Core Education Committee

Oregon State University Faculty Senate

Meeting of the Core Education Committee
June 4, 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, Lori McGraw, Brian Mills, Holly Mitchell, Kari-Lyn Sakuma, Dave Stemper, Paula Weiss

Committee members absent: Vipin Arora

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)

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.

• Core Education Implementation
  • Core Education has officially launched. There will be a reception after the June 12 Faculty Senate meeting.
  • The Core Ed document includes a description of the Core Ed program and its five principles.
    • Broad Interest and import to a wide range of OSU students.
    • Core Education as their primary purpose.
    • Students who transfer should have equitable opportunities to those who start as freshman.
    • Core Education should be taught by faculty with expertise in the topic covered by the course.
    • The number of course options within each category may and should vary but avoid an overabundance of offerings that is difficult to meaningfully assess.
  • The Core Ed document includes practices to maintain principles.
    • Evaluate enrollments in Core Ed courses to ensure they serve students broadly
    • The Core is fully provisioned as of Summer 2025. During 2025-2027, changes will be kept to a minimum to allow for data collection, assessment and evaluation before making any substantial changes. New courses will require:
      • A statement of intent that demonstrates a need.
      • Includes a proposed course description, justification and data demonstrating student need.
      • The Core Ed Committee will decide whether the program will be invited to submit the course for the Core Ed curriculum based on the details provided and based on the principles and practices described in the document.
  • How do we ensure expertise in the long run? That will need to be managed by the administration of the colleges. There was a comment that some faculty may be unhappy about the Statement of Intent (SOI) process and that their courses may not be approved. And what should the committee do with SOIs that have been denied? Can additional questions be added to the CIM form to address some of the items in this process? It was noted that perhaps a revision to Principle 4 might be a good idea. Suggested verbiage: Core Education courses should be taught within a discipline that includes relevant expertise for that Core Ed category.  
  • Revisions to be brought back to the committee for further discussion:
    • Provide guidelines for how departments will gather data.
    • Consider shifting expertise argument away from individual faculty and towards discipline.
    • How will the committee evaluate SOIs – provide a rubric?
    • New Writing Intensive Curriculum (WIC) or Difference, Power, & Oppression – Advanced (DPOA) will need a new program proposal.
    • Communication Plan
• Straw proposers
  • Someone not involved with teaching the class is submitting the course. It was suggested that the committee implement a policy in which the faculty involved with the course is attached to the proposed course in some manner, rather than the course proposed being proposed by a dean or graduate student. The co-chairs will bring some specific verbiage to the committee next week.

Course Reviews

The committee reviewed and discussed the following Core Education proposals.

• TRAL 227 Outside: Sharing your Outdoor Origin Story
  • Some questions around discipline expertise. Formative feedback feels somewhat minimal. Peer feedback would be better given at an earlier point in the process. Unclear what students are learning about developing speech and communication products. What elements are being taught to develop speeches? What communication theory is being used? Clarify what social media platforms are being used?

Action: Motion to rollback TRAL 227: 1) needs Ecampus redevelopment proposal; 2) more depth about how social phenomena are addressed; 3) clarification on what communication theories are used; and 4) providing more formative feedback on low stakes assignments. Friendly suggestion to move peer feedback to the draft stage rather than final submission to allow students to make changes; seconded. The motion passed with 8 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 2 abstentions.

• HST 248 Mexicans in the Making of America
  • This looks like a good course for the program.

Action: Motion to approve HST 248 with a friendly note to add more detail to the syllabus learning outcome (LO) table Column 3; seconded. The motion passed with 11 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

• AHE 212 Greek Life and College Culture on the Big Screen
  • This course will be discussed at another meeting.
• ECON 101 Economics for a Better World
  • All issues have been addressed.

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

• ES 223 African American Experience – New Deal to Present
  • Much better after revisions. Explanation between course LO2 and the essential assignment (EA), the examples are from the past – it would be better if the examples were from the present. However, they do mention there are contemporary examples provided.

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

• ES 221 Introduction to African American Experience
  • Course LO2 does not include a contemporary example. The textbook was updated to a new edition. They make connections to contemporary issues but the focus of the course is historical so what has been provided is the extent of what connections there will be to contemporary content. It was noted that students are only required to take one Difference, Power & Oppression – Foundations (DPOF) course and if they only took this course, they would not be getting the full experience.

Action: Motion to rollback ES 221: without contemporary content this course will not achieve the DPO-F category; given the historical focus of the course, we don't believe this course should be put forward for this category; seconded. The motion passed with 10 votes in favor, 0 votes in opposition and 0 abstentions.

• ED 150 Disability as Diversity: Differences Make Us Human
  • This course will be discussed at another meeting.
• HEST 310 Transdisciplinary Community-Engaged Design Thinking
  • This course will be discussed at another meeting.
• ANTH 251 Language in the USA
  • This course will be discussed at another meeting.
• SW 415 Clinical Documentation and Electronic Communication
  • No writing assignment instruction page. Course LO3 – instructor indicates students are expected to document source used for the paper. The proposer indicates that there is a major assignment of 2000 words and additional writing assignments of an additional 1000 words. This does not add up to the required 5000 words. Students are not asked to show how they integrate content knowledge into writing. There are no peer review assignments, and it is unclear how students interact with one another. No evidence that students are asked to integrate information from more than one source into any of their writing assignments (both academic and professional). Instead, they are asked to integrate their own clinical judgement using multiple factors affecting the client's well-being." Defer this conversation until the WIC director is available to discuss the course.
• HSTS 213 Landscapes and Waterscapes in Indigenous North America
  • The course has met the requirements.

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

• ANS 420 Ethical Issues of Animals in Society
  • This course will be discussed at another meeting.
• SW 214 Culturally Affirming and Nonviolent Communication
  • This course will be discussed at another meeting.
• SOIL 375 Seeking Climate Solutions: Carbon Dioxide Removal
  • This course will be discussed at another meeting.

Adjournment

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