Attending Voting Members: PPromila Dhar (BME), David Gidalevitz (PHYS), Boris Glavic (CS), Erin Hazard (HUM), Steve Kleps (CAEE), Eva Kultermann (ARCH), Nicole Legate (PSYC), Yuting Lin (BIOL), Yuri Mansury (SSCI), David Maslanka (AMAT), Erdal Oruklu (ECE), Victor Perez-Luna (CHBE), Ray Trygstad (ITM/Secretary), John Twombly (SSB), Murat Vural (MMAE), Fred Weening (Chair), Ben Zion (CHEM)

Also Attending: Diane Fifles (University Accred), Joseph Gorzkowski (UGAA), Khalilah Guyton-Hamlin (Registrar), Kyle Hawkins (AMP), Mary Haynes (UGAA), Jasmine Johnson (UGAA), Melanie Jones (Armour Academy), Christopher Lee (Registrar), Melisa Lopez (Student Success & Retention), Gabriel Martinez (Armour Academy), Nick Menhart (CCAC), Kathleen Nagle (ARCH), Nichole Novak (Libraries), Shamiah Okhai (LCSL), Joseph Orgel (VPAA), Georgia Papavasiliou (Armour), Hannah Ringler (HUM/CAC), Zipporah Robinson (Academic Success ), Gabrielle Smith (UGAA), Kathryn Spink (Past Chair), Mary Jorgenson Sullivan (ELS), Liad Wagman (SSB/CSL), Jeff Wereszczynski (PHYS/BIOL)

1. Approval of minutes from the 9/26/2023 meeting.
   Eva Kulterman moved for approval of the 9/26/2023 minutes and Benjamin Zion seconded.
   The minutes were approved unanimously.

2. Updates from Academic Affairs.

Joseph Orgel’s remarks in summary:
Item One: Dual credit authorizations will be requested of this committee, for the first time, and we will see this soon. This is not just dual enrollment, but dual credit. Dual enrollment is not new; this is where students are in high school and are also enrolled in the university. Dual credit is simultaneously counting the same credits between their high school class and the undergraduate class that they are registered for.

Second item: There was substantive discussion in the Graduate Studies Committee about 400/500 cross-listing. We wanted to notify UGSC that this discussion was occurring which we should bring back to this committee as well. Crosslisting at the same level is very straightforward, and the best way to keep it straightforward is to keep it the same. Crosslisting between levels, and especially between undergraduate and graduate is a regulated activity. HLC expressly cited us for not doing this in an accountable manner. This is also straightforward if we all keep ourselves on the same page. You can have the same curriculum, same content, same lectures, same experience in the classroom—as long as the expectation and the grading and the assessment is different between the undergraduate and the graduate level. We are updating language for the Bulletin to reflect that, because it has not been expressly clear. It will also be essential for HLC for us to point out that “Hey we listened and we took action.”

The last part: Everyone knows we have spent time in discussing the Core Curriculum. This is necessary and it is good and healthy. The Provost is now in the process of appointing a task force to reform core curriculum. It is coming imminently. It will be data driven and future looking. In the meantime we must define learning objectives for our existing Core Curriculum. There is no putting it off into the future; the Core Curriculum we have now will very likely be in effect the next time we are visited and the next time we are assessed. That’s the kind of workflow that senior leadership is looking for at this time.

There were no questions for Joseph Orgel following his remarks.

3. Illinois Articulation Initiative update by Shamiah Okhai.

   Illinois Tech is now a full participating member, and thanks to everyone who worked to make this happen. We have two people sitting on major panels for the Illinois Articulation Initiative, Solomon Kang on the Major Business Panel and Shamiah Okhai on the Communication Panel.

   Our next step is maintaining full participation, which involves continuous collaboration with faculty, UGSC, and academic units regarding the review of courses. Our review of courses is every five years so the first sequence will be in 2025. We will reach out to the courses when it is time but we do not have any major concerns.

   Serving on an IAI Panel counts as faculty service. We have openings for faculty in the Humanities/Fine Arts Panel, the Life Sciences Panel, and Mathematics. If you are interested contact me [Shamiah Okhai] or Freddie Estrada in Admissions.

   The Core Curriculum Carve Outs at Illinois Tech means students will need to take an additional 12-15 credits outside of IPRO and ITP to complete their Core Curriculum. This is not aligned with IAI and is outlined as not aligned with IAI policy. We can have carve outs to meet institution-specific guidelines but we cannot have an additional semester of carve outs required.

