – it has no policy dimension and does not address a global issue.
  • CIM question – how is it attached to biological and natural sciences?
    • They address the question in CIM but they never bring it in in the syllabus or link it back to this question in CIM.
  • Did they go through the Seeking Solutions CADI?
    • Class from the old Baccalaureate Core category.
    • No separate Seeking Solutions training available yet.

Action: Motion to send back to consult with Seeking Solutions fellows, Heath Henry, take essential training, and consider the fundamental alignment of the course to the category; seconded. The motion passed with 10 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 1 abstention.

• HST 444   The Nuclear Age                                     Seeking Solutions
  • Insufficient detail on the assessment of LOs to properly evaluate.
  • Not much of a focus on solutions to the proposed global issue.

Action: Motion to send back with the following: Please provide detail of how all learning outcomes are assessed in the course, the focus on solutions and relationship of future focus to historical dimensions, when do the students develop solutions?; seconded. The motion passed with 10 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 1 abstention.

• ENT 331   Pollinators in Peril                                   Seeking Solutions
  • Generally, looks like a great class.
  • Worked with Seeking Solutions fellows on development.
  • Would like them to do more explicit teamwork earlier in the term, but that would not necessarily be enough to hold the course back.

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

• GEOG 203 There is No Plan(et) B                             Social Science
  • They did a great job explaining how they matched up with the Baccalaureate Core Difference, Power & Discrimination (DPD) LOs.

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

• ANTH 261 Food in American Culture                        Arts & Hum – General
  • Great course.
  • Textbooks are a little old, but they reduce the cost of the course and some of them are free.
  • Is it in our jurisdiction to comment on the title of the course? If the food is focused on US American food culture, should the title reflect that? There are multiple Americas with different food cultures.
    • We could comment and concur with another liaison comment which has addressed this concern but we could always approve a name change later.
    • Recommend conditional approval.
  • Some typos throughout the syllabus.

Action: Motion for conditional approval after: 1) check that numbers of grading/evaluation adds up correctly in both syllabi; 2) fix typos in syllabi; and 3) we recommend making the change to "United States" rather than American in the title, per the liaison comment; seconded. The motion passed with 11 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

• PHL 203   The Meaning of Existence                        Arts & Hum – General
  • The assessment of LO 2 for the essential assignment in CIM seems to be a copy and paste of LO 1 – the assessment part in the syllabus is well done so it may have been an error.
  • The attendance policy penalizes late adds and seems potentially discriminatory.
    • Should the committee push the issue to the Curriculum Council? They have representatives from the Registrar’s Office.

Action: Motion to rollback citing the following concerns: 1) class should be meeting 4 hours a week for a 4-credit class; 2) fix description of LO2 in CIM to explain how that LO specifically is addressed; 3) as students can add within the first week, don't penalize attendance for late adds; seconded. The motion passed with 10 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

• ART 205   Intro to Western Art: Gothic to Baroque    Arts & Hum – General
  • Multiple spelling and grammatical errors across all syllabi.
  • LOs supported well.
  • LO 2 – asking for more detail and better connection between the project and the LO.
  • Lack of formative feedback.
  • There may be some confusion on how they proposer is interpreting the essential assignment from the Learning Outcome, Criteria & Rationale (LOCR) – suggest they go back and reach out to Heath Henry.

Action: Motion to rollback: 1) title is incorrect on Cascades syllabus; 2) fix syllabus typos throughout; 3) assessment/essential assignment for LO2 needs more detail/clarification on how it assess the LO; 4) show how formative feedback happens early in the term and not in the final project at the end of term; and 5) work with Heath Henry on the purpose and roll of the essential assignment related to LOs; seconded. The motion passed with 11 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

• ENG 108   Intro to Science Fiction and Fantasy         Arts & Hum – General
  • Fits well with the category.
  • Wrong verb in LO 1 in Ecampus syllabus.

Action: Motion for conditional approval with updated Ecampus syllabus; seconded. The motion passed with 11 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

• COMM 321          Introduction to Communication Theory     Beyond I
  • Unclear if essential assignment for LO 1 is being properly assessed.
  • Concerning attendance policy:
    • “If you cannot attend a class, please let me know. If circumstances make you miss more than 3 classes during the term, you may be overextended and should drop the class per the University attendance policy (Harnish, p.323).”
  • What is the privacy law that doesn’t let instructors discuss grades over email?
    • Are they potentially referring to FERPA? That would only apply to a non-university email.
  • Needs a redevelopment proposal for Ecampus.
  • It does not sound like there is any career prep.
  • Ecampus syllabus references in-person office hours.
  • Main artifact will be the "Personal Brand" assignment helpfully put together by the career services team. The assignment requires students to think through their strengths, their niche audiences, the 2.0 version of themselves, living their brand, etc.
    • How do they demonstrate this? What is a personal brand? What counts as a personal brand?

Action: Motion to rollback: 1) more detail on how LO1 is embedded into and addressed in this course; 2) how does the exam really assess LO1?; 3) provide a more detailed description of how the personal brand will be used by students moving forward in their career ; 4) edit the course description to better reflect the course content including the career readiness content; 5) ensure the Ecampus syllabus does not direct students to the instructor's in-person office; 6) the attendance policy in the syllabus says that it is OSU policy, which it is not as far as we know; and 7) FERPA policy prevents communicating about grades, etc. with a personal email but not through students' OSU email, please edit the syllabus statement accordingly; seconded. The motion passed with 11 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

• REL 211   Islam in the United States                       DPO-Foundations
  • Great course for the category.

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

• WR 220    Stories of the U.S.-Mexico Border             DPO-Foundations
  • Seems like a good fit for the category.
  • Not a lot of detail on the assignments.
    • Essential assignment description in CIM has more detail – assumes the instructor provides separate instructions to students for assignments.
  • The verbatim text required to be in the syllabus does not spell out the Difference, Power & Oppression (DPO) or Difference, Power & Discrimination (DPD). Does the committee have any policies around acronyms?
    • Acronyms are not ideal for those who are not familiar with them.

Action: Motion to conditionally approve with the request that spell out the acronyms in the verbatim statement; seconded. The motion passed with 10 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

• GEOG 241 Transforming Environmental Conflicts       DPO-Foundations
  • Review next meeting.