ILLINOIS TECH UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES COMMITTEE

Meeting Minutes

Tuesday, October 22, 2024

12:45pm

Online via Zoom and In-person in PS-152

(pdf version available here)

Attending Voting Members: Fred Weening (AMAT), Braja Mandal (CHEM), Ishaan Goel (SGA), Matthew Bauer (CS), Eva Kultermann (ARCH), Ray Trygstad (ITM), Nicole Legate (PSYC), Emily Leiner (PHYS), Erdal Oruklu (ECE), John Twombly (SSB), Murat Vural (MMAE), Kindon Mills (ARCH), Erin Hazard (HUM),  Stephen Kleps (CAEE), Yuting Lin (BIO), Victor Perez-Luna (CHBE)

Chairing Meeting: Kathir Krishnamurthy (FDSN)

Also Attending:  Joy Chong (CHEM), Ben Zion (CHEM), Katie Spink (BIO),  Mary Jorgenson Sullivan (ELS), Jeff Wereszczynski (UFC), Melisa Lopez (Student Success & Retention), Jamshid Mohammadi (VP Faculty Affairs), Taylor Rojas (UGAA), Joe Gorzkowski (UGAA), Christopher Lee (Registrar), Katherine Leight (CHEM), Jennifer deWinter (LCSL), Gabrielle Smith (UGAA), Melanie Jones (Armour Academy), Kathy Nagle (ARCH), Jesse Mosqueda (UGAA), Gabriel Martinez (Armour Academy), Nick Menhart (CCAC), Diane Fifles (Univ Accred), Saran Ghatak (SSCI), Kyle Hawkins (AMP), Mary Haynes (UGAA), Zipporah Robinson (Academic Success), Norma I Scagnoli (VP Learning Initiatives), Shamiah Okhai (LCSL)

Quorum was reached and the meeting was started at 12:47pm

1. Approval of October 8, 2024 minutes. Eva Kultermann made a motion to approve the minutes which was seconded by Matt Bauer. The minutes were approved by unanimous consent.

2. Approval of Meeting Agenda. Kathir Krishnamurthy displayed the proposed agenda, briefly discussed the major items, and asked if there were any other items people wanted to propose (there weren’t any).  Fred Weening moved to approve the agenda and Eva Kultermann seconded the motion. The motion passed without objection.

3. Kathir Krishnamurthy announced that Braja Mandal is a new UGSC representative from Chemistry replacing Ben Zion. Raja has also agreed to serve as the N-subcommittee chair. Kathir welcomed Raja to the UGSC.  

4. The next agenda item concerned proposals to eliminate several programs:

• BS in Global Studies
• BS in Political Science
• BS in Sociology
• BS in Science, Technology, and Society

Saran Ghatak from the Social Sciences department presented the proposals. He indicated that all of these programs are currently on hiatus. There is currently one student in the BS in Global Studies program; all other programs have no students. There is a plan in place so the student in Global Studies can graduate in the program. Saran asked if there were any questions. Nick Menhart asked if there was a teach out plan in CIM to which Saran responded in the affirmative. There were no other questions. Erin Hazard made a motion to approve the proposals, the motion was seconded by Fred Weening. The motion passed without objection.

5. The next agenda item concerned proposed changes to the

• BS in Chemistry Program
• BS in Environmental Chemistry Program
• BS in Forensic Chemistry Program
• BS in Medicinal Chemistry Program

Braja Mandal and Joy Chong, both of the Chemistry department, presented the proposal. Braja indicated that the main goal was to reduce the number of required credits for each of the programs from 127 to 120. Joy, who chaired the curriculum revision committee for chemistry, went into the details of the proposals. She displayed a document which both highlighted the changes and gave a detailed accounting of all the changes proposed and a sample semester-by-semester curriculum for completing each program.

Some of the proposed changes included changing the credits earned for several core chemistry courses; this was done to provide more consistency in the format of courses which have both a lecture and lab component. Another change for all four programs was to add a statistics course (Math 425) and balance this by reducing the math prerequisite for some classes from Math 251 and Math 252, to Math 251 or Math 252. This change brought the programs into alignment with the American Chemical Society guidelines. There were many other minor changes to credit hours of specific chemistry classes (also merging some separate lecture and lab courses into a single integrated course) that Joy described; these were all described in detail in the displayed document. For the BS in Environmental Chemistry, Forensic Chemistry, and Medicinal Chemistry there was less flexibility and the reduction of required credits was mainly obtained by reducing the number of free electives from 9 to 3.

Nick Menhart pointed out that assessment plans for these programs have not been entered into CIM, and indicated that these assessment plans must be in CIM before UGSC can vote on the proposed changes. He offered to assist in creating the assessment plans and also how to enter these in CIM. Joy indicated that the assessment plans are being finalized. In light of this discussion, it was decided that a vote on these proposals would have to wait until a later UGSC meeting.

6. The next item on the agenda was a continuation of the discussion of the BS in Engineering Physics Program proposal. Although this is essentially a rebranding of the current BS in Applied Physics program, it is being proposed as a new program. Upon approval, the Physics department plans to eventually eliminate the BS in Applied Physics program. Emily Leiner displayed the proposal which is now in CIM and includes many of the suggestions that were made concerning the program at the last UGSC meeting. Emily also displayed the assessment plan for the program. Nick indicated that the assessment plan looks good, but that it still needs to be uploaded into CIM. Given that the assessment plan has been made, he did not ask that UGSC delay a vote on the program. He did indicate that there is now a button that can be clicked in CIM to upload assessment plans, and moving forward he will insist that these be uploaded before UGSC can vote on programs.

Given that we had discussed this new program at length at UGSC’s last meeting (even though it wasn’t yet in CIM) it was agreed that it could be voted on at this meeting. Ishaan Goel moved that we vote on the process, and this motion was seconded by Fred Weening. The motion passed unanimously.

7. Other business:

• Kathir Krishnamurthy asked that items for the next UGSC meeting on November 5, be submitted, along with any supporting documents, no later than Tuesday October 29. He remarked that it is important to get these items to him earlier than has been occurring so that they can be distributed to the committee members with adequate time for review prior to the meeting.
• Jennifer deWinter asked that the Honor’s program proposal be placed on the agenda for November 5.
• Shamiah Okhai had a question about whether there is still flexibility for students in construction of Accelerated Master’s Programs. Kyle Hawkins answered the question: there is a list of pre-approved AMPs in the catalog and website, but students still have the opportunity to propose other paths for an AMP. There is an application form that the student fills out and then his office will verify with departments whether the pairing can work.

There was no further business and the meeting was adjourned at 1:32pm.