   Discussion: A correction; MATH 151 and 152 will be part of courses to be reviewed in 2025. Nick Menhart points much of the “carve out” courses are part of most departmental requirements, especially additional math, science and CS. Also noted is the fact that an AAS degree may be better aligned with our degrees as a STEM–focused school. Do we want to keep our status as a STEM-focused school or become more general education focused? Joseph Orgel noted that Illinois Tech is the only engineering school in the region and it is to be expected that we will be an outlier. The question of how do we want to continue to be will be a good reflection for faculty governance and for the [Core Curriculum] Task Force. We should not be too reactionary in looking at our numbers. He also noted that Academic Affairs has provided numbers of COM student and will be getting a list of programs and students in free electives. Katie Spink reiterated that we are a STEM institution and IAI is not really geared towards STEM institutions. She noted that the IAI General Education Core Curriculum (GECC) requires students must not be required to to take additional lower-level general education requirements and our carve outs are upper-level requirements These were compromises that we reached. The carve outs are there because of upper-level requirements and because we a STEM institution. Joseph Orgel noted that we have an enormous enrollment potential because of our distinctiveness. Distinctiveness is why students are coming here. These core requirements are part of what makes us distinctive. We can be inclusive and yet maintain standards, so we need to be nuanced and considered on things such as how transferable do we need to to be, versus how valuable is our curriculum, versus how do we onboard students and make our curriculum accessible to them. We much consider each of these three things to continue to be a distinctive and an elite institution. Shamiah Okhai noted that faculty serving on GECC Panels can help drive this.

4. New Program: the Bachelor of Science in Game Production Management was presented by John Twombly.

   Liad Wagman, Carly Kocuric, and John Twombly believe this would be quite good for game management students. The program was presented and is linked above. It will be a degree offered jointly by Business and Humanities. Business statistics will be included as a math elective. This is submitted as an incubator program degree. This was the first presentation of this degree.

5. Program Revision: Entrepreneurship Specialization in the Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (BSBA) degree was presented by John Twombly.

   The Entrepreneurship specialization is to be revised as linked above but there is a need to remove BUS 361 from the specialization, as it is already a required business course. This resulted from a cross-listing of IPROs as BUS 361 and this will need to be corrected. It was tabled pending that correction of the revision.

6. Proposed Learning Outcomes for Humanities (H) courses were presented by Erin Hazard.

   This proposal [linked above] was previously presented as part of proposed Core Curriculum changes but action is required for accreditation assessment purposes.

   1. Students will:
      1. Be able to articulate questions about human expressions and experiences.
      2. Demonstrate understanding of the language and concepts of the humanities and arts.
      3. Produce original work of creative expression (e.g., creative writing, argumentative research paper, fine arts).

   After a brief discussion ensuring university accreditation supported this proposal, a motion to approve the proposed Learning Outcomes was made by Promila Dahr and was seconded by Eva Kultermann.
   The motion was approved 13-0 unanimously.

7. Proposed Learning Outcomes for Communications-intensive (C) courses were presented by Erin Hazard.

   We are proposing to reintroduce this proposal [as linked above] but we will hold focus groups later in the semester to allow faculty from across the university to give input before we introduce them to UGSC for a vote. We have seen these twice and have isolated them from the Core Curriculum. We welcome further responses but we are not bringing them for a vote at this time.

8. A report on current Learning Outcomes for core curriculum letter designations was presented as an informational item by Mary Jorgenson Sullivan.

   We wanted to bring all of these forward as we move through the Core Curriculum. We’re just highlighting a couple of these. The third Learning Objective in Natural Science was not being achieved because there was not enough time to cover the material and has since been revised to read “Students will be able to demonstrate an understanding of the societal relevance and concepts and contemporary issues in the natural sciences…” This was revised as a result of assessment. These are the learning objectives that Core Curriculum courses need to be assessed based on.

9. Nominations for Core Curriculum Subject Subcommittee Chairs presented by Fred Weening

   We need to have a list of subcommittee chairs for each of the Core Curriculum letters. They are not involved with assessment—that is the work of the Core Curriculum Assessment Committee. Subcommittee Chairs would call a meeting with members of the committee, formed ad-hoc, when a course is proposed to get a certain designation. They would look at these [Core Curriculum] Learning Outcomes and the course syllabus and other materials and determine if the course would in fact meet the [Core Curriculum] Learning Outcomes. I did receive a few nominations via email [presented on screen and shown below]. If we can add to this list, I will contact the people on this list to see if they are willing to serve and then we can take a vote. We are missing quite a few Subcommittee Chairs.

   Mary Jorgenson Sullivan has also reached out to people who may be willing to serve and some are seeking clarification. Fred Weening noted that in may cases these committees will meet only via email and may not even meet in some semesters, so it is not terribly time consuming.

   Katie Spink noted that she has served as Chair of the Natural Sciences Subcommittee for a long time and would be willing to be on the committee but would like to give someone else the chance to serve as Chair.

   Yuri Mansury noted that Chris Meyer is willing to serve on the Social Science Subcommittee.

   Mary Jorgenson Sullivan noted that Erin Hazard has volunteered to Chair the Humanities Subcommittee.

   Note: Hannah Ringler is chairing Communication (C)

10. Other Business.

    There was no other business.

As there was no further discussion it was moved by Yuri Mansury that the meeting be adjourned. The motion was seconded by Boris Glavic and with unanimous approval, the Chair adjourned the meeting at 1:30pm.