ILLINOIS TECH UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES COMMITTEE

Meeting Minutes

Tuesday January 13, 2026

12:45pm

Online via Zoom

(pdf version available here)

Attending Voting Members: Erin Hazard (HASS), Erdal Oruklu (ECE), Murat Vural (MMAE), Promila Dhar (BME), Jade Hutchinson (SGA), Victor Perez-Luna (CHBE), Fred Weening (AMAT), John Twombly (SSB), Jeremy Hajek (ITM), Nicole Legate (PSYC), Emily Leiner (PHYS), Matthew Bauer (CS), Andy Howard (BIOL), Stephen Kleps (CAEE), Cynthia Torres (substituting for Kindon Mills (ARCH))

Chairing Meeting: Kathir Krishnamurthy

Also Attending: Joe Gorzkowski (UGAA), Ishaan Goel (student), Katherine Quiroa (UGAA), Melisa Lopez (Student Success & Retention), Yasmin Rodriguez-Escutia (Armour Acad Advisor), Nicole Novak (Libraries), Nick Menhart (VP Assessment and Accreditation), Jeff Wereszczynski (VP Acad Affairs), Diane Fifles (Univ Accred), Kevin Cassel (VP Acad Transformation), Melanie Jones (Armour Acad Advisor), Keigo Kawaji (Armour), Mary Jorgenson Sullivan (ELS), Taylor Rojas (UGAA), Keith Alexander (UGAA), Carrie Hall (Armour), Rich Klein (SSB), Brian Casario (ELS), Gabrielle Smith (UGAA)

Quorum was reached and the meeting was started at 12:46pm

1. Approval of the proposed meeting agenda. Kathir Krishnamurthy shared the proposed agenda. Matt Bauer moved to accept the agenda and this was seconded by Jeremy Hajek. Kathir asked if there were any additional items or other changes to be made; there were none. The motion passed without objection or abstention.

2. Approval of Meeting minutes. The minutes for the UGSC meeting on December 9, 2025  had previously been made available on the UGSC website.  Matt Bauer moved to accept the minutes and this was seconded by Jeremy Hajek. The motion passed without objection or abstention.

3. The next item was on some changes to both the B.S. in Computer Science and the B.S. in Computer Information Systems programs  .  

Matt Bauer described the changes being proposed.

• The first change was the addition of a specialization in Artificial Intelligence He indicated that it requires students to take CS 480 and then select 3 other courses from a list of about ten 400 and 500 level CS courses. This specialization won’t require students to take courses beyond the credits listed in these programs as the courses required for the specialization can count in the categories of CS electives or free electives in the program.
• The other change that is being proposed is a change in the wording used in the programs to describe what courses can be used to fulfill computer science electives. Currently the allowed CS courses are described and then a few specific courses (two ECE courses) from outside the CS department are listed along with a statement that other courses from outside the department are allowed if prior CS departmental approval is given. The new wording essentially removes the listing of the few specific courses from outside the CS department while retaining the option to get prior CS departmental approval for courses outside of the department.

Kathir asked Matt how this would affect the two ECE courses which are currently specifically listed as counting as CS electives. Matt responded that they can still be used, so long as students petition for CS departmental approval. There are many other courses that could be petitioned in this manner; too many courses to list specifically in the program. This petition process is handled within degreeworks and Academic Affairs is familiar with the process.  

Nick Menart asked if there was a revised assessment report in light of the new specialization being proposed. Matt indicated that the specialization is not a requirement in the program and that he didn’t believe a revised assessment plan was needed. He said that the courses that the CS department uses for assessment are all required courses of CS majors. None of the courses in the specialization are required. There was more back and forth debate between Nick and Matt, but no consensus was reached. Nick indicated that they would continue their discussion outside of the UGSC meeting time.

There was no further discussion. It was the view of the committee that these should be classified as minor changes to the programs. Fred Weening moved to accept the proposed changes and Victor Perez-Luna seconded the motion. The motion passed without objection or abstention.

4. Next on the agenda were proposed changes to the Bachelor of Science in Applied Cybersecurity and Information Technology.

Jeremy Hajek presented the changes in the proposal.  He indicated that this program, which is usually referred to by the acronym ACIT, currently has a Calculus based math requirement. However, speaking generally, students in an ITM department usually do not follow a Calculus based math sequence.

The proposal would lower the math requirements of the ACIT program from the requirement of 20 credits down to 9 credits, fulfilled by some courses that the Math department designed specifically for students in ITM: MATH 180 Fundamentals of Discrete Math and Math 192 Finite Math, as well as a non-Calculus based statistics course: MATH 225, or PSYC 203 or BUS 222. This reduction of 11 credits would allow one free elective to be added to the program and still decrease the total number of required credits from 129 to 121.

This will enable students to graduate quicker not just because of the reduction of overall credits, but also because many of the current ITM students must take College Algebra (Math 147) and/or PreCalculus (Math 148) in order to satisfy the prerequisites of the first of the Math required courses: Math 151. Following the proposed new, non-Calculus  based Math courses would allow students to not have to take Math 147 or Math 148

Murat Vural asked if this would have any impact on accreditation rules of the program. Jeremy responded that currently the program does not have its own accreditation. The department does have ABET accreditation for another program and the faculty voted that in light of budgetary constraints it would not try to maintain two ABET accreditations at this time. However, if the department does want to get ABET accreditation at a future time, the math requirements in the proposal are in line with what ABET requires.

Keigo Kawaji asked if students came into Illinois Tech with Calculus credits, say from an AP test, could they use that toward their math requirements. Jeremy responded that the department discussed this and decided it would be better to count the in-coming Calculus course as a free elective in their program. But based on the student profile from recent years, this isn’t a situation that they expect to occur frequently, if at all.

Matt Bauer said that when this program was originally proposed by Ray Trygstad and Bob Carlson the argument for why the program should grant a Bachelor’s of Science was because of the Calculus based math requirement. He asked: if these requirements are replaced with non-Calculus based math courses, should the program no longer give students a Bachelor’s in Science degree. Jeremy said that this was a good question, but not one that came up internally. He asked Joe Gorzkowski if there were any rules regarding what constitutes a BS program vs just a Bachelor’s program. Joe indicated that there weren’t any university rules that he was aware of and that there are other programs that offer a BS that don’t require Calculus. Matt countered that in this specific case, as he recalls, the convincing factor of getting UGSC to go along with the program offering a BS was that the advanced courses students were required to take were Calculus based.

Gabe Smith pointed out that if the Math requirements are changed as proposed, then this program is very similar to the Bachelor’s in ITM. Jemery concurred saying that the difference is that in the Bachelor’s in ITM students have more free electives, while in this program much of those free electives are replaced with 6 specific cybersecurity courses. Gabe’s point was in support of Matt’s contention:  since the Bachelor’s in ITM is not a B.S. program, then this one being similar should also not be a B.S. program.

Jeremy saw the logic in this argument and said he would bring this back to his department. He asked whether it was necessary to withdraw the current proposal. Fred Weening indicated that he didn’t think that was necessary. Revising a proposal based on feedback from discussion at UGSC is part of the normal process.

5. Other Business

Kathir asked if there was any other business for the committee to consider. There was none.

Andy Howard  moved that the meeting be adjourned and this was seconded by Victor Perez-Luna.  There was no objection.

The meeting adjourned at 1:18 pm.