Attending Voting Members: Promila Dhar (BME), Jim Edwards (ROTC), David Gidalevitz (PHYS), Boris Glavic (CS), Erin Hazard (HUM), Steve Kleps (CAEE), Kathiravan Krishnamurthy (FDSN/Vice Chair), 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)

Also Attending: Roland Calia (SSB), Diane Fifles (University Accred), Natalia Gallardo(Registrar), Joseph Gorzkowski (UGAA), Khalilah Guyton-Hamlin (Registrar), Kyle Hawkins (AMP), Mary Haynes (UGAA), Pam Houser (INTM), Melanie Jones (Armour Academy), Christopher Lee (Registrar), Melisa Lopez (Student Success & Retention), Abby McGrath (Enrollment Services), Jamshid Mohammadi (GSC/CLI), Kathleen Nagle (ARCH), Nichole Novak (Libraries), Shamiah Okhai (LCSL), Joseph Orgel (VPAA), Georgia Papavasiliou (Armour), Ayesha Qamer (Registrar), Zipporah Robinson (Academic Success ), Kathryn Spink (Past Chair), Mary Jorgenson Sullivan (ELS), Cynthia Torres (Academic Affairs), Liad Wagman (SSB/CSL), Jeff Wereszczynski (PHYS/BIOL)

1. Approval of minutes from the 10/10/2023 meeting.
   The minutes were approved unanimously.

2. Updates from Academic Affairs.

Joseph Orgel’s remarks in summary:
[We are viewing] a working document on dual credit to operationalize our ability to make use of dual credit. Dual credit is when the same instructional experience is counted for credit on the High School Transcript and within the Higher Education transcript. So usually, that’s a 100-level course at the university in question. IBHE has a rigorous requirement for authorization. All elements must be completed and will be monitored by Joseph Orgel and Nick Menhart. IBHE wants us to ensure that whoever is instructing the class is up to the job and fulfills the criterion of a faculty level instructor at the institution in question. To that end, they state that they they need an earned Masters in the subject, with 18 credit hours of completion in the subject. We could stand up some programs with 18 credit hours of study in subjects of interest with partner institutions and make use of our advanced standing rules with the school to enable potential teachers within Illinois to credential themselves to be able to offer dual credit. Part of the interest in that is this is going to be expanding over the next several years, if executive leadership's plans come to fruition this year with pilot projects that we have been launched, and the plan scales up to state and the national level over the course of a 5 year plan. These new faculty members must be oriented, and high school students must be prepared for college-level work. This policy will make its way to our website over the next few days. This is an administrative policy to formulate our need to follow law and state regulation. That doesn’t mean that we won't take feedback on phrasing. We are not going to rush, but we do want this up quickly. at this time.

Ray Trygstad asked about reverse dual credit, that is, if high school students that are currently enrolled in courses in our department and taking courses being taught by our faculty members. would it be possible for them potentially to receive high school credit as well for those courses? In other words, does it work in both directions? Joseph replied that yes, this should be possible. The question was asked if is it envisioned that some students may do this and then try to transfer the IIT credit to another college. Joseph replied absolutely, and that's to be expected.

3. Elimination of the Minor in Game Studies and Design, presented by Erin Elizabeth Hazard.

   The new minor in Game Design and Experiential Media will replace this minor and Game Design and Experiential Media has become a major course of study at IIT. So this new minor aligns with that major course of study. It also has more flexibility for students, in terms of the classes they can choose to fulfill the minor allowing them to complete the minor. And so it is proposed that we eliminate this minor in Game Studies and Design. Katie Spink stated that this is a minor change and should be an informational item and would not require a vote. Joseph Orgel pointed out the correct term would be not significant. This will be placed on the agenda for the next meeting.

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

   Business statistics will be included as a math elective along with MATH 148 or Math 151 or MATH 191 to allow only 10 hours of science to be included in the program. This is submitted as an incubator program degree. John Twombly moved for approval of this proposal and it was seconded by Ray Trygstad.
   The motion passed by a vote of 17 to 0.

5. A new course for a high school student program, PHYS 150, was presented by David Gidalevitz.

   This will be a summer course for high school students as a part of 3 course sequence of chemistry, humanities and physics courses. There was a discussion about why this course was presented to this committee since the Undergraduate Studies Committee doe not approve new courses, but it was presented here because it was a course to be primarily taught to high school student for university credit. Ray Trygstad asked if the course would ever be offered for students within the university and David replied that yes, this was the plan.

6. Program revision to the BS in Material Science and Engineering were presented by Murat Vural.

   MMAE 470 Introduction to Polymer Science has been removed from the required courses list in the Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) program and replaced with a Technical Elective requirement. Therefore, total credit hour requirement of the program remains the same at 126 credit hours. This revision is driven by the fact that "Polymers" are already covered in other required courses such as MMAE 372 Aerospace Materials Lab and MMAE 472 Advanced Aerospace Materials in the MSE program. This change will bring more flexibility for students in choosing tech electives in their area of interest. This was presented as a non-significant change but it was noted that it was previously offered as a technical elective in chemistry, but will no longer be available.

   Joseph Orgel stated that it is good that we are discussing this as it impacts other departments. The Undergraduate Studies Committee is a subcommittee of University Faculty Council for governance purposes, and faculty cannot exercise governance over things we are never informed of, so this is good.

7. Update on nominations for Core Curriculum Subject Subcommittee Chairs presented by Fred Weening

   Erin Hazard has agreed to chair the Humanity Subcommittee and Priyanka Sharma is chairing the S Committee for Social and Behavioral Science. Free Weening will chair the Committee for Mathematics. Boris Glavic agreed to chair the CS Committee for this semester but will be unable to do it for next semester. There have been no nominations for ITP and IPRO so we need those. Mary Jorgenson Sullivan suggested that perhaps we should talk to Eduardo for IPRO and Bo Roda for ITP.

   Fred Weening asked it it would be possible to have a system that would notify each faculty member scheduled to teach a letter-designated Core Curriculum course, perhaps by email, of the learning objectives for that Core area. Joseph Orgel agreed that we should not only aspire to do this but we should put it on our list, and Abby McGrath agreed to look into this and get back to us.

The Chair noted the next meeting would be three weeks from now. As there was no further business, Boris Glavic moved to adjourn and David Gidalevitz seconded. There being none opposed, the Chair adjourned the meeting at 1:25pm